[SIGCIS-Members] NASA contributions to computer development

[Armando Fox]

tl;dr: try this ebook <https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Pm0tPzG5Wr2nQ9G_SYswsef9VSSrSpgx> (it's in .mobi format).

long version: i have long had a nonprofessional interest in this same topic. several years ago, i found a public domain book called "Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience", which was made available online as a series of hundreds of linked web pages.  i contacted the webmaster and ultimately arranged to have them send me the MS Word "source" documents of the book, which i used as the basis of a conversion to Kindle format.  (this was 2009; i was an early Kindle adopter.)

annoyingly, when i tried to "publish" the result on the Kindle Store, Amazon required setting a minimum price of $1 (i had wanted to make it free).  note that since it's public domain, it is legal for me to charge for it, though i had no wish to do so.

today i logged into amazon KDP to see if they had removed the restriction and if i could change it to free.... but instead they forced me to RAISE the price!!

so, you can buy it for $2.99 on amazon, or download it for free here <https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Pm0tPzG5Wr2nQ9G_SYswsef9VSSrSpgx>.  the conversion isn't perfect - i was a newbie to Kindle conversion, and the target device was the original Kindle which had much more limited display capabilities than current devices - but the conversion is good enough.  and it's not DRM-protected so you should be able to convert it to epub or whatever else you want.

if i can find the original Word files they sent me i'll post a link to those on this list as well.  the historian i communicated with assured me that the manuscript was in the public domain, having been produced by a civilian agency at taxpayer expense.

hope this helps someone!

Armando Fox (pronouns: he, him)
Professor, Computer Science Division
Faculty Advisor, Digital Learning Strategy & MOOCLab
UC Berkeley Campus Equity Advisor
581 Soda Hall MC#1776, Berkeley, CA 94720-1776
+1.510.642.6820 / http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~fox <http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~fox>

Learn to build software free at saas-class.org

> On May 31, 2019, at 10:48, Alex Roland <alex.roland at duke.edu> wrote:
> 
> Friends:
> 
>           I have been a passive member of SIGCIS for many years now, even though I am no longer an active researcher in the field.  Still, I follow your correspondence with great interest.  I am writing now because I have received an inquiry from a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who is interested in NASA’s historical contributions to computer development.  I know from research on my book Strategic Computing: DARPA and  the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 (2002) that NASA was involved in the Federal High Performance Computing Program in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I do not, however, know of other significant contributions by NASA to computer development.  If anyone knows of such contributions, I would be happy to know about them.
> 
> Thanks,  Alex Roland
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20190531/8d5cde9c/attachment.htm>