[SIGCIS-Members] Seeking help -- if you could design your ideal Computer/Information History course, what would you include?

Thu Sep 26 15:58:50 PDT 2013

As this discussion has taken a rather unexpected direction I would like to
alert you to a recent discovery I've made in my own research with Mark
Priestley on ENIAC. Apologies to Andrew who undoubtedly deserves something
more serious.

The correct term project is clearly:

1)      Build an ENIAC identical in every respect to the original

2)      Set it up to play Pong.

We believe that, with no hardware modification, the original ENIAC could
probably have played a passable game of PONG by using the lights on several
accumulators to represent the ball.  Each 10 digit accumulator included a
10x10 matrix of neons representing each possible value of each possible
digit, so that its contents would be read at a glance. Putting three
accumulators next to each other would get you a 30x10 matrix. Each bat would
be moved by turning a digit knob, and given the latency of neons we believe
that we could display 2 or three light tall bats at each end if the
playfield by alternating quickly between two or more numbers stored in the
relevant digit. The motion of the ball would play to the machine's strengths
with differential equations. 

I think the old hobby of proving various early machines Turing Complete
could be replaced by a new pastime of approximating Pong. I am confident
someone will soon prove the Z1, Harvard Mark 1, Babbage's unbuilt Game
Engine, and/or the ABC to be Pong Complete in order to make sure that the
title of "First" remains in dispute.

Tom

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of Ian S. King
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 2:04 PM
To: Jonathan Coopersmith
Cc: sigcis
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Seeking help -- if you could design your ideal
Computer/Information History course, what would you include?

> Build a historic analog computer?
> Solder a 1977 PC?
> Program the original ENIAC?
> Generate the 1955 RAND A Million Random Digits"?

Solder?  No, *wire wrap*.  Cheers -- Ian 

On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Jonathan Coopersmith
<j-coopersmith at neo.tamu.edu> wrote:

Build a historic analog computer?
Solder a 1977 PC?
Program the original ENIAC?
Generate the 1955 RAND A Million Random Digits"?

 Jonathan Coopersmith

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Ceruzzi <CeruzziP at si.edu>
To: 'Andrew Meade McGee' <amm5ae at virginia.edu>, members at sigcis.org
Sent: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:42:56 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Seeking help -- if you could design your ideal
Computer/Information History course, what would you include?

Not sure if many of you will agree with me, but I have long argued that the
convergence of computing and communications, leading to today's
inrternetworked world, all began in the fall of 1962, on a chartered train
from Hot Springs, Virginia, just outside Lexington, to Washington, DC. On
that train were J.C.R. Licklider and a host of other computer folks. The
outcome of that train ride was Project MAC, CTSS, ARPANET, etc. etc. Because
the passengers were essentially stuck with one another for hours, with no
cell phones or laptops, they were forced to talk to one another, including
about Licklider's notion of using the computer as a communications device.

Maybe your students could re-enact the train ride and the conversations that
took place on it. The most scenic parts of the trip are best covered today
by bicycle, as the tracks were torn up and replaced with a rail-trail.

Paul E. Ceruzzi
Chair, Division of Space History
National Air & Space Museum
MRC 311; PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
202-633-2414
<http://www.nasm.si.edu/staffDetail.cfm?staffID=24>

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of Andrew Meade McGee
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 11:55 PM
To: members at sigcis.org
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Seeking help -- if you could design your ideal
Computer/Information History course, what would you include?

Dear SIG-CIS friends,

I hope you might help me with a happy conundrum. This year I am visiting
faculty in the history department of Washington and Lee University, a small
but affluent liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia. One of the
school's quirks is a mandatory four-week April term in which students enroll
in only one class and have 8-10 hours or more of weekly face-to-face
classroom interaction with the professor (and 20+ hours of readings,
assignments, labs), usually on a specialized topic. In recent years the
school has embraced "high-concept" classes with catchy thematic topics, deep
reading lists, and creative final assignments for this mini-mester - last
year, for instance, the Classics Department offered a course on the Trojan
War that featured students meticulously recreating Bronze Age military
formations and engaging in costumed battle on the front quad. Other classes
do digital humanities projects or create documentaries, etc.

 I have been instructed by Dean and Department Chair to develop a
"computer-related" history class for Spring 2014. I essentially have carte
blanche create my ideal computer history/information history/information and
society class from scratch, as long as I can cram it all into four weeks and
devise some clever final project. Ideally I would attract history majors and
liberal arts students as well as a few stray engineering and business
students intrigued by the topic.
 So I appeal to the SIG-CIS community for ideas - what would you teach if
you could design your ideal class on computer or information history? How
would you structure it? Any outlandish ideas you wish you had tried? Books
or topics or assignments you feel are must have? I might have
school-provided funds for a day trip or two, so I could take the kids within
a few hour radius (I've thought of DC and the Smithsonian, or the
supercomputers at Blacksburg or Oak Ridge).
I've gone through the excellent syllabus repository on the SIG-CIS webpage
and have plundered the university faculty page-posted syllabi of some of the
list's more prominent members, but would appreciate any additional ideas.
I'm not sure if I'm going to go with straight "computer history" or a
broader "From Gutenberg to Google" type information history class. Given my
cultural and political history strengths, other options include a "Computers
and Society," "Digital America," or "Global Information Age" approach, or
even something focused more conceptually on "Data" or "Systems." .
 So, again, any comments would be greatly appreciated. If you could
construct your ideal (but timeframe-compressed) computer/information history
class, what would you include?
 Thank you,
 Andrew
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Andrew Meade McGee
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904

--
Jonathan Coopersmith
Associate Professor
Department of History
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-4326
979.845.7151
979.862.4314 fax
http://aggiegaijin.blogspot.com/

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-- 

Ian S. King, MSCS ('06, Washington)
Ph.D. Student
The Information School
University of Washington

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."  - Oscar Wilde

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