[SIGCIS-Members] EDSAC text is corrected; thoughts on email "firsts"

Thomas Haigh thaigh at computer.org
Fri Jun 27 16:32:23 PDT 2014


Hello everyone,

 

I'm pleased to say that I have heard from The National Museum of Computing
to confirm that the startling phrasing in the EDSAC press release was a
mistake which has now been corrected in the online version. So we are not
seeing a new outbreak of hostilities in the old wars over the "first
computer," just a glitch in public relations oversight.

 

Good to see all the interesting discussion of "firsts" on the list - still a
significant concern in this community. My own position is that if something
would not be of historical interest if it was the second then it is probably
still not worth much attention as the first. So it is best to justify the
significant of something in terms of its influence, use, distinctive
features, evidence of a path not taken, etc.

 

It reminded me of the case of the "inventor of email" you may remember me
getting tied up in a couple of years ago (http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai).
The interesting thing to me was that in his quest for fame he put a huge
amount of energy and misguided ingenuity into pinning the earliest possible
date on his electronic mail system and arguing that everything produced
prior to 1980 was merely "messaging" and not mail. However he has never, as
far as I can see, even tried to argue that his system had any influence
developments outside the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Leaving aside the problem his system does not appear to have exhibited any
significant "firsts" we are still left with the fascinating assumption that
a completely isolated "first" with no historical legacy would give one a
kind of moral ownership of the all subsequent innovations in the area. This
is perhaps a kind of cultural leakage from the patenting process, as he also
seemed to be confusing holding the copyright on a system with a particular
name ("EMAIL") with holding a patent on the corresponding technology.

 

The funny thing, as I tried to explain, is that the things that historians
might find interesting or useful in his papers describing the system really
have nothing to do with whether it was the first or the thousandth. Though
admittedly we weren't really his target audience.

 

Best wishes,

 

Tom

 

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