From thomas.haigh at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 09:37:39 2020 From: thomas.haigh at gmail.com (thomas.haigh at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 11:37:39 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> Message-ID: <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of cultural artifacts. Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is only accidentally rare. So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds current demand. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might justify spending so much money on. Being a famous _personal_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor fetched just $37,500 when auctioned (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 (https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary market has developed for them. The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really establish itself as _the_ important machine of its generation years later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the prices. The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs template crippled the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, so if you haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in itself, much matter to the course of history. Best wishes, Tom From: Members On Behalf Of LO*OP CENTER, INC. Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM To: Deborah Douglas Cc: Sigcis Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. Cheers, Liza On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas > wrote: For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 computers in the past 6 years. 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ 2018: $375,000 https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ 2019: $470,000 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html 2020: $458,711.25. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 Debbie Douglas On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that price hasn?t been approached since. Regards, Mike Willegal On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, > > wrote: https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? button. I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. Full description at http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. Best wishes, Tom _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 Deborah G. Douglas, PhD ? Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers _______________________________________________ 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 -- Liza Loop Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. Guerneville, CA 95446 www.loopcenter.org 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From laine.nooney at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 10:52:52 2020 From: laine.nooney at gmail.com (Laine Nooney) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 13:52:52 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I) this feels like the most significant part of the Apple I--the fact that its design ethos was based on extending a TV terminal's capacity through the embedding of a microprocessor, rather than the more progressivist, linear assumption that Wozniak was trying to make his own version of a more user-friendly Altair. it's a productive complication of the computer history timeline. Laine Nooney MCC @ NYU Assistant Professor -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:37 PM wrote: > Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa > asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent > work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment > referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such > a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at > $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). > > > > First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from > economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars > looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a > literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, > and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of > cultural artifacts. > > > > Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and > auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, > and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved > in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van > Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But > unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is > only accidentally rare. > > > > So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles > like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 > million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with > Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo > cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial > scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds > current demand. ( > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) > Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I > think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want > to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. > > > > No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the > wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s > a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s > also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early > personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money > floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of > expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early > personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might > justify spending so much money on. > > > > Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 > would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know > something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. > Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s > computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in > Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left > the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more > technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was > actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor > fetched just $37,500 when auctioned ( > https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a > piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 ( > https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some > significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not > controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary > market has developed for them. > > > > The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful > machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. > It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the > Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? > and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people > who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers > and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in > 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, > IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 > than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but > even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced > personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for > several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have > produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was > more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS > 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also > designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently > being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really > establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years > later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to > account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well > after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). > > > > Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a > particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but > Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II > disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working > condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to > history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial > number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the > prices. > > > > The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the > world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection > to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first > Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a > history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in > the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, > documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs > template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you > haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of > thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add > the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of > money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of > factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in > itself, much matter to the course of history. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Tom > > > > > > > > *From:* Members *On Behalf Of *LO*OP > CENTER, INC. > *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM > *To:* Deborah Douglas > *Cc:* Sigcis > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm > not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than > the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Liza > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: > > > > > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 > computers in the past 6 years. > > > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2018: $375,000 > https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > > 2019: $470,000 > https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > > 2020: $458,711.25. > https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > > > Debbie Douglas > > > > > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: > > > > I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I > can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be > one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in > Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the > point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum > paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that > price hasn?t been approached since. > > > > Regards, > > Mike Willegal > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < > thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? > button. > > > > I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further > sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did > recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. > Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a > very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. > > > > Full description at > http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 > > > > Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): > https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. > > > > Best wishes, > > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of > Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, > Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? > Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? > 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > > -- > > Liza Loop > > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > > Guerneville, CA 95446 > > www.loopcenter.org > > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From brianberg at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 11:07:57 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 11:07:57 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: I worked with Steve Wozniak and Tom Coughlin on the Apple I IEEE Milestone (which was scheduled to be dedicated in May, but has been delayed by the COVID crisis). The description of its significance, etc., is here , including this citation for the bronze plaque (and notice that we used Roman Numeral I and not Arabic Numeral 1): *Introduction of the Apple I Computer, 1976*The features essential for a personal computer were first encompassed by the Apple I: a fully-assembled circuit board with dynamic RAM, video interface, keyboard, mass storage and a high-level programming language. This affordable computer platform triggered a software industry that grew as the sophistication of these essential features grew, and the Apple I thus helped launch the personal computer revolution. For reference here is the Apple II citation: *Introduction of the Apple II Computer, 1977-78*The Apple II spurred software and hardware suppliers to help create the worldwide personal computing industry. It was the first low-cost computer to offer quick start-up, pre-addressed standard expansion slots, processor RAM-based bit-mapped NTSC color graphics and random access storage in a handsome compact package. It had an economy of design with a BASIC interpreter and assembler in ROM as well as gaming and graphics features. Brian Berg On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 10:54 AM Laine Nooney wrote: > Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade > microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard > interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 > (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt > to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I) > > this feels like the most significant part of the Apple I--the fact that > its design ethos was based on extending a TV terminal's capacity through > the embedding of a microprocessor, rather than the more progressivist, > linear assumption that Wozniak was trying to make his own version of a more > user-friendly Altair. it's a productive complication of the computer > history timeline. > > Laine Nooney > > MCC @ NYU > Assistant Professor > > -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 > -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos > > > On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:37 PM wrote: > >> Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa >> asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent >> work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment >> referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such >> a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at >> $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). >> >> >> >> First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from >> economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars >> looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a >> literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, >> and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of >> cultural artifacts. >> >> >> >> Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and >> auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, >> and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved >> in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van >> Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But >> unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is >> only accidentally rare. >> >> >> >> So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles >> like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 >> million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with >> Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo >> cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial >> scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds >> current demand. ( >> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) >> Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I >> think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want >> to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. >> >> >> >> No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the >> wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s >> a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s >> also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early >> personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money >> floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of >> expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early >> personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might >> justify spending so much money on. >> >> >> >> Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac >> 1 would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know >> something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. >> Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s >> computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in >> Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left >> the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more >> technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was >> actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor >> fetched just $37,500 when auctioned ( >> https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be >> a piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 >> (https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some >> significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not >> controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary >> market has developed for them. >> >> >> >> The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful >> machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. >> It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the >> Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? >> and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people >> who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers >> and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in >> 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, >> IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 >> than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but >> even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced >> personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for >> several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have >> produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was >> more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS >> 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also >> designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently >> being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really >> establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years >> later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to >> account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well >> after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). >> >> >> >> Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a >> particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but >> Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II >> disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working >> condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to >> history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial >> number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the >> prices. >> >> >> >> The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is >> the world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal >> connection to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say >> ?The first Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t >> need a history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and >> Jobs in the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in >> movies, documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs >> template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you >> haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of >> thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add >> the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of >> money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of >> factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in >> itself, much matter to the course of history. >> >> >> >> Best wishes, >> >> >> >> Tom >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* Members *On Behalf Of *LO*OP >> CENTER, INC. >> *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM >> *To:* Deborah Douglas >> *Cc:* Sigcis >> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 >> million >> >> >> >> I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm >> not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than >> the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. >> >> >> >> Cheers, >> >> >> >> Liza >> >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 >> computers in the past 6 years. >> >> >> >> 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) >> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ >> >> 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) >> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ >> >> 2018: $375,000 >> https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ >> >> 2019: $470,000 >> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html >> >> 2020: $458,711.25. >> https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 >> >> >> >> Debbie Douglas >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: >> >> >> >> I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I >> can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be >> one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in >> Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the >> point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum >> paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that >> price hasn?t been approached since. >> >> >> >> Regards, >> >> Mike Willegal >> >> >> >> On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < >> thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? >> button. >> >> >> >> I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a >> further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. >> Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and >> monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this >> would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. >> >> >> >> Full description at >> http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 >> >> >> >> Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): >> https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. >> >> >> >> Best wishes, >> >> >> Tom >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> >> *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of >> Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, >> Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? >> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? >> 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Liza Loop >> >> Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. >> >> Guerneville, CA 95446 >> >> www.loopcenter.org >> >> 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From thomas.haigh at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 11:45:52 2020 From: thomas.haigh at gmail.com (thomas.haigh at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 13:45:52 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <02a201d66833$fc5a85a0$f50f90e0$@gmail.com> Good observations from Laine and Brian. So OK, I admit I was too hard on the Apple 1 re ?firstness.? While it didn?t come (from Apple itself at least) with a case or a keyboard it did integrate video, tape, and keyboard interfaces onto a single board. Its relative lack of visibility and sales at the time suggests that existing personal computer enthusiasts did not immediately recognized the combination as bringing a compelling advantage. But when the same approach was adopted by the 1977 trio of mass produced personal computers, most importantly the TRS-80, it did lower costs sufficiently to establish a much larger personal computer industry with a different kind of user base. (The Apple 1 plaque makes the connection between the Apple 1 and the software industry sound a little more direct than I would personally be comfortable with.) I?ll verify that our sentences in the book make this clear ? we certainly do distinguish between the Apple II/Pet/TRS-80 approach and the S-100 bus + CP/M approach. However, when an Apple 1 can sell for approximately a thousand times more than an Altair, I don?t think it?s unreasonable to suggest that it?s getting 99% plus of its market value from being the first Apple, not the first circuit board to combine a particular set of specification sheet check marks. Tom From: Members On Behalf Of Brian Berg Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2020 1:08 PM To: SIGCIS Listserver Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million I worked with Steve Wozniak and Tom Coughlin on the Apple I IEEE Milestone (which was scheduled to be dedicated in May, but has been delayed by the COVID crisis). The description of its significance, etc., is here , including this citation for the bronze plaque (and notice that we used Roman Numeral I and not Arabic Numeral 1): Introduction of the Apple I Computer, 1976 The features essential for a personal computer were first encompassed by the Apple I: a fully-assembled circuit board with dynamic RAM, video interface, keyboard, mass storage and a high-level programming language. This affordable computer platform triggered a software industry that grew as the sophistication of these essential features grew, and the Apple I thus helped launch the personal computer revolution. For reference here is the Apple II citation: Introduction of the Apple II Computer, 1977-78 The Apple II spurred software and hardware suppliers to help create the worldwide personal computing industry. It was the first low-cost computer to offer quick start-up, pre-addressed standard expansion slots, processor RAM-based bit-mapped NTSC color graphics and random access storage in a handsome compact package. It had an economy of design with a BASIC interpreter and assembler in ROM as well as gaming and graphics features. Brian Berg On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 10:54 AM Laine Nooney > wrote: Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I) this feels like the most significant part of the Apple I--the fact that its design ethos was based on extending a TV terminal's capacity through the embedding of a microprocessor, rather than the more progressivist, linear assumption that Wozniak was trying to make his own version of a more user-friendly Altair. it's a productive complication of the computer history timeline. Laine Nooney MCC @ NYU Assistant Professor -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:37 PM > wrote: Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of cultural artifacts. Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is only accidentally rare. So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds current demand. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might justify spending so much money on. Being a famous _personal_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor fetched just $37,500 when auctioned (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 (https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary market has developed for them. The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really establish itself as _the_ important machine of its generation years later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the prices. The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs template crippled the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, so if you haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in itself, much matter to the course of history. Best wishes, Tom From: Members > On Behalf Of LO*OP CENTER, INC. Sent: Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM To: Deborah Douglas > Cc: Sigcis > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. Cheers, Liza On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas > wrote: For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 computers in the past 6 years. 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ 2018: $375,000 https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ 2019: $470,000 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html 2020: $458,711.25. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 Debbie Douglas On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that price hasn?t been approached since. Regards, Mike Willegal On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, > > wrote: https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? button. I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. Full description at http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. Best wishes, Tom _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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 Deborah G. Douglas, PhD ? Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers _______________________________________________ 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 -- Liza Loop Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. Guerneville, CA 95446 www.loopcenter.org 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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: From brianberg at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 13:50:30 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 13:50:30 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <02a201d66833$fc5a85a0$f50f90e0$@gmail.com> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> <02a201d66833$fc5a85a0$f50f90e0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks, Tom. While you suggest "an Apple 1 ... is getting 99% plus of its market value from being the first Apple, not the first circuit board to combine a particular set of specification sheet check marks." it also gets a big chunk of that value from the name and background of sole designer Steve Wozniak, who arguably has a "household name." Brian On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 11:46 AM wrote: > Good observations from Laine and Brian. > > > > So OK, I admit I was too hard on the Apple 1 re ?firstness.? While it > didn?t come (from Apple itself at least) with a case or a keyboard it did > integrate video, tape, and keyboard interfaces onto a single board. Its > relative lack of visibility and sales at the time suggests that existing > personal computer enthusiasts did not immediately recognized the > combination as bringing a compelling advantage. But when the same approach > was adopted by the 1977 trio of mass produced personal computers, most > importantly the TRS-80, it did lower costs sufficiently to establish a much > larger personal computer industry with a different kind of user base. (The > Apple 1 plaque makes the connection between the Apple 1 and the software > industry sound a little more direct than I would personally be comfortable > with.) I?ll verify that our sentences in the book make this clear ? we > certainly do distinguish between the Apple II/Pet/TRS-80 approach and the > S-100 bus + CP/M approach. > > > > However, when an Apple 1 can sell for approximately a thousand times more > than an Altair, I don?t think it?s unreasonable to suggest that it?s > getting 99% plus of its market value from being the first Apple, not the > first circuit board to combine a particular set of specification sheet > check marks. > > > > Tom > > > > *From:* Members *On Behalf Of *Brian > Berg > *Sent:* Saturday, August 1, 2020 1:08 PM > *To:* SIGCIS Listserver > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > > > I worked with Steve Wozniak and Tom Coughlin on the Apple I IEEE Milestone > (which was scheduled to be dedicated in May, but has been delayed by the > COVID crisis). The description of its significance, etc., is here > , > including this citation for the bronze plaque (and notice that we used > Roman Numeral I and not Arabic Numeral 1): > > > > > *Introduction of the Apple I Computer, 1976*The features essential for a > personal computer were first encompassed by the Apple I: a fully-assembled > circuit board with dynamic RAM, video interface, keyboard, mass storage and > a high-level programming language. This affordable computer platform > triggered a software industry that grew as the sophistication of these > essential features grew, and the Apple I thus helped launch the personal > computer revolution. > > > > For reference here is the Apple II > > citation: > > > *Introduction of the Apple II Computer, 1977-78*The Apple II spurred > software and hardware suppliers to help create the worldwide personal > computing industry. It was the first low-cost computer to offer quick > start-up, pre-addressed standard expansion slots, processor RAM-based > bit-mapped NTSC color graphics and random access storage in a handsome > compact package. It had an economy of design with a BASIC interpreter and > assembler in ROM as well as gaming and graphics features. > > > > Brian Berg > > > > On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 10:54 AM Laine Nooney > wrote: > > Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade > microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard > interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 > (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt > to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I) > > this feels like the most significant part of the Apple I--the fact that > its design ethos was based on extending a TV terminal's capacity through > the embedding of a microprocessor, rather than the more progressivist, > linear assumption that Wozniak was trying to make his own version of a more > user-friendly Altair. it's a productive complication of the computer > history timeline. > > > > Laine Nooney > > > > MCC @ NYU > Assistant Professor > > > > -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 > > -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos > > > > > > On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 12:37 PM wrote: > > Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa > asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent > work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment > referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such > a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at > $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). > > > > First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from > economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars > looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a > literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, > and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of > cultural artifacts. > > > > Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and > auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, > and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved > in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van > Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But > unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is > only accidentally rare. > > > > So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles > like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 > million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with > Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo > cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial > scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds > current demand. ( > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) > Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I > think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want > to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. > > > > No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the > wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s > a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s > also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early > personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money > floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of > expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early > personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might > justify spending so much money on. > > > > Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 > would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know > something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. > Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s > computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in > Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left > the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more > technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was > actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor > fetched just $37,500 when auctioned ( > https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a > piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 ( > https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some > significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not > controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary > market has developed for them. > > > > The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful > machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. > It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the > Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? > and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people > who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers > and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in > 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, > IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 > than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but > even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced > personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for > several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have > produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was > more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS > 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also > designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently > being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really > establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years > later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to > account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well > after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). > > > > Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a > particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but > Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II > disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working > condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to > history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial > number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the > prices. > > > > The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the > world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection > to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first > Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a > history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in > the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, > documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs > template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you > haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of > thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add > the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of > money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of > factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in > itself, much matter to the course of history. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Tom > > > > > > > > *From:* Members *On Behalf Of *LO*OP > CENTER, INC. > *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM > *To:* Deborah Douglas > *Cc:* Sigcis > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm > not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than > the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Liza > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: > > > > > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 > computers in the past 6 years. > > > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2018: $375,000 > https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > > 2019: $470,000 > https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > > 2020: $458,711.25. > https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > > > Debbie Douglas > > > > > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: > > > > I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I > can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be > one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in > Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the > point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum > paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that > price hasn?t been approached since. > > > > Regards, > > Mike Willegal > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < > thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? > button. > > > > I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further > sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did > recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. > Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a > very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. > > > > Full description at > http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 > > > > Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): > https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. > > > > Best wishes, > > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of > Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, > Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? > Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? > 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > > -- > > Liza Loop > > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > > Guerneville, CA 95446 > > www.loopcenter.org > > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From lizaloop at loopcenter.org Sat Aug 1 15:25:22 2020 From: lizaloop at loopcenter.org (LO*OP CENTER, INC.) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 15:25:22 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks Tom, Brian, Laine and Mike for your thoughtful comments. When I tell people that I have the first Apple I I usually get wide eyes and "that must be worth a lot of money. Why don't you sell it?" My own response is that even $2 million wouldn't fund the work I began LO*OP Center to do. We want to reimagine education and make learning resources easily and freely available everywhere on the planet. I believe this is the spirit that motivated Woz to give us the first Apple. These bragging rights and connection to history seem more valuable to me than the money. I'm in basic agreement with you about the significance of the Apple I from both technical and commercial angles. However, we might tell a different tale from a history of education perspective. A lot of teachers cut their teeth on the Apple operating system and wouldn't migrate to any other brand. IMHO, just as important as all those little personal computers was Saal and Shustek's Nestar Systems that allowed file sharing across platforms. Are any of you familiar with this one? [image: IMG_0984.JPG] Cheers, Liza On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 9:37 AM wrote: > Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa > asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent > work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment > referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such > a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at > $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). > > > > First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from > economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars > looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a > literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, > and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of > cultural artifacts. > > > > Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and > auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, > and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved > in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van > Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But > unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is > only accidentally rare. > > > > So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles > like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 > million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with > Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo > cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial > scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds > current demand. ( > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) > Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I > think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want > to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. > > > > No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the > wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s > a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s > also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early > personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money > floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of > expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early > personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might > justify spending so much money on. > > > > Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 > would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know > something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. > Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s > computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in > Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left > the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more > technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was > actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor > fetched just $37,500 when auctioned ( > https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a > piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 ( > https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some > significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not > controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary > market has developed for them. > > > > The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful > machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. > It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the > Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? > and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people > who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers > and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in > 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, > IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 > than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but > even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced > personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for > several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have > produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was > more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS > 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also > designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently > being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really > establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years > later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to > account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well > after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). > > > > Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a > particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but > Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II > disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working > condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to > history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial > number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the > prices. > > > > The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the > world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection > to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first > Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a > history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in > the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, > documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs > template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you > haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of > thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add > the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of > money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of > factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in > itself, much matter to the course of history. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Tom > > > > > > > > *From:* Members *On Behalf Of *LO*OP > CENTER, INC. > *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM > *To:* Deborah Douglas > *Cc:* Sigcis > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm > not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than > the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Liza > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: > > > > > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 > computers in the past 6 years. > > > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2018: $375,000 > https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > > 2019: $470,000 > https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > > 2020: $458,711.25. > https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > > > Debbie Douglas > > > > > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: > > > > I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I > can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be > one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in > Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the > point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum > paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that > price hasn?t been approached since. > > > > Regards, > > Mike Willegal > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < > thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? > button. > > > > I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further > sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did > recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. > Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a > very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. > > > > Full description at > http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 > > > > Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): > https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. > > > > Best wishes, > > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of > Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, > Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? > Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? > 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > > -- > > Liza Loop > > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > > Guerneville, CA 95446 > > www.loopcenter.org > > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > -- Liza Loop Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. Guerneville, CA 95446 www.loopcenter.org 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_0984.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 2133819 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mike at willegal.net Sat Aug 1 15:47:34 2020 From: mike at willegal.net (MikeWillegal) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 18:47:34 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> Message-ID: <6D6CD9F1-5C4C-4AB6-99A8-9357A57FF4F1@willegal.net> Liza, Because it was the first that was ?shipped?, I?m absolutely sure your Apple 1 is more valuable than the typical Apple 1. There are several others that I put in the same category. Hard to know value of a unique item though. Here are some others, I may have forgotten about one or two other significant units. 1) The Apple 1 recently donated to the Living Computer Museum that used to be the demonstrator unit that Steve Jobs Kept in his office. 2) The Apple 1 currently at the Smithsonian, primarily because it?s at the Smithsonian. 3) Steve Wozniak?s Apple 1, even though it isn?t a prototype or special in any other way. Current evidence indicates that any prototypes have been lost. Pictures exist of a hand wired prototype and a PCB prototype. regards, Mike Willegal > On Aug 1, 2020, at 12:33 AM, LO*OP CENTER, INC. wrote: > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > Cheers, > > Liza > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas > wrote: > > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 computers in the past 6 years. > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > 2018: $375,000 https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > 2019: $470,000 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > 2020: $458,711.25. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > Debbie Douglas > > > >> On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: >> >> I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that price hasn?t been approached since. >> >> Regards, >> Mike Willegal >> >>> On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, > > wrote: >>> >>> https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349 . There is at least a ?Make offer? button. >>> >>> I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. >>> >>> Full description at http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 >>> >>> Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html . >>> >>> Best wishes, >>> >>> Tom >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > Deborah G. Douglas, PhD ? Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > -- > Liza Loop > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > Guerneville, CA 95446 > www.loopcenter.org > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at willegal.net Sat Aug 1 16:06:44 2020 From: mike at willegal.net (MikeWillegal) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 19:06:44 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6D89C3E0-BA3B-4579-A899-1530DC02A954@willegal.net> > On Aug 1, 2020, at 1:52 PM, Laine Nooney wrote: > > Is there an earlier example of a commercialized, consumer grade microcomputer with on-board video terminal display and keyboard interface, than the Apple I? i believe the SOL-20 comes out later in 1976 (but i'd be happy to proven wrong here!) (and this might require debate wrt to how we determine a date on the "release" of the Apple I) > Check out my VCF presentation of a SCELBI-8H with Digital Group Video card (circa 1974-1975) at the virtual VCF west that is being presented today. It?s not on one board, but the video display is more usable than the Apple 1 and the cassette interface is more reliable (though slower). Also the Altair had the Dazzler, which included color support prior to 1976. The Sphere 1 also came out prior to the Apple 1. Though the Apple 1 came at a great price, it had some problems. The video display was extremely slow to write to. You could write at the screen refresh rate of 60 characters per second and you didn?t have any cursor control, so whatever you wrote was simply added to the end of the screen, pretty much like writing to a glass teletype. The Cassette interface might be unreliable, depending upon your particular setup. Some people had no issues, and others couldn?t get it to work at all. The Apple II wasn?t just an incremental improvement, it was worlds better. I tend to think the value is more about being the first Apple than being a design by Woz. If Apple had failed, would we even know about Woz? regards, Mike Willegal From lizaloop at loopcenter.org Sat Aug 1 17:15:24 2020 From: lizaloop at loopcenter.org (LO*OP CENTER, INC.) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 17:15:24 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <6D6CD9F1-5C4C-4AB6-99A8-9357A57FF4F1@willegal.net> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <6D6CD9F1-5C4C-4AB6-99A8-9357A57FF4F1@willegal.net> Message-ID: Well, sorta' "shipped". I don't think this machine has ever been commercially shipped. Woz drove it to Cotati, CA to hand deliver it to me. I've driven it around to shows and schools but never "shipped" it. It has lived a very sheltered life! Cheers, Liza On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 3:47 PM MikeWillegal wrote: > Liza, > > Because it was the first that was ?shipped?, I?m absolutely sure your > Apple 1 is more valuable than the typical Apple 1. There are several > others that I put in the same category. Hard to know value of a unique > item though. > > Here are some others, I may have forgotten about one or two other > significant units. > > 1) The Apple 1 recently donated to the Living Computer Museum that used to > be the demonstrator unit that Steve Jobs Kept in his office. > 2) The Apple 1 currently at the Smithsonian, primarily because it?s at > the Smithsonian. > 3) Steve Wozniak?s Apple 1, even though it isn?t a prototype or special in > any other way. Current evidence indicates that any prototypes have been > lost. Pictures exist of a hand wired prototype and a PCB prototype. > > regards, > Mike Willegal > > > On Aug 1, 2020, at 12:33 AM, LO*OP CENTER, INC. > wrote: > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm > not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than > the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > Cheers, > > Liza > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: > >> >> >> For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 >> computers in the past 6 years. >> >> 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) >> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ >> 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) >> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ >> 2018: $375,000 >> https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ >> 2019: $470,000 >> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html >> 2020: $458,711.25. >> https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 >> >> Debbie Douglas >> >> >> >> On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: >> >> I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I >> can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be >> one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in >> Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the >> point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum >> paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that >> price hasn?t been approached since. >> >> Regards, >> Mike Willegal >> >> On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < >> thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? >> button. >> >> I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a >> further sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. >> Though I did recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and >> monitor. Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this >> would be a very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. >> >> Full description at >> http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 >> >> Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): >> https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. >> >> Best wishes, >> >> Tom >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of >> Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, >> Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? >> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? >> 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > > > -- > Liza Loop > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > Guerneville, CA 95446 > www.loopcenter.org > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > -- Liza Loop Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. Guerneville, CA 95446 www.loopcenter.org 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From evan at snarc.net Sun Aug 2 18:01:27 2020 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2020 21:01:27 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2baf3309-0512-0e5e-3528-df4507375f7a@snarc.net> Tom, I agree with your thoughts here. A detail: >> Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working condition, and the latter for about $20 Original Apple IIs, especially the earliest revisions, are going for four figures now among hobbyists. I've seen some as high as $2K-$4K. Even the early revisions of the II+ are getting up there in hobbyist prices, because Apple kept selling the straight II for a short time after the II+ introduction, thus some II+ computers are older than some original IIs. However it's the later II+ systems (which are most of them) and of course the //e, //c, and IIgs which are readily available for two/three figures. Various sub-versions go for more, such as the //e Platinum, //c Plus, and IIgs Woz Edition. On 8/1/20 12:37 PM, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote: > > Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but > Lisa asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our > recent work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? > comment referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that > might make such a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the > listing started at $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further > reduction will follow). > > First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from > economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars > looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a > literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter > Benjamin, and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the > reproduction of cultural artifacts. > > Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and > auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, > evaluation, and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. > Everyone involved in that process has an incentive to see values rise. > Compared to a van Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is > rather affordable. But unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness > is the point, the Apple 1 is only accidentally rare. > > So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive > collectibles like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a > Ferrari sold for $3 million at auction. I assume this is the direct > model being followed with Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in > prices for unopened Nintendo cartridges, the fixation on pristine > condition creating an artificial scarcity for a mass produced item for > which supply generally exceeds current demand. > (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) > Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball > cards, I think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a > certain age want to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. > > No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the > wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And > it?s a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden > case that?s also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur > nature of the early personal computing community. But there is > certainly a lot of money floating around the tech industry and so > (entering my actual area of expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 > became the definitive early personal computing artifact that a museum > or wealthy collector might justify spending so much money on. > > Being a famous _/personal/_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or > Univac 1 would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d > need to know something about history to appreciate that and they are > all rather bulky. Fewer people feel personal ties to those > technologies, and for the 1950s computers their generations have faded > out. (IIRC there was a crash in Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as > the people who cared about Elvis left the marketplace). The Cray 1 is > a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more technologically interesting > (miles of hardwired connections), and was actually expensive at the > time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor fetched just $37,500 > when auctioned (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and > what claimed to be a piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos > failed to sell for GBP 550 > (https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). > Some significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, > are not controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of > secondary market has developed for them. > > The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful > machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple > product. It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge > from the Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was > much ?firstier? and did far more to establish the personal computer > category, though people who care about such things have documented > many earlier personal computers and microprocessor based machines. An > Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in 2017. > ?(https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, IMSAIS, > the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 than > the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but > even that was not the most initially important of the three mass > produced personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much > better for several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said > to have produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time > Chuck Peddle was more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits > (having produced the MOS 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and > according to Wikipedia he also designed the third of the 1977 trio, > the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently being auctioned on eBay for > $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really establish itself as > _/the/_ important machine of its generation years later. The Apple > IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to account for the > bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well after the IBM > PC which complicates the traditional succession story). > > Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a > particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, > but Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the > Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in > working condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a > lot more to history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A > very low serial number might make a difference, but not enough to add > several zeros to the prices. > > The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is > the world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal > connection to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and > say ?The first Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and > visitors won?t need a history lecture to appreciate the importance. > The story of Woz and Jobs in the garage has become the paradigmatic > story of innovation, told in movies, documentaries, a bestselling > books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs template crippled the first > season of /Halt and Catch Fire/, so if you haven?t seen it skip that > and start with season 2). There?s the allure of thinking that one or > both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add the rarity of its > first product to that cult following and the amount of money > percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of > factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in > itself, much matter to the course of history. > > Best wishes, > > Tom > > *From:* Members *On Behalf Of > *LO*OP CENTER, INC. > *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM > *To:* Deborah Douglas > *Cc:* Sigcis > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but > I'm not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth > more than the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > Cheers, > > Liza > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas > wrote: > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for > Apple 1 computers in the past 6 years. > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2018: $375,000 > https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > > 2019: $470,000 > https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > > 2020: $458,711.25. > https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > Debbie Douglas > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net > wrote: > > I talked to Krishna a few years ago.? I don?t think he is > unhinged, but I can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, > even though it appears to be one of the nicer survivors. It?s > funny, when I first became interested in Apple 1s, condition > mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the point > where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford > Museum paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several > years ago, though that price hasn?t been approached since. > > Regards, > > Mike Willegal > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, > > wrote: > > https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a > ?Make offer? button. > > I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, > possibly a further sign (as if one were needed) of the > approach of the end times. Though I did recently pay $250 > for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. > Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or > Zuckerberg this would be a very much smaller purchase > relative to net worth. > > Full description at > http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 > > Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): > https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. > > Best wishes, > > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *??Director of Collections and Curator of > Science and Technology,?MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in > Science, Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 > Massachusetts Avenue ? Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu > ?? 617-253-1766 telephone ? 617-253-8994 > facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu?? she/her/hers > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > -- > > Liza Loop > > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > > Guerneville, CA 95446 > > www.loopcenter.org > > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From brianberg at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 18:15:50 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2020 18:15:50 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million In-Reply-To: <2baf3309-0512-0e5e-3528-df4507375f7a@snarc.net> References: <01f701d66775$fe5dc100$fb194300$@gmail.com> <3D1FB17A-8D3E-473C-A429-58A5A1278660@willegal.net> <028401d66822$12fa5220$38eef660$@gmail.com> <2baf3309-0512-0e5e-3528-df4507375f7a@snarc.net> Message-ID: Agreed about Woz and the Apple II, whose initial 1977 version came with a cassette drive for storage. Its 1978 upgrade included the floppy drive, and this allowed its sales to really take off. I documented its design in this paragraph in the Apple II IEEE Milestone description : *in 1978, Apple introduced the Disk II, a 5 ?? floppy disk drive with an expansion slot controller card that effectively supplanted its original cassette tape drive. It was a design marvel of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak?s in that it used just six low-cost chips as compared with the dozens of chips used by other floppy disk controllers that were then on the market. The six chips required special software that was included in the Apple DOS operating system in order to perform all of the operations necessary to fully support a fully functional floppy disk drive. The software was streamlined to run in a small footprint of the machine?s limited memory space.* This ingenious design was incorporated in the Macintosh as the "Integrated Woz Machine" (IWM) chip, which scored a patent, and as I documented in this paragraph in the Macintosh IEEE Milestone description : *The Macintosh was the first large-scale (and keystone) commercial user of the Sony 3.5? micro-floppy, a drive whose hard shell and shutter protected the media as compared with the industry-standard 5.25" floppy. Wendell Sander and Bob Bailey, with help from Ron Nicholson, designed a single-chip integrated floppy controller called the "Integrated Woz Machine" (IWM) [Ref-4: '448 patent ]. The IWM chip exactly implemented the state machine of Steve Wozniak?s ingenious Apple II floppy disk controller design, which had already dramatically reduced the number of chips used as compared with earlier floppy disk controllers. This IWM chip thus maintained compatibility with older Disk II media, and also supported the faster 3.5" micro-floppy drive which used the more complex system clock of the Macintosh.* Sales of subsequent models of the Apple II kept Apple afloat until the Macintosh finally took off. Brian Berg On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 6:01 PM Evan Koblentz wrote: > Tom, > > I agree with your thoughts here. > > A detail: >> Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of > the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in > working condition, and the latter for about $20 > > Original Apple IIs, especially the earliest revisions, are going for four > figures now among hobbyists. I've seen some as high as $2K-$4K. > > Even the early revisions of the II+ are getting up there in hobbyist > prices, because Apple kept selling the straight II for a short time after > the II+ introduction, thus some II+ computers are older than some original > IIs. However it's the later II+ systems (which are most of them) and of > course the //e, //c, and IIgs which are readily available for two/three > figures. Various sub-versions go for more, such as the //e Platinum, //c > Plus, and IIgs Woz Edition. > > > On 8/1/20 12:37 PM, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote: > > Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa > asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent > work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The ?unhinged? comment > referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such > a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at > $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow). > > > > First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from > economic sociology within which there?s a thriving group of scholars > looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There?s a also a > literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin, > and an associated steam looking at ?authenticity? and the reproduction of > cultural artifacts. > > > > Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and > auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation, > and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved > in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van > Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But > unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is > only accidentally rare. > > > > So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles > like classic sportscars. Today?s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3 > million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with > Apple 1s. There?s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo > cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial > scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds > current demand. ( > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html) > Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I > think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want > to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy. > > > > No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the > wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it?s > a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that?s > also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early > personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money > floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of > expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early > personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might > justify spending so much money on. > > > > Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1 > would be more historically significant and rarer, but you?d need to know > something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky. > Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s > computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in > Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left > the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more > technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was > actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor > fetched just $37,500 when auctioned ( > https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a > piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 ( > https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some > significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not > controlled by the Smithsonian but I don?t think any kind of secondary > market has developed for them. > > > > The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful > machine. It also wasn?t a ?first? anything, except the first Apple product. > It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the > Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much ?firstier? > and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people > who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers > and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in > 2017. (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos, > IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976 > than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but > even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced > personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for > several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have > produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was > more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS > 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also > designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently > being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn?t really > establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years > later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to > account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn?t launched until 1983 (well > after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story). > > > > Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a > particularly strong seller). Wozniak?s cult following is important, but > Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II > disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working > condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to > history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial > number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the > prices. > > > > The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the > world?s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection > to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say ?The first > Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)? and visitors won?t need a > history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in > the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies, > documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs > template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you > haven?t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There?s the allure of > thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add > the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of > money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of > factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn?t, in > itself, much matter to the course of history. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Tom > > > > > > > > *From:* Members > *On Behalf Of *LO*OP CENTER, INC. > *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM > *To:* Deborah Douglas > *Cc:* Sigcis > *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 > million > > > > I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm > not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than > the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Liza > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas wrote: > > > > > > For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1 > computers in the past 6 years. > > > > 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction) > https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/ > > 2018: $375,000 > https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/ > > 2019: $470,000 > https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html > > 2020: $458,711.25. > https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711 > > > > Debbie Douglas > > > > > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote: > > > > I talked to Krishna a few years ago. I don?t think he is unhinged, but I > can?t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be > one of the nicer survivors. It?s funny, when I first became interested in > Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the > point where condition seems to matter. Note that the Henry Ford Museum > paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that > price hasn?t been approached since. > > > > Regards, > > Mike Willegal > > > > On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, < > thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a ?Make offer? > button. > > > > I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further > sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did > recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor. > Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a > very much smaller purchase relative to net worth. > > > > Full description at > http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0 > > > > Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course): > https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html. > > > > Best wishes, > > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *? Director of Collections and Curator of > Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, > Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? > Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? > 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > > -- > > Liza Loop > > Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc. > > Guerneville, CA 95446 > > www.loopcenter.org > > 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please) > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From peter at collopy.net Mon Aug 3 22:17:23 2020 From: peter at collopy.net (Peter Sachs Collopy) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2020 22:17:23 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] How the Digital Camera Transformed Our Concept of History In-Reply-To: <459C2637-597C-46A0-BA35-7FF83D374D8E@mit.edu> References: <6AAD4F4A-1F9C-45D4-8BF7-711D247E9AB7@newcastle.ac.uk> <088001d6567b$b6488360$22d98a20$@gmail.com> <459C2637-597C-46A0-BA35-7FF83D374D8E@mit.edu> Message-ID: <5982EE9E-AD44-4C5D-932C-F639E6934955@collopy.net> Apologies for picking up an old thread, but I?ve just been catching up on my SIGCIT reading. Tom?s excerpt from History of Modern Computing got me thinking about the relationship between continuous and discrete in television and video and how that relates to computing and digital photography, and then I remembered I?d written something about this which I should perhaps share with all of you. ?Video and the Origins of Electronic Photography ? was published in French translation last year in the history of photography journal Transbordeur. It?s available in English on the web from Caltech?s institutional repository. Here?s the abstract: In our historical imagination, the recent digital revolution in photography can obscure an earlier revolution which was less total but more profound. This was the analogue revolution, the translation of images into continuously varying electrical signals and magnetic fields. Electronic analogue photography manifested as television and video, as well as technologies for recording still images like the Ampex Videofile of the 1960s and the Sony Mavica of the 1980s. Key components of these new technologies systems, including techniques for high-fidelity recording and vacuum tubes for video cameras, were first developed for military ends. Analogue electronics had this and much else in common with digital technologies, including the physical media on which they recorded. The deep transformation of photography in the last century, then, was not digitization but the replacement of photochemistry with electromagnetic media, analogue and digital alike. Peter > On Jul 10, 2020, at 08:45, Deborah Douglas wrote: > > Fascinating? > > For those interested in Polaroid and digital photography, Peter Buse provides a nice synopsis in Chapter 3 of his book ?The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography?. Preoccupied with the introduction of integral film and the SX-70 in the 1970s, it seems Polaroid did not get series about electronic imaging until the late 1970s/early 1980s. (You start reading about digital imaging (?filminess cameras? or ??electronic cameras?) in Polaroid?s press around the mid 1980s.). Most of the records are at Baker Library at Harvard. > > As for the cost of film versus digital images, you might find it interesting to include the cost of Polaroid ?instant film? as that eliminated two of those drugstore trips and provided more immediate gratification. (When the SX-70 camera was released in 1972 for a retail price of $180; a pack of film with 10 images was $6.90.). Most serious historians of Polaroid consider the overnight Fotomat followed by the 1-hour mini-lab technology that were the main ?killers? of instant photography for consumer use. (The ?nod to the pod? obsession that became gospel during the Polaroid v. Kodak lawsuit also created a stultifying atmosphere within the company that worked against the development of digital technologies?or any other technologies is another big factor.) > > Probably more than you wanted to know about Polaroid but the great stories below got me thinking! > > > Debbie Douglas > > >> On Jul 10, 2020, at 1:33 AM, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote: >> >> It's not quite the same thing, but in the Revised History of Modern Computing (with Paul Ceruzzi, coming soon from MIT Press) we've tried to integrate the history of digital imaging into the history of computing. It seems necessary, not least because digital cameras are computers in disguise (and because the images were stored, edited, and transmitted on more recognizable kinds of computer). The topic comes back in the later discussion of smartphones and device convergence in the final chapter but as a sneak preview here is the subsection ?Digital Cameras? from Chapter 10: The Computer Becomes a Universal Media Device. Would be happy to hear of any errors while there is still time to fix them?. >> >> Tom >> >> Digital Cameras >> Television worked by dividing a picture into a grid of dots. Even the term ?pixel? (for picture element) which we now associate with computer equipment originated in the television equipment industry. Back in 1945, working on the ?First Draft? EDVAC design, John von Neumann was fascinated by the idea potential of the iconoscope, an electronic tube used in early television cameras, as a storage device. >> In television, however, intensity of each dot was transmitted as an analog value. Turning pixels into numbers was the job of the frame grabber. This captured a single frame from a video input and turned it into a bitmap image. Frame grabbers were used for video production work and were built into specialist video manipulation hardware to create special effects. A related piece of hardware, the gen lock, synchronized computer displays with video image so that computer generate titles and graphics could be added to videos. These devices were expensive, purchased mostly by video production companies to liven up music videos, advertisements, and wedding footage with titles and special effects.[1] >> Today digital video sensors are everywhere. The crucial development was the charged coupled device (CCD), which combined a semiconductor with a light sensitive layer. Fairchild Semiconductor began to sell a 100x100 light sensor in 1974. That provided the basis for an experimental digital camera at Kodak. When light was focused onto the sensor matrix numbers could be read off the chip. Space missions had a particular need for tiny and reliable digital imaging technologies, creating pictures that could be beamed back to Earth. Techniques had been developed back in the 1960s, original for spy satellites, to expose film and then scan it and transmit images digitally back to earth. Being able to take high quality digital still images directly was much simpler and faster. By 1978 a KH-11 spy satellite was using a CCD with, reportedly, an 800x800 resolution. <>[2] The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1986, used a similar size mirror but gave much higher resolution CCD sensors a very public showcase.[3] >> Back on earth, the first big market was for cheaper ?one dimensional? sensors able to scan a single line. Flatbed scanners and fax machines moved the scanner across against the page to capture the entire image gradually. (A similar digital scanning approach had been pioneered with the photo diode cameras of the Viking Mars landers. It worked well, albeit slowly, as neither the platform nor the landscape was moving). Commercializing digital cameras took longer, because many more sensor elements were needed to capture an entire image at once. The technology made a brief consumer appearance in 1987, in the PXL-2000 ?PixelVision? camera produced by toy company Fisher Price. It recorded highly pixelated video onto standard audio cassettes, later becoming a favorite of hipster artists.[4] CCDs were also used in some of the analog camcorders of the 1980s, bulky devices that combined a video cassette recorder and a television camera into a single box. >> By the mid-1990s higher resolution sensors and the chips and memories to deal with the large files they produced were becoming affordable. They made their way into two related kinds of product. Digital video cameras could store one hour of crisp, high resolution footage on special tapes as 13 gigabytes of computer data. Computers fitted with a Firewire connection (also used by early iPods) could extract digital video, edit it, and write the results back to the tape without any loss of quality. >> The other kind of digital camera was patterned after traditional cameras. Camera manufacturers competed on ?megapixels? ? how many millions of pixels the sensor element handled. At the end of the 1990s most had just one or two megapixels, capturing images that looked good on screen but would appear jagged when printed out. >> Because they were optimized for still images, which took less space than video, most still cameras used chip-based flash memory cards rather than tape (though some early models used floppy disks or CDs). Flash retained data when power was turned off but could be quickly and selectively overwritten. It was introduced by Toshiba in 1987, finding early applications in computers to store configuration settings for computers and to hold BIOS code in an easily updatable form. The cards used in early digital cameras could store only a few megabytes but, as with other memory chips, their capacities rose into the gigabytes as transistors shrank. Because it was very compact and power efficient, high capacity flash memory capacities was a crucial enabling technology for the creation of new portable devices. Flash memories able to store hundreds of gigabytes ultimately replaced hard disk storage in most PCs, though this took longer than expected because magnetic disk capacities increased even faster than chip densities during the 1990s and early-2000s. >> The digital cameras of the late-1990s were bulky, had small screens, and would deplete their batteries and fill their memory cards after taking just a few dozen images. Compared to the models available even a few years later they were terrible, but the relevant comparison was with consumer film cameras. Conventional film cartridges held only 24 or 36 pictures. Seeing those pictures cost at least ten dollars and usually took three trips to a drugstore, to buy the film, to drop it off for processing, and to collect the prints. Pocket sized camera forced users to squint through a plastic window, giving a vague idea of what might appear in a photograph. Larger, more expensive single lens reflex cameras took better pictures and showed whether an image was in focus. Little wonder that most people took out their camera only for vacation trips and special occasions. >> Even the most primitive digital cameras enabled new photographic practices Digital cameras caught on fastest for business that needed to shoot images and use them immediately, for real estate sales, corporate newsletters, or identity cards. Their direct competition was Polaroid instant cameras, which had high running costs and mostly took small pictures. As prices dropped and picture quality improved, consumers began to buy digital cameras, and to take far more pictures than ever before. Vacations were now captured with hundreds of pictures, not just one or two films. Teenagers could mimic the practices of fashion photographers by taking a few dozen shots of a friend and using the best one. Since the early 2000s, daily life has been visually recorded on a scale unmatched in earlier history, a phenomenon known as ?ubiquitous photography.?[5] >> Early memory cards held only a few megabytes, needing aggressive compression to hold even a dozen images. That was provided by a new image format, the JPEG (named for the Joint Photographic Experts Group), a cousin to the MP3 format that used a fractal compression algorithm to achieve similarly impressive reductions in file size. In 1991, when libjpeg, a widely used open source code module for JPEG compression, was released, it took a powerful PC to create these files. By the late 1990s the computer power could be put into a camera, though early models would be tied up for several seconds processing each image. Once the memory card was full, users moved the files onto a computer. Digital photography was another of the practices made possible by the arrival of PCs with voluminous hard drives as a standard feature of middle-class households. People who wanted to print out their photographs could still go to the drug store, or purchase an affordable little color printer, but photographs were viewed more and more on screens. They were shared with friends and family by email, or by copying them onto a zip disk or burning onto a CD rather than by handing over an envelope full of duplicate prints. >> Screens got bigger, images sharper, battery life longer, camera bodies smaller, and sensors better. By the early 2000s sensors with a dozen megapixels were common, enough that the image quality would be limited primarily by the quality of the camera?s optics. Cameras began to use a different sensor technology, called CMOS after the chip technology it is based on. CMOS imaging was prototyped at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a centerpiece of the US space probe program. The new technology produced camera sensors cheaper, smaller, and lower powered than those based on CCDs. By 2006 a camera costing a few hundred dollars would fit in a trouser pocket, take hundreds of images without changing a battery or a memory card, and offer better image quality than any compact film-based consumer camera. Improvements under low light conditions, taking photographs at night or indoors without a flash, were particularly dramatic. >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Members > On Behalf Of Brian Randell >> Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2020 5:22 AM >> To: Sigcis > >> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] How the Digital Camera Transformed Our Concept of History >> >> Hi: >> >> "How the Digital Camera Transformed Our Concept of History" is the title of a paper by Allison Marsh that has just been published by IEEE Spectrum. >> >> It starts: >> >> > For an inventor, the main challenge might be technical, but sometimes it?s timing that determines success. Steven Sasson had the technical talent but developed his prototype for an all-digital camera a couple of decades too early. >> > >> > A CCD from Fairchild was used in Kodak?s first digital camera >> > prototype It was 1974, and Sasson, a young electrical engineer at Eastman Kodak Co., in Rochester, N.Y., was looking for a use for Fairchild Semiconductor?s new type 201 charge-coupled device. His boss suggested that he try using the 100-by-100-pixel CCD to digitize an image. So Sasson built a digital camera to capture the photo, store it, and then play it back on another device. >> > >> > Sasson?s camera was a kluge of components. He salvaged the lens and exposure mechanism from a Kodak XL55 movie camera to serve as his camera?s optical piece. The CCD would capture the image, which would then be run through a Motorola analog-to-digital converter, stored temporarily in a DRAM array of a dozen 4,096-bit chips, and then transferred to audio tape running on a portable Memodyne data cassette recorder. The camera weighed 3.6 kilograms, ran on 16 AA batteries, and was about the size of a toaster. >> > >> > After working on his camera on and off for a year, Sasson decided on 12 December 1975 that he was ready to take his first picture. Lab technician Joy Marshall agreed to pose. The photo took about 23 seconds to record onto the audio tape. But when Sasson played it back on the lab computer, the image was a mess?although the camera could render shades that were clearly dark or light, anything in between appeared as static. So Marshall?s hair looked okay, but her face was missing. She took one look and said, ?Needs work.? >> > >> > Sasson continued to improve the camera, eventually capturing impressive images of different people and objects around the lab. He and his supervisor, Garreth Lloyd, received U.S. Patent No. 4,131,919 for an electronic still camera in 1978, but the project never went beyond the prototype stage. Sasson estimated that image resolution wouldn?t be competitive with chemical photography until sometime between 1990 and 1995, and that was enough for Kodak to mothball the project. >> >> The article ends: >> >> > Digital cameras also changed how historians conduct their research For >> > professional historians, the advent of digital photography has had other important implications. Lately, there?s been a lot of discussion about how digital cameras in general, and smartphones in particular, have changed the practice of historical research. At the 2020 annual meeting of the American Historical Association, for instance, Ian Milligan, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, gave a talk in which he revealed that 96 percent of historians have no formal training in digital photography and yet the vast majority use digital photographs extensively in their work. About 40 percent said they took more than 2,000 digital photographs of archival material in their latest project. W. Patrick McCray of the University of California, Santa Barbara, told a writer with The Atlantic that he?d accumulated 77 gigabytes of digitized documents and imagery for his latest book project [an aspect of which he recently wrote about for Spectrum]. >> > >> > So let?s recap: In the last 45 years, Sasson took his first digital picture, digital cameras were brought into the mainstream and then embedded into another pivotal technology?the cellphone and then the smartphone?and people began taking photos with abandon, for any and every reason. And in the last 25 years, historians went from thinking that looking at a photograph within the past year was a significant marker of engagement with the past to themselves compiling gigabytes of archival images in pursuit of their research. >> > So are those 1.4 trillion digital photographs that we?ll collectively take this year a part of history? I think it helps to consider how they fit into the overall historical narrative. A century ago, nobody, not even a science fiction writer, predicted that someone would take a photo of a parking lot to remember where they?d left their car. A century from now, who knows if people will still be doing the same thing. In that sense, even the most mundane digital photograph can serve as both a personal memory and a piece of the historical record. >> >> Full story at >> >> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/how-the-digital-camera-transformed-our-concept-of-history >> >> Cheers >> >> Brian Randell >> >> ? >> >> School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG >> EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 >> URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> [1] Commodore?s Amiga was well suited to video production, thanks to high resolution video modes that functioned well with inexpensive genlock and frame grabber hardware. Maher, The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, ch. 5. >> [2] On the history of spy satellites, see William E Burrows, Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security (New York: Random House, 1987). >> [3] R W Smith and J N Tatarewicz, "Replacing a Technology: The Large Space Telescope and CCDs," Proceedings of the IEEE 73, no. 7 (July 1985):1221-1235. >> [4] Chris O'Falt, "Pixelvision: How a Failed '80s Fisher-Price Toy Became One of Auteurs' Favorite '90s Tools", IndieWire, 2018, https://www.indiewire.com/2018/08/pixelvision-pxl-2000-fisher-price-toy-experimental-film-camera-lincoln-center-series-1201991348/ . >> [5] Martin Hand, Ubiquitous Photography (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2012). >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > Deborah G. Douglas, PhD ? Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society ? Room N51-209 ? 265 Massachusetts Avenue ? Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ? ddouglas at mit.edu ? 617-253-1766 telephone ? 617-253-8994 facsimile ? http://mitmuseum.mit.edu ? she/her/hers > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From racquelg at uci.edu Tue Aug 4 17:36:45 2020 From: racquelg at uci.edu (Racquel M Gonzales) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2020 17:36:45 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] CFP of possible interest: Blackness @ Play: Communities, Culture, Creativity Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Wanted to share a special issue call that might be of interest for those researching Black gamers/gaming and histories of Black figures in computer/VG play histories: ******* *Call for Papers: Blackness @ Play: Communities, Culture, Creativity* Special Issue of the *American Journal of Play* Guest Editor: TreaAndrea M. Russworm, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Deadlines: 300-word abstract: September 15, 2020 Full papers, if accepted: December 31, 2020 (articles 6,500 to 8,000 words; other works vary in length) Queries and submission: russworm at umass.edu Psychologists, educators, cultural theorists, and activists have long-argued that play and playfulness are essential tools of everyday survival that open up pathways for cognition, creativity, criticality, and collective joy. For example, writing in 1897 W.E.B. Du Bois posited that although amusement and play were not commonly framed as central to Black health and wellness, ?at all times and in all places, the manner, method, and extent of a people?s recreation is of vast importance to their welfare.? The idea of a Black ?people?s recreation??of ?recreation for the people??remains full of potential. Despite this potential, nearly 125 years later scholarly discussions of play in Black communities remains underemphasized, just as play scholarship and theories of play have been plagued by practices of exclusion and racial bias. The politics of play remain real and widespread, as American police have shot and killed Black children who were playing; viral videos have spread on social media of Black pool parties and birthdays interrupted by gatekeeping neighbors making 9-1-1 calls; in schools, where Black children have been detained during playtimes like recess, play can been seen as a luxury of whiteness; Black adults are often harassed and actively excluded from mainstream fan communities and other adult play spaces. Surely, *who *plays and *what *constitutes play has always been political, contested, and ever-connected to what Saidiya Hartman calls ?the afterlife of slavery.? And yet, the ingenuity of Black people at play has always evinced a resiliency that includes but also stretches beyond lived experiences with state-sanctioned violence and racism. This special issue of the *American Journal of Play* seeks essays, interviews, and other creative and scholarly perspectives on past, present, and emerging examples of the intersections between Black culture and play. Just as the forms, methods, and tools of Black play are infinite, so too is the state of blackness at play expansive. As such, we seek a range of works that depict and explore the dynamic nature of Black people at play?from Kenneth and Mamie Clark?s doll studies, linguistic play, double dutch, and histories of playing the dozens, to DJ D-Nice?s Club Quarantine dance parties, *Black Panther* Cosplay, Black gaming enclaves, and the playful and critical interventions of Black digital content creators. We welcome a wide range of thought-provoking and timely material on play in Black culture from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Possible topic areas might include: - the politics and intersections of ?playing while Black? - oral folklore and word play traditions (hip-hop, rap, rhyme games, slam poetry, jokes,) - film, television, and other media representations of Black play - new critical perspectives on the Doll Test and Black childhood play development - science fiction, Afrofuturism, and worldmaking - digital play communities (gamers, streamers, Black Twitter, gifs/meme culture, etc.) - cosplayers, LARPers, and other crossover forms of Black child/adult play - Black players of board games, table-top games, and roleplaying games like D&D - Black toy makers; Black memorabilia collectors of toys, dolls, board and card games, video games, and other playthings For special issue consideration, please submit 300-word abstracts to russworm at umass.edu no later than *September 15, 2020*. We remain mindful of the complicated ways in which COVID-19, anti-Black racism, and civil disobedience may impact potential contributors. We encourage interested scholars requiring additional time or accommodations due to these factors to contact the guest editor for this issue before the deadline. The?