[SIGCIS-Members] Firsts... the historiographical "F-Bomb"

[Dag Spicer]

Here’s a (hopefully) relevant piece I wrote back in 2000 on “Firsts" for The Mercurians, the communications specialty group within SHOT.

Source: http://www.mercurians.org/2000_Spring/letters.htm


Not the First Word on "Firsts"

To the Editors:

I enjoyed reading the editorial on "firsts" in the recent issue of Antenna. It resonated very strongly with the activities of The Computer Museum History Center, where I am Curator & Manager of Historical Collections. We are very frequently asked: "what or who was first?" Some time ago, I instructed all History Center staff to never use the "f-word" (or, in fact, any superlatives) as a matter of Museum policy. The reasons for this particular institutional prohibition are several.

To begin, as Robert Merton noted in his great paper on "Singletons and Multiples in Science," it is rare that anything is objectively invented first or, if so, the unpacking of the relevant historical details in support of such claims blurs into "matters of religion" or patent disputes, neither of which necessarily correspond to priority beyond the narrow "qui bono" constructions that often underlie them. That is not to say the facts do not matter, but simply that often the reasons a particular question is being asked will tell you more than any putative answer. Are we thus mired in our own "subject-positions?" Do we always have to "follow the money"? No, but it's almost always more historically truthful to get questioners to change tack and ask the right question rather than telling them what they want to hear.

Also, the concept of "firsts" doesn't sit well with a sophisticated, critical understanding of the historical process of invention generally. With respect to the history of computing, I am constantly amazed at the invention of "firsts" by later aspirants to the throne. Innovations in microprocessor design, for example, almost invariably have antecedents in the "ancient" technologies of the mainframe from thirty or forty years ago. It is only the lack of disciplinary identity and historical consciousness among each generation of engineering graduates that fosters this "I did it first" perspective.

In complex systems, such as are typical of 20th century innovations, the adage "No man is an island" is particularly apt. As we know well, Edison, for example, did more than invent the light bulb. He devised an infrastructure for the bulb to live in. The same can be said for inventors of the telegraph, the telephone, jet aircraft, atomic weapons, radio and television, the laser, and in our case, computers. The "Search for Firsts," as suggested above, is usually of legalistic and journalistic significance only. Lawyers and journalists are particularly reluctant to accept the Center's refusal to make definitive claims on behalf of any one individual!

Claimants to firsts generally deploy as their first line of attack the concealment of context. This is particularly disturbing to any historian of technology and has the "hero worship" alluded to in the recent Antenna editorial as its substrate. I think this also nicely echoes your quoted source's remark that "...everyone loves an argument over fact rather than theory." Rather than addressing the subtleties of many people within a specific technical community working on related problems, it is simply the desire to encapsulate in a few short thoughts someone who can become iconic for a specific invention. If they are deceased, so much the better! There are no messy letters to the editor refuting public claims to the contrary. Newspapers and the media generally are the worst offenders. Nonetheless, with some explanation, reporters can be guided gently towards succinct descriptions of an invention that remain true to historical fact, viz. an explanation that will satisfy both layperson and sophisticate.

Because we at the Center view ourselves as one of the few keepers of the interpretive and historical conscience in the history of computing, and that we are considered authoritative within this specialty by a large as well as diverse audience, it is only ethical for us to not only explain the facts, but to instruct seekers of knowledge in their deployment. Piaget noted that a child develops the ability to ask "where did this come from?" at about the age of 12, and that the explanations they find satisfactory at this age are relatively simplified (if not simplistic). Not accidentally, the "intelligent twelve year old" is generally the level at which most media target their audience in terms of vocabulary and, I think, understanding. To break out of the heroic mold of history, we need to overcome this rather low bar with explanations that put individuals within their communities, moving from the paradigm "L'invention, c'est moi" to one in which the earthly inventions homo faber creates revolve around communities not individuals. Even towering figures, like Seymour Cray, to cite someone in the history of computing, had his refrigeration engineer without whom Cray's machines would have melted within minutes.

I often meditate on the agony that Elisha Gray must have felt. He filed his patent application for the telephone only hours after Alexander Graham Bell, and as a result, he was written out of history. I think it is Gray's resultant lifetime of disappointment that makes me so wary of, and reluctant to claim, anything as a "first." There are rare exceptions, I'll admit, but it seems the height of injustice to perpetuate narratives that turn the history of technology and the process of invention into such a zero-sum game.

I would enjoy hearing from others about this topic. On having these thoughts I am certain of one thing: I am not the first.

________________________________
Dag Spicer is an electrical engineer and historian of technology with advanced degrees from the University of Toronto and Stanford University. He is Curator and Manager of Historical Collections at The Computer Museum History Center, home to the world's largest collection of computing artifacts, in Mountain View, California.


--
Dag Spicer
Senior Curator
Computer History Museum
Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
1401 North Shoreline Boulevard
Mountain View, CA 94043-1311

Tel: +1 650 810 1035
Fax: +1 650 810 1055

Twitter: @ComputerHistory

On Jun 25, 2014, at 7:46 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org<mailto:thaigh at computer.org>> wrote:

Hello everyone,

Hmm, the discovery of those diagrams is good news for EDSAC rebuilders but I
was surprised to see that the press release twice calls EDSAC "the first
practical general purpose computer." One occurrence is in the boilerplate
passage on EDSAC at the bottom of the release, which suggests that this is
TNMOC's official position. That seems to violate the de facto truce
concluded between early computer history enthusiasts in the early 1980s when
they settled on the appropriate series of adjectives to go between "first"
and "computer." As Mike Williams once wrote, "there is more than enough
glory in the creation of the modern computer to satisfy all of the early
pioneers, most of whom are no longer in a position to care anyway." (That's
the introduction to the "The First Computers: History and Architecture"
collection from 2000). ENIAC got the metaphorical trophy for "first general
purpose electronic digital computer" in its original 1945 configuration
whereas EDSAC went home with the award for "first practical stored program
computer."

This reminds me that the second in my series of articles with Crispin Rope
and Mark Priestley about ENIAC and its early-1948 conversion to what has
sometimes been called read-only stored program operation was recently
published in Annals. We try to switch focus from "firsts" to questions of
practical capabilities, in support of our detailed analysis of ENIAC's 1948
Monte Carlo program in the third and final paper, although we do conclude
that an entirely practical version of the programming method described in
the seminal 1945 First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC was implemented on
ENIAC in March-April 1948, some months before the Manchester "Baby" ran what
has usually been considered the first modern program.

Williams also noted that, "If you add enough adjectives to a description you
can always claim your own favorite. For example ENIAC is often claimed to be
the 'first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer' and
you certainly have to add all those adjectives before you have a correct
statement." In our own work we argue that the history is somewhat more
complicated than can be captured by those "first [adjective] [adjective]
[adjective] computer" phrases, but that doesn't mean that "general purpose"
and "stored program" can be conflated. People who care about "firsts" also
need to take care with those adjectives.

The paper is Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley & Crispin Rope, "Engineering 'The
Miracle of the ENIAC': Implementing the Modern Code Paradigm" IEEE Annals of
the History of Computing 36:2 (April-June 2014):41-59 and you can read it at
http://eniacinaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/EngineeringTheMiracleoft
heENIAC-scanned.pdf or, if you have access, from the IEEE CS Digital Library
at http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/an/2014/02/man2014020041-abs.html. Our
www.EniacInAction.com website already includes a selection of technical
documents and primary sources related to ENIAC's conversion and to the Monte
Carlo programs it ran in 1948 (though it is not yet complete or attractively
presented).

Best wishes,

Tom

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of B. Randell
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 4:43 AM
To: members
Cc: B. Randell
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: News - Lost EDSAC diagrams reveal secrets of
one of the earliest computers

Hi:

Begin forwarded message:


From: Stephen Fleming <stephen.fleming at palam.co.uk>
Subject: News - Lost EDSAC diagrams reveal secrets of one of the earliest
computers
Date: 25 June 2014 09:16:22 BST
To: <brian.randell at ncl.ac.uk>
Reply-To: <k>

NEWS RELEASE

Lost EDSAC diagrams reveal secrets of one of the earliest computers

25 June 2014

Some of the earliest diagrams of a computer have been rediscovered more than
sixty years after they were drawn and are giving the EDSAC team at The
National Museum of Computing fresh insights into their ongoing
reconstruction of the world's first general purpose computer.

You can read the full release
here: http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/lost-edsac-diagrams-reveal-sec
rets-one-earliest-computers

Cheers

Brian Randell

School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1
7RU
EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell





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