A TCR is born
Essential service
Growing demand
Teleprocessing arrives
Computers arrive
Fast-forward
Moving
The future is now
TI, previously known as the Technical Control Room (TCR), started in an elegant new control room that was first brought into service in January 1969.
From this room, the distribution of general services such as electricity, compressed air, cooling water, and others across the CERN site was controlled.
Back in 1969 this building had been extensively modified to keep up with the considerable growth of the electric power supply, heating and other services at CERN.
1980 saw a new teleprocessing system installed in the TCR.
Advancements in computing came thick and fast, and by the end of the decade computers were being used for the first time to control CERN’s infrastructure.
Fast-forward to 2002, when the TCR operators transmitted the handover instructions to the oncoming shift. The room is barely recognisable from how it was in 1969.
In 2006, the TCR was renamed TI (Technical Infrastructure), and we moved to the CERN Control Centre on the Prévessin site. Later, the operations teams for the LHC, SPS, and PS complex accelerators joined us inside this purpose-built building.
Finally, to 2020, where we have the current TI desk. Two operator workstations and a 55-inch 4K resolution display allow for improved flexibility to monitor CERN’s infrastructure in real time.