Maestro I

Maestro I was the world's first integrated development environment for software. It was developed by Softlab Munich.

Softlab Munich originally called the software Program development system terminal (PET), but renamed it after Commodore International introduced a home computer called the Commodore PET in 1977.

At one time there were 22,000 installations worldwide. The first USA installations were at Boeing in 1979 with eight Maestro I systems and Bank of America with 24 system and 576 developer terminals.

Until 1989 there were 6,000 installations in the Federal Republic of Germany [1]. Maestro I was the world leader in the field in the 1970s and 1980s.

Maestro I holds a significant place in the history of technology.

One of the last Maestro I systems is at the Museum of Information Technology at Arlington.

Harald Wieler, copartner of Softlab Munich, developed the first prototype of the system, then named PET, in 1974 based on the Philips X1150 data collection system. Originally a Four Phase System from the USA. Wieler was architect and programmer of the mainframe DOS operating system development, for Siemens licensed by Radio Corporation of America for Siemens. The objective in developing Maestro I was a hardware and software programming tool rentable for 1000 Deutsche Mark a month, about the same as a one family house in the Munich area at the time.

Maestro was an essential factor in the development of:

In order to understand the impact of Maestro, one has to understand the way programmers worked until about 1975. They would enter their code and test data in paper tape or punched cards. After finishing the punching, the programmer would feed the tape and/or the cards in the computer.

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