Since its very beginning, computer art has operated on the margins of art establishment as it was created in research laboratories and universities by engineers. Artists using computers tended to keep distance from contemporary art, but at the same time they needed to define computer art and its place in relation to traditional art. The status of computer art as art and its position in relation to such trends like op art, kinetic art or conceptual art were still negotiated. It was debated whether such computer art features as generativity, processuality, reactivity, interactivity and creativity in the approach to technology can be a basis to recognizing it as an autonomous trend in contemporary art. In my paper, I would like to invastigate a process of recognition of computer art not as an iconic art but as purely intellectual or conceptual form. I will analyze two cases: first, a debate on the pages of PAGE bulletin which took place in the 1970's and then, a 2010 text by Frieder Nake from 2010, in which he reconsidered the status of computer art from the prespective of almost 50 years of its history and presented a view that it was virtually “more” conceptual than conceptual art.