[SIGCIS-Members] Finn Prize -- deadline TODAY, also my winning paper from last year

[thomas.haigh at gmail.com]

Hello SIGCIS,

 

Reminder: the deadline to nominate yourself for the SHOT Bernard S. Finn
IEEE History prize is today. Procedures at
https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/awards-prizes-and-grants/the-be
rnard-s-finn-ieee-history-prize/. Short version: all you have to do is email
your paper published in 2019 on any aspect of the history of computing (or
other field of "electrical history") to the three committee members. So it
is not too late! Unlike some of the other SHOT prizes this has not been
deferred for this year.

 

I won it last year, with Mark Priestley, for our article "Colossus and
Programmability" which appeared in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.
You can read a copy at
http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/ColossusProgrammabilityWeb.pdf. It
looks at what Colossus could and couldn't do, with a historiographic
dimension that asks "What does programmable even mean, anyway?" 

 

That must be at least the 20th time I've sent something in for a SHOT prize
and the first success. It's not even an article I had high hopes for when I
dispatched it to the committee. I basically submitted it out of habit. I'm
proud of it, and all the analysis that underlies it (mostly Mark's work),
but as a technically informed piece of work focused on a specific machine it
seemed to be swimming against the tide. Moral: if you've written something
good send it in. You never know.

 

Bonus: if you want to see something really inscrutable and technical, try
our "Colossus: The Missing Manual" published last year in the Siegen
University working paper series Media of Cooperation.
https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/wp-content/uploads/WPS_10_Haigh.pdf

 

Best wishes,


Tom

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20200415/7a6290e1/attachment.htm>