What/Whom is the Brazilian University for? The Case of the Computing Projects Laboratory

This article discusses the social function of Brazilian universities from the standpoint of the history of computing in Brazil, revisiting the dissolution of the Computing Projects Laboratory (LPC), a lab of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ). LPC was responsible in the mid-1970s for the pioneering development of the G-10 minicomputer basic software, a machine designed and developed in Brazil in the context of the so-called “Market Reserve” policy, aimed at developing local computer production. We highlight the narratives that position the source of the LPC crisis in the tensions between a supposed division of “pure science” versus “applied science.” In order to answer the central question of the article—for what/whom is the Brazilian university for—we draw on such tensions to discuss the meanings given to university projects in Brazil during those times and their connections with computing and the Market Reserve demands.