[SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix racist?

Tue Aug 18 06:11:19 PDT 2015

Well, we know that BASIC was developed at Dartmouth College, which at the time was all-male and quite the macho place. Dartmouth was founded to train Native Americans for the Christian ministry—enough about that. It was also the inspiration for the movie _Animal House_. What this has to do with BASIC I have no idea, but when I think of Dartmouth BASIC, I think of John Belushi in the cafeteria (a scene that was totally ad-libbed by the way). What for me in most interesting about Dartmouth BASIC is that it was designed for a time-shared system, but it was adapted by the PC community for the Altair and other PCs. That was a radical re-definition of the language. For example, you could not have commands like “Peek” and “Poke” in Dartmouth BASIC, if you’re running it on a time-shared mainframe. You’d crash the system. But Peek & Poke were absolutely necessary for the personal computer, given the limitations of memory they had. (Also “usr.”) Kemeney & Kurtz did not approve of the way BASIC was modified, but it had to happen. Who came up with those changes?—it may have been at DEC for the PDP-11.

Are the terms “peek” and “poke” sexist? Probably, but we do know that among the computer companies of the 1960s, DEC was one of the most progressive in hiring women.

As for the Is UNIX Racist discussion, I am disappointed that some of you use that paper in coursework. But there are so few alternatives, and the topic is sorely in need of further study. I talked about this at the SIG meeting in Dearborn. We need to address the topic in a more fundamental way. I recommend a recent book by a colleague of mine, Richard Paul, _We Could Not Fail_, about African-Americans who worked for NASA in southern NASA Centers, during the hey-day of the Space Race. Around the same time, IBM established a major facility in Atlanta, and the company had to remind the Atlanta political and real-estate establishment that its employees were to be treated fairly. When the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta, Hank Aaron expressed some concern about the move. The issue was real. What about the effort by Ken Olsen at DEC and William Norriss at CDC to establish plants in inner city neighborhoods, in St. Paul, Boston, and Springfield, Mass.? What became of those plants?

As I said, this topic merits serious discussion, but the UNIX paper? Maybe not so much.

Paul Ceruzzi

From: Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Meade McGee
Sent: Monday, August 17, 2015 8:19 PM
To: Nabeel Siddiqui
Cc: Sigcis
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is Unix racist?

On a semi-related query, has there been much race-, gender-, or class-related discussion around the cultural logic or social context of the development or reception of BASIC?

I could imagine that fitting into a larger conversation on class, institutions, social action, and (possibly) accusations of paternalism given its Sixties-era development and Dartmouth origins. Just curious -- I admittedly know far less than I should about the dissemination of programming languages.

Best,
Andrew

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Andrew Meade McGee
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 5:55 PM, Nabeel Siddiqui <nasiddiqui at email.wm.edu<mailto:nasiddiqui at email.wm.edu>> wrote:

I assign it in my course to discuss race with students, but it does have its problems, specifically correlation vs causality.  While the article doesn't get into it, I think it adds to David Golumbia's Cultural Logic of Computation on how computation provides a set of ideas and metaphors for people to think about the world around them.  The Digital Humanities part is actually a part that was tacked on and doesn't really add much to the article.

Originally, the article was release as "U.S. Operating System at Mid-Century" in Race After the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White. Link to the original article's pdf here: http://history.msu.edu/hst830/files/2014/01/McPherson_2012.pdf

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 4:57 PM, Janet Abbate <abbate at vt.edu<mailto:abbate at vt.edu>> wrote:
Anyone seen this piece by Tara Mcpherson? It starts with some interesting questions, but I found the follow-through to be disappointingly ahistorical. Again and again she argues that there must be a connection between the modularity of Unix and the compartmentalization of race within American culture, but then immediately admits that she has no evidence for any direct connection. As far as I can tell, the only reason she singles out Unix is because it coincides conveniently with the US Civil Rights era. I'm curious to know what others think.

"Why Are the Digital Humanities So White? or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation."
http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/29

Janet

Dr. Janet Abbate
Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society
Co-director, National Capital Region STS program
Virginia Tech
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