Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a small inexpensive computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. It includes a microprocessor and minimal input/output circuitry mounted on a single printed circuit board. Microcomputers became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of powerful microprocessors; the predecessors to these computers and minicomputers, were comparatively much larger and more expensive. Many microcomputers are personal computers; the abbreviation micro was common during the 1970s and 1980s, but has now fallen out of common usage. The term microcomputer came into popular use after the introduction of the minicomputer, although Isaac Asimov used the term in his short story "The Dying Night" as early as 1956. Most notably, the microcomputer replaced the many separate components that made up the minicomputer's CPU with one integrated microprocessor chip; the French developers of the Micral N filed their patents with the term "Micro-ordinateur", a literal equivalent of "Microcomputer", to designate a solid state machine designed with a microprocessor.
In the USA, the earliest models such as the Altair 8800 were sold as kits to be assembled by the user, came with as little as 256 bytes of RAM, no input/output devices other than indicator lights and switches, useful as a proof of concept to demonstrate what such a simple device could do. However, as microprocessors and semiconductor memory became less expensive, microcomputers in turn grew cheaper and easier to use: Increasingly inexpensive logic chips such as the 7400 series allowed cheap dedicated circuitry for improved user interfaces such as keyboard input, instead of a row of switches to toggle bits one at a time. Use of audio cassettes for inexpensive data storage replaced manual re-entry of a program every time the device was powered on. Large cheap arrays of silicon logic gates in the form of read-only memory and EPROMs allowed utility programs and self-booting kernels to be stored within microcomputers; these stored programs could automatically load further more complex software from external storage devices without user intervention, to form an inexpensive turnkey system that does not require a computer expert to understand or to use the device.
Random access memory became cheap enough to afford dedicating 1-2 kilobytes of memory to a video display controller frame buffer, for a 40x25 or 80x25 text display or blocky color graphics on a common household television. This replaced the slow and expensive teletypewriter, common as an interface to minicomputers and mainframes. All these improvements in cost and usability resulted in an explosion in their popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A large number of computer makers packaged microcomputers for use in small business applications. By 1979, many companies such as Cromemco, Processor Technology, IMSAI, North Star Computers, Southwest Technical Products Corporation, Ohio Scientific, Altos Computer Systems, Morrow Designs and others produced systems designed either for a resourceful end user or consulting firm to deliver business systems such as accounting, database management, word processing to small businesses; this allowed businesses unable to afford leasing of a minicomputer or time-sharing service the opportunity to automate business functions, without hiring a full-time staff to operate the computers.
A representative system of this era would have used an S100 bus, an 8-bit processor such as an Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80, either CP/M or MP/M operating system. The increasing availability and power of desktop computers for personal use attracted the attention of more software developers. In time, as the industry matured, the market for personal computers standardized around IBM PC compatibles running DOS, Windows. Modern desktop computers, video game consoles, tablet PCs, many types of handheld devices, including mobile phones, pocket calculators, industrial embedded systems, may all be considered examples of microcomputers according to the definition given above. Everyday use of the expression "microcomputer" has declined from the mid-1980s and has declined in commonplace usage since 2000; the term is most associated with the first wave of all-in-one 8-bit home computers and small business microcomputers. Although, or because, an diverse range of modern microprocessor-based devices fit the definition of "microcomputer", they are no longer referred to as such in everyday speech.
In common usage, "microcomputer" has been supplanted by the term "personal computer" or "PC", which specifies a computer, designed to be used by one individual at a time, a term first coined in 1959. IBM first promoted the term "personal computer" to differentiate themselves from other microcomputers called "home computers", IBM's own mainframes and minicomputers. However, following its release, the IBM PC itself was imitated, as well as the term; the component parts were available to producers and the BIOS was reverse engineered through cleanroom design techniques. IBM PC compatible "clones" became commonplace, the terms "personal computer", "PC", stuck with the general public specifically for a DOS or Windows-compatible computer. Monitors and other devices for inpu
Romandy
Romandy is the French-speaking part of western Switzerland. In 2018, about 2.1 million people, or 25.1% of the Swiss population, lived in Romandy. The bulk of the romand population lives in the Arc Lémanique region along Lake Geneva, connecting Geneva and the Lower Valais; the adjective romand is a regional dialectal variant of roman. Use of the adjective romand in reference to the Franco-Provençal dialects can be traced to the 15th century; the term Suisse romande has become used since World War I. Suisse romande is used in contrast to Suisse alémanique, "Alemannic Switzerland", the term for Alemannic German speaking Switzerland. Formed by analogy is Suisse italienne, composed of Ticino and of a part of Grisons. In Swiss German, French-speaking Switzerland is known as Welschland or Welschschweiz, the French-speaking Swiss as Welsche, using the old Germanic term for "Celts" used in English of Welsh; the terms Welschland and Welschschweiz are used in written Swiss Standard German but in more formal contexts they are sometimes exchanged for französischsprachige Schweiz or französische Schweiz.
Simple Westschweiz "western Switzerland" may be used as a loose synonym. French is the only official language in the following cantons: In addition, three regions of French-German bilingual cantons have a French-speaking majority: "Romandy" is not an official territorial division of Switzerland any more than there is a clear linguistic boundary. In four Swiss cantons, French is the sole official language: Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura. There are three cantons where French and German have co-official status: Bern and Valais; the linguistic boundary between French and German is known as Röstigraben. The term is humorous in origin and refers both to the geographic division and to perceived cultural differences between the Romandy and the German-speaking Swiss majority; the term can be traced to the WWI period, but it entered mainstream usage in the 1970s in the context of the Jurassic separatism virulent at the time. The linguistic boundary cuts across Switzerland north-to-south, forming the eastern boundary of the canton of Jura and encompassing the Bernese Jura, where the boundary frays to include a number of bilingual communities, the largest of, Biel/Bienne.
It follows the border between Neuchâtel and Bern and turns south towards Morat, again traversing an areal of traditional bilinguism including the communities of Morat and Fribourg. It divides the canton of Fribourg into a western French-speaking majority and an eastern German-speaking minority and follows the eastern boundary of Vaud with the upper Saane/Sarine valley of the Bernese Oberland. Cutting across the High Alps at Les Diablerets, the boundary separates the French-speaking Lower Valais from the Alemannic-speaking Upper Valais beyond Sierre, it cuts southwards into the High Alps again, separating the Val d'Anniviers from the Mattertal. The linguistic boundary in the Swiss Plateau would have more or less followed the Aare during the early medieval period, separating Burgundy from Alemannia; the Valais has a separate linguistic history. Traditionally speaking the Franco-Provençal or Patois dialects of Upper Burgundy, the romand population now speak a variety of Standard French. Today, the differences between Swiss French and Parisian French are minor and lexical, although in rural speakers, remnants of dialectal lexicon or phonology may remain more pronounced.
In particular, some parts of the Swiss Jura participate in the Frainc-Comtou dialect spoken in the Franche-Comté region of France. Since the 1970s, there has been a limited amount of linguistic revivalism. In this context, the Franco-Provençal dialects are called their area Arpitania; the cultural identity of the Romandy is supported by Télévision Suisse Romande, Radio Suisse Romande and the universities of Geneva, Fribourg and Neuchâtel. Most of the Romandy has been
Apple Lisa
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to offer a graphical user interface in a machine aimed at individual business users. Development of the Lisa began in 1978, it underwent many changes during the development period before shipping at US$9,995 with a 5 MB hard drive; the Lisa was challenged by a high price, insufficient performance, insufficient software library, crash-prone operating system, unreliable Apple FileWare floppy disks, the immediate release of the cheaper and faster Macintosh — yielding lifelong sales of only 100,000 units in two years. In 1982, after Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, he appropriated the existing Macintosh project, which Jef Raskin had conceived in 1979 and led to develop a text-based appliance computer. Jobs redefined Macintosh as a cheaper and more usable version of the graphical Lisa. Macintosh was launched in January 1984 surpassing Lisa sales, assimilating increasing numbers of Lisa staff.
Newer Lisa models were introduced that addressed its faults and lowered its price but the platform failed to achieve favorable sales compared to the much less expensive Mac. The final model, the Lisa 2/10, was modified as the high end of the Macintosh series, the Macintosh XL. Considered a commercial failure but with some technical acclaim, the Lisa introduced a number of advanced features that would not reappear on the Macintosh for many years; these include an operating system with a more document-oriented workflow. The hardware overall is more advanced than the Macintosh, with a hard drive, support for up to 2 megabytes of RAM, expansion slots, a larger, higher-resolution display; the main exception is that the 68000 processor in the Macintosh is clocked at 7.89 MHz and the Lisa's is 5 MHz. The complexity of the Lisa operating system and its associated programs overtaxes the slower processor enough that users perceive it to be sluggish; the workstation-tier price and lack of technical application library made it unviable for the technical workstation market.
Though the documentation shipped with the original Lisa only refers to it as "The Lisa", Apple stated the name was an acronym for "Locally Integrated Software Architecture" or "LISA". Because Steve Jobs's first daughter was named Lisa Nicole Brennan, it was inferred that the name had a personal association, that the acronym was a backronym invented to fit the name. Andy Hertzfeld states the acronym was reverse engineered from the name "Lisa" in late 1982 by the Apple marketing team, after they had hired a marketing consultancy firm to come up with names to replace "Lisa" and "Macintosh" and rejected all of the suggestions. Hertzfeld and the other software developers used "Lisa: Invented Stupid Acronym", a recursive backronym, while computer industry pundits coined the term "Let's Invent Some Acronym" to fit the Lisa's name. Decades Jobs would tell his biographer Walter Isaacson: "Obviously it was named for my daughter." The project began in 1978 as an effort to create a more modern version of the then-conventional design epitomized by the Apple II.
A ten-person team occupied its first dedicated office, nicknamed "the Good Earth building" and located at 20863 Stevens Creek Boulevard next to the restaurant named Good Earth. Initial team leader Ken Rothmuller was soon replaced by John Couch, under whose direction the project evolved into the "window-and-mouse-driven" form of its eventual release. Trip Hawkins and Jef Raskin contributed to this change in design. Apple's cofounder Steve Jobs was involved in the concept. At Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, research had been underway for several years to create a new humanized way to organize the computer screen, today known as the desktop metaphor. Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC in 1979, was absorbed and excited by the revolutionary mouse-driven GUI of the Xerox Alto. By late 1979, Jobs negotiated a payment of Apple stock to Xerox, in exchange for his Lisa team to receive two demonstrations of ongoing research projects at Xerox PARC; when the Apple team saw the demonstration of the Alto computer, they were able to see in action the basic elements of what constituted a workable GUI.
The Lisa team put a great deal of work into making the graphical interface a mainstream commercial product. The Lisa was a major project at Apple, which spent more than $50 million on its development. More than 90 people participated in the design, plus more in the sales and marketing effort, to launch the machine. BYTE credited Wayne Rosing with being the most important person on the development of the computer's hardware until the machine went into production, at which point he became technical lead for the entire Lisa project; the hardware development team was headed by Robert Paratore. The industrial design, product design, mechanical packaging were headed by Bill Dresselhaus, the Principal Product Designer of Lisa, with his team of internal product designers and contract product designers from the firm that became IDEO. Bruce Daniels was in charge of applications development, Larry Tesler was in charge of system software; the user interface was designed in a six month period, after which, the hardware, operating system, applications were all created in parallel.
In 1982, after Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, he appropriated the existing Macintosh project, which Jef Raskin had conceived in 1979 and led to develop a text-based appliance computer. Jobs redefined Macintosh as a cheaper and more usable Lisa, leading the project in parallel and in secret, subst
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva. Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants; the metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000. Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations, it lies in a noted wine-growing region. The city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics; the Romans built a military camp, which they called Lousanna, at the site of a Celtic settlement, near the lake where Vidy and Ouchy are situated.
By the 2nd century AD, it was known in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400, it was civitas Lausanna, in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna. After the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the residents of Lausanne to move to its current centre, a hilly site, easier to defend; the city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Bishop of Lausanne. It came under Bern from 1536 to 1798, a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made repeated requests to recover them. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729, a seminary was opened by Benjamin Duplan. By 1750, 90 pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely. Official persecution ended in 1787. During the Napoleonic Wars, the city's status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, under which it joined the Swiss Federation. In 1964, the city played host to the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to play host to major international events.
From the 1950s to 1970s, a large number of Italians and Portuguese immigrated to Lausanne, settling in the industrial district of Renens and transforming the local diet. The city has served as a refuge for European artists. While under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Waste Land. Ernest Hemingway visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, to holiday. In fact, many creative people — such as historian Edward Gibbon and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron — have "sojourned and worked in Lausanne or nearby"; the city has been traditionally quiet, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a series of demonstrations took place that exposed tensions between young people and the police. Demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, followed by protest against the G8 meetings in 2003; the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne is built on the southern slope of the Swiss plateau, with a difference in elevation of about 500 metres between the lakeshore at Ouchy and its northern edge bordering Le Mont-sur-Lausanne and Épalinges.
Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the Alps. In addition to its southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, covered since the 19th century; the former river forms a gorge running through the middle of the city south of the old city centre following the course of the present Rue Centrale, with several bridges crossing the depression to connect the adjacent neighbourhoods. Due to the considerable differences in elevation, visitors should make a note as to which plane of elevation they are on and where they want to go, otherwise they will find themselves tens of metres below or above the street which they are trying to negotiate; the name Flon is used for the metro station located in the gorge. The municipality includes the villages of Vidy, Ouchy, Chailly, La Sallaz, Montblesson, Vers-chez-les-Blanc and Chalet-à-Gobet as well as the exclave of Vernand. Lausanne is located at the limit between the extensive wine-growing regions of la Côte. Lausanne has an area, as of 2009, of 41.38–41.33 square kilometers.
Of this area, 6.64 km2 or 16.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 16.18 km2 or 39.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 18.45 km2 or 44.6% is settled, 0.05 km2 or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes and 0.01 km2 or 0.0% is unproductive land. Of the built-up area, industrial buildings made up 1.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 21.6% and transportation i
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is a research institute and university in Lausanne, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, it has three main missions: education and technology transfer at the highest international level. EPFL is regarded as a world leading university; the QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL 12th in the world across all fields in their 2017/2018 ranking, whilst Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL as the world's 11th best school for Engineering and Technology. EPFL is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Associated with several specialised research institutes, the two universities form the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain, directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS, a Tokamak Fusion reactor, a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer and P3 bio-hazard facilities.
The roots of modern-day EPFL can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris and John Gay, the professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices was located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne; when the Académie was reorganised and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d'ingénieurs de l'Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l'Université de Lausanne. In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL, like ETH Zurich, is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments.
Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in 2008. In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL had 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown and as of 2012 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students; as EPFL first became a federal institute under its current name in 1969, with a student body of less than 1500, the university is included in the Times Higher Education list of top 100 universities under 50 years old. The environment at modern day EPFL is international with the school now attracting top students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages and English. Like every public university in Switzerland, EPFL is obliged to grant admission to every Swiss resident who took the maturité high-school certificate recognized by the Swiss Federation.
However, international students are required to have a final grade average of 80% or above of the maximum grade of the upper secondary school national system. As such, for Swiss students, EPFL is not selective in its undergraduate admission procedures; the real selection process happens during the first year of study. This period is called the propaedeutic cycle and the students must pass a block examination of all the courses taken during the first year at the end of the cycle. If the weighted average is insufficient, a student is required to retake the entire first year of coursework if they wish to continue their studies at the school. 50% of students fail the first year of study, many of them choose to drop out rather than repeat the first year. The failure rate for the propaedeutic cycle differs between fields of study, it is highest for Mathematics and Electrical Engineering majors where only 30–40% of students pass the first year. For foreign students, the selection procedure towards the undergraduate program is rather strict, since most undergraduate courses are taught in French, foreign students must provide documentation of having acquired a level B2 proficiency as measured on the CEF scale, though C1 proficiency is recommended.
As at all universities in Switzerland, the academic year is divided into two semesters. Regular time to reach graduation is six semesters for the Bachelor of Science degree and four additional semesters for the Master of Science degree. Though only 58% of the student's who manage to graduate are able to graduate within this time-period; the possibility to study abroad for one or two semesters is offered during the 3rd year of study under certain conditions as EPFL maintains several long-standing student exchange programs, such as the junior year engineering and science program with Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, as well as a graduate Aeronautics and Aerospace program with the ISAE in France. The final semester is dedicated to writing a thesis. Entrepreneurship is encouraged to foster a start-up culture among the student body as evident by the EPFL Innovation Park being an integral part of campus. Since 1997, 12 start-ups have been created per year on average by EPFL students and faculty.
In the year 2013, a total of 105 million CHF was raised by EPFL start-ups. The three most observed international university rankings, QS World University Rankings, Academic Ranking of World Universities and Times Higher Education Wor
Switzerland
Switzerland the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in western and southern Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities; the sovereign state is a federal republic bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2. While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of 8.5 million people is concentrated on the plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global cities and economic centres Zürich and Geneva. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the late medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; the country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation.
It pursues an active foreign policy and is involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to numerous international organisations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association, but notably not part of the European Union, the European Economic Area or the Eurozone. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties. Spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French and Romansh. Although the majority of the population are German-speaking, Swiss national identity is rooted in a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy, Alpine symbolism. Due to its linguistic diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names: Schweiz. On coins and stamps, the Latin name – shortened to "Helvetia" – is used instead of the four national languages.
Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Switzerland ranks at or near the top globally in several metrics of national performance, including government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic competitiveness and human development. Zürich and Basel have all three been ranked among the top ten cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the first ranked second globally, according to Mercer in 2018; the English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, an obsolete term for the Swiss, in use during the 16th to 19th centuries. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse in use since the 16th century; the name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätten cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", used since the 14th century.
The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes perhaps related to swedan ‘to burn’, referring to the area of forest, burned and cleared to build; the name was extended to the area dominated by the canton, after the Swabian War of 1499 came to be used for the entire Confederation. The Swiss German name of the country, Schwiiz, is homophonous to that of the canton and the settlement, but distinguished by the use of the definite article; the Latin name Confoederatio Helvetica was neologized and introduced after the formation of the federal state in 1848, harking back to the Napoleonic Helvetic Republic, appearing on coins from 1879, inscribed on the Federal Palace in 1902 and after 1948 used in the official seal.. Helvetica is derived from the Helvetii, a Gaulish tribe living on the Swiss plateau before the Roman era. Helvetia appears as a national personification of the Swiss confederacy in the 17th century with a 1672 play by Johann Caspar Weissenbach.
Switzerland has existed as a state in its present form since the adoption of the Swiss Federal Constitution in 1848. The precursors of Switzerland established a protective alliance at the end of the 13th century, forming a loose confederation of states which persisted for centuries; the oldest traces of hominid existence in Switzerland date back about 150,000 years. The oldest known farming settlements in Switzerland, which were found at Gächlingen, have been dated to around 5300 BC; the earliest known cultural tribes of the area were members of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel. La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age from around 450 BC under some influence from the Gree
Lausanne Metro
The Lausanne Metro system is an urban rail transport system in Lausanne, which operates both driverless rapid transit services on a grade-separated route and more traditional light rail services. Around a quarter of the system has been used for urban rail transport since 1877, when the route between the city centre and Ouchy opened as Switzerland's first public funicular railway; the network is operated by a third. Of the two operating lines, the first is a limited-capacity light rail route, while the second is a automated metro which opened on 27 October 2008; when this opened, Lausanne replaced Rennes as the smallest city in the world to have a full metro system. A third line is now planned, based on the same rubber-tyred metro technology; this makes Lausanne the first and the only city in Switzerland to have a metro system, although Zürich once proposed a U-Bahn system in the 1960s and 70s, which failed in the face of massive political and public opposition. The Lausanne-Ouchy railway, the precursor to the M2 line of the Lausanne Metro, was inaugurated in 1877 as a funicular.
In 1959 the first overhaul took place by transforming the funicular into a rack railway under the name "métro". At that time and Gare CFF stations were demolished and replaced by concrete underground equivalents; the line was however always nicknamed "La Ficelle" by its users due to its funicular past and circulation above ground in the greenery for more than half of its run. Connected to the Flon facilities, the freight trains from the main station to the storage area of the harbour travelled on this line until the construction of a direct connection between the freight station of Sébeillon and the Flon valley in 1954; the line was closed to all traffic on 21 January 2006. The rolling stock was sold to the French city of Villard-de-Lans which planned the construction in 2008 of its own rack railway, La Patache, to ensure a link between the center of Villard and Le Balcon de Villard. A bus service was put into operation to replace the then-closed "La Ficelle" until the opening of the new metro M2 line.
This service was called Métrobus: the south loop linked Ouchy to the CFF station and the north loop linked the station to Montbenon. Lausanne had a tram system that opened in 1896, grew to an 66-kilometre network by 1934, but the original Lausanne tram network closed in 1964. A modern tramline, which became Lausanne Métro Line M1, opened on 24 May 1991, began revenue service on 2 June 1991. In 2001, for marketing and public communication reasons, this line was renamed the M1 line by its operator TSOL; the M1 is a light rail line with a total of 15 stations, a dozen of which are at-grade and three of which are underground. Complementary inquiry: September 2001 Decision by the State Council: June 2002 Funding requested from the High Council: September 2002 Popular vote: end 2002 Duration of construction: 4–5 years Metro-Ouchy operations stopped: January 2006 Official Inauguration: 18–21 September 2008 In operation from: 27 October 2008 The Lausanne Métro Line M1 was opened to the public on 2 June 1991.
The line is owned by a company named TSOL and this acronym is used by the commuters who use the line. Trains on the line are operated by the Transports publics de la région lausannoise; the M1 is a light rail line with three underground. The line, 7.8 km long, links the centre of Lausanne, the Lausanne campus and Renens. The line is single track. At most stations a passing loop is provided to allow trains to pass, a dedicated platform is provided for each direction. Exceptions to this are Bassenges, UNIL-Sorge and Provence stations, where the line is still single track serving one bidirectional platform. Unlike the line 2, an automated or remotely controlled train was not planned when the line opened in 1991; this may be due to the recent development of automated metro technology, coupled with the decision to develop the line as a light metro with level crossings rather than using grade separation. To run the service, the line was equipped with a set of modern Light Rail Vehicles, which run using electricity supplied via an overhead live wire and can be run singly or in multiple units, with each formation needing a driver.
There are a total of 18 of these original LRVs on the line, but after 20 years in service they were showing their age, 2 were out of use. Additionally, the line has been a victim of its own success, with 12.5 million passengers carried in 2012 and the line carrying the equivalent to the entire population of Yverdon-les-Bains every day. In 2011, the Canton of Vaud gave 34 million Swiss Francs to enable the existing LRVs to have a mid-life refurbishment, to permit the operator to commission MOB to build 5 brand-new LRVs, it was physically impossible for all trains to operate with a double formation, but the additional vehicles will enable the line to operate a full double-car service on all 10 peak-hour trains. In order to accommodate the new trains, the depot at Ecublens has been enlarged and additional servicing facilities built; the first of the new LRVs was finished in July 2013 and was taken to the Ecublens depot in three distinct pieces: one half of the car body, the other half body, the underframes and bogies.
The operator was left to complete final assembly, the new car entered service in December 2013. It is expected that the full fleet will be in service by 2015, permitting a 5-minute interval service of double-length trains; the Lausanne Mét