*American Journal of Play*, the oldest peer-reviewed journal devoted to play, is written in a straightforward style for a wide readership of game and play scholars, educators, policy makers, museum and industry professionals, public health workers, and others who strive to understand the impact and importance of play in the world. Find out more at www.journalofplay.org. Style guidelines can be found at www.journalofplay.org/authors/style-guide Best, Racquel Racquel M. Gonzales, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) Research Historian Assistant Editor, *American Journal of Play* *The Strong* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thomas.haigh at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 12:06:54 2020 From: thomas.haigh at gmail.com (thomas.haigh at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 14:06:54 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] FW: teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching Message-ID: <000e01d66b5b$95a087d0$c0e19770$@gmail.com> May be of interest to people preparing online courses? Tom ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gabriella Coleman, Dr. > Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2020, 13:08 Subject: [Air-L] teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org > Hi AoiR If you, like us, are about to enter a year of teaching like no other, and you are hard at work re-thinking *everything* we might have a helpful resource : https://hackcur.io/ Hack_Curio is a video exhibit about hackers that covers a range of topics that precipitate out of hacking: disinformation; the visual culture of the last 40 years; media stereotypes; disability and technology; the economics of information; the history of computing; surveillance; whistle blowing and leaking; cyberpunk; gaming; equity and inclusion in computing and silicon valley...Each video comes paired with a paragraph or two written by a scholar, hacker, or journalist. The videos and entries are short but also try to a make a point or two which your students can learn from, take apart, rework, or expand on. By Sept we should have 60 entries. You can check out the full list here https://hackcur.io/the-list/ or explore the site by category or tags. If you use it, do tell us how it worked! Although there are more entries being written, we are taking a small break from soliciting entries so we can focus on putting together our syllabi but if you are interested in writing for us, please do reach out after September 15th. We have a collection of 100 + clips on all sorts of topics and plan on publishing for the next few years. If you have other digital-type resources you love and that work well in the classroom, we'd love to hear about them as well. A few others I really like are: The Eugenics Archive https://eugenicsarchive.ca/ A is for Another: A Dictionary of AI https://aisforanother.net/ Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence https://atozofai.withgoogle.com/intl/en-US/ Critical Media Project: https://criticalmediaproject.org/ All the best, Biella (along with Chris, Paula, and Nathan) _______________________________________________ The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk Wed Aug 5 12:47:37 2020 From: brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 19:47:37 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen Message-ID: Hi: With great sadness I pass on this announcement from today?s issue of ACM Tech News: > Frances E. Allen, First Female Recipient of ACM A.M. Turing Award, Dies at 88 > IBM Research Blog > August 5, 2020 > > Frances Allen, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to be awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Award, has died at 88. A pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms, Allen?s achievements in inter-procedural analysis and automatic parallelization continue to straddle the leading edge of compiler research. She served as IBM?s language liaison with the U.S. National Security Agency, helping to design and construct the high-level Alpha code-breaking language, which could generate new alphabets beyond system-defined alphabets. Allen designed and built the machine-independent, language-independent optimizing component of the Experimental Compiler for IBM's Advanced Computing System. An ACM Fellow, Allen also was a fellow of IEEE and of the Computer History Museum, was inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame, and and received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association for Women in Computing. I have happy memories of working alongside, and being highly impressed by, Fran Allen first at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, and then with the ACS Project in California, in the mid-1960s. Many years later, as a member of the Alan Turing Award Committee, I had the privilege of being involved with her receiving the Alan Turing Award. Her work with John Cocke at Yorktown Heights on optimising compilers was truly ground-breaking, an important early stage of a brilliant 45-year career at IBM, very appropriately marked by her Turing Award. Let me encourage everyone who is not familiar with it to read the ACM Turing Award page about her - it is at https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/allen_1012327.cfm Kind regards Brian Randell ? School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html From kimon.keramidas at nyu.edu Wed Aug 5 13:51:14 2020 From: kimon.keramidas at nyu.edu (Kimon Keramidas) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 16:51:14 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching In-Reply-To: <000e01d66b5b$95a087d0$c0e19770$@gmail.com> References: <000e01d66b5b$95a087d0$c0e19770$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks Tom, this is perfect for my Citizenship in the Digital Age course this fall! Here it is if anyone is interested: http://bit.ly/Citizenship-in-the-Digital-Age Cheers, Kimon Kimon Keramidas, Ph.D. Clinical Associate Professor, XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement Affiliated Faculty, Program in International Relations Pronouns: He/His New York University 14 University Place New York, NY 10003 Co-Director - ITMO University International Digital Humanities Research Center Co-Director - OutHistory Co-Founder - The Journal of Interactive Technology and?Pedagogy Co-Founder - NYCDH T @kimonizer W http://kimonkeramidas.com The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads Exhibition The Interface Experience: Forty Years of Personal Computing Exhibition The Interface Experience: A User?s Guide Winner of the 2016 Innovation in Print Design Award from the American Alliance of Museums Buy Book > On Aug 5, 2020, at 3:06 PM, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote: > > May be of interest to people preparing online courses? > > Tom > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: Gabriella Coleman, Dr. > > Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2020, 13:08 > Subject: [Air-L] teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching > To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org > > > > Hi AoiR > > If you, like us, are about to enter a year of teaching like no other, > and you are hard at work re-thinking *everything* we might have a > helpful resource : https://hackcur.io/ > > Hack_Curio is a video exhibit about hackers that covers a range of > topics that precipitate out of hacking: disinformation; the visual > culture of the last 40 years; media stereotypes; disability and > technology; the economics of information; the history of computing; > surveillance; whistle blowing and leaking; cyberpunk; gaming; equity and > inclusion in computing and silicon valley...Each video comes paired with > a paragraph or two written by a scholar, hacker, or journalist. The > videos and entries are short but also try to a make a point or two which > your students can learn from, take apart, rework, or expand on. By Sept > we should have 60 entries. > > You can check out the full list here https://hackcur.io/the-list/ or > explore the site by category or tags. > > If you use it, do tell us how it worked! > > Although there are more entries being written, we are taking a small > break from soliciting entries so we can focus on putting together our > syllabi but if you are interested in writing for us, please do reach out > after September 15th. We have a collection of 100 + clips on all sorts > of topics and plan on publishing for the next few years. > > If you have other digital-type resources you love and that work well in > the classroom, we'd love to hear about them as well. > > A few others I really like are: > > The Eugenics Archive https://eugenicsarchive.ca/ > > A is for Another: A Dictionary of AI https://aisforanother.net/ > > Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence > https://atozofai.withgoogle.com/intl/en-US/ > > Critical Media Project: https://criticalmediaproject.org/ > > All the best, > > Biella (along with Chris, Paula, and Nathan) > > > > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ > 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 https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.sigcis.org_pipermail_members-2Dsigcis.org_&d=DwICAg&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=8lhfdn1CVAMK_u4AbH6K2X3Rh95e5EvJanbOcfGalCo&m=DfCkzhT6GeaAILpRMAOPAdqae8IBviFiQuvLelMTjCo&s=7LFaV3RNUWKo1bhA0dueZ1Lcpi_8sPJeKIOniApoMoY&e= and you can change your subscription options at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.sigcis.org_listinfo.cgi_members-2Dsigcis.org&d=DwICAg&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=8lhfdn1CVAMK_u4AbH6K2X3Rh95e5EvJanbOcfGalCo&m=DfCkzhT6GeaAILpRMAOPAdqae8IBviFiQuvLelMTjCo&s=imNmJOU_W88-n4UozluIOFjZhUbazMV4JGctC2jpj6Q&e= -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Ramesh.Subramanian at quinnipiac.edu Wed Aug 5 14:34:01 2020 From: Ramesh.Subramanian at quinnipiac.edu (Subramanian, Ramesh Prof.) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 21:34:01 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] FW: teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching In-Reply-To: <000e01d66b5b$95a087d0$c0e19770$@gmail.com> References: <000e01d66b5b$95a087d0$c0e19770$@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Tom and Gabriella, This is a great resource! Thanks for sharing! -Ramesh One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.? ? Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D. Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Computer Information Systems Quinnipiac University Hamden, CT 06518. Email: ramesh.subramanian at quinnipiac.edu Web: https://www.qu.edu/student-resources/directory/staff.23345.html & Fellow, Yale Law School - Information Society Project New Haven, CT 06511 Email: ramesh.subramanian at yale.edu Web: https://www.law.yale.edu/ramesh-subramanian ________________________________ From: Members on behalf of thomas.haigh at gmail.com Sent: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 3:06 PM To: 'SIGCIS Listserver' Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] FW: teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching May be of interest to people preparing online courses? Tom ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Gabriella Coleman, Dr. > Date: Wed, Aug 5, 2020, 13:08 Subject: [Air-L] teaching resource on hacking and digital hum resources for teaching To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org > Hi AoiR If you, like us, are about to enter a year of teaching like no other, and you are hard at work re-thinking *everything* we might have a helpful resource : https://hackcur.io/ Hack_Curio is a video exhibit about hackers that covers a range of topics that precipitate out of hacking: disinformation; the visual culture of the last 40 years; media stereotypes; disability and technology; the economics of information; the history of computing; surveillance; whistle blowing and leaking; cyberpunk; gaming; equity and inclusion in computing and silicon valley...Each video comes paired with a paragraph or two written by a scholar, hacker, or journalist. The videos and entries are short but also try to a make a point or two which your students can learn from, take apart, rework, or expand on. By Sept we should have 60 entries. You can check out the full list here https://hackcur.io/the-list/ or explore the site by category or tags. If you use it, do tell us how it worked! Although there are more entries being written, we are taking a small break from soliciting entries so we can focus on putting together our syllabi but if you are interested in writing for us, please do reach out after September 15th. We have a collection of 100 + clips on all sorts of topics and plan on publishing for the next few years. If you have other digital-type resources you love and that work well in the classroom, we'd love to hear about them as well. A few others I really like are: The Eugenics Archive https://eugenicsarchive.ca/ A is for Another: A Dictionary of AI https://aisforanother.net/ Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence https://atozofai.withgoogle.com/intl/en-US/ Critical Media Project: https://criticalmediaproject.org/ All the best, Biella (along with Chris, Paula, and Nathan) _______________________________________________ The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brianberg at gmail.com Thu Aug 6 08:55:45 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2020 08:55:45 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you for this important news. The URL for that story is https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/08/remembering-frances-allen/ She was also named a Computer History Museum Fellow in 2000: https://computerhistory.org/profile/frances-allen/ and she was included in the video used at the start of many CHM events until fairly recently. Brian Berg On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM Brian Randell wrote: > Hi: > > With great sadness I pass on this announcement from today?s issue of ACM > Tech News: > > > Frances E. Allen, First Female Recipient of ACM A.M. Turing Award, Dies > at 88 > > IBM Research Blog > > August 5, 2020 > > > > Frances Allen, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to be > awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Award, has died at 88. A pioneer in compiler > organization and optimization algorithms, Allen?s achievements in > inter-procedural analysis and automatic parallelization continue to > straddle the leading edge of compiler research. She served as IBM?s > language liaison with the U.S. National Security Agency, helping to design > and construct the high-level Alpha code-breaking language, which could > generate new alphabets beyond system-defined alphabets. Allen designed and > built the machine-independent, language-independent optimizing component of > the Experimental Compiler for IBM's Advanced Computing System. An ACM > Fellow, Allen also was a fellow of IEEE and of the Computer History Museum, > was inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame, and > and received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association for Women > in Computing. > > I have happy memories of working alongside, and being highly impressed by, > Fran Allen first at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown > Heights, and then with the ACS Project in California, in the mid-1960s. > Many years later, as a member of the Alan Turing Award Committee, I had the > privilege of being involved with her receiving the Alan Turing Award. Her > work with John Cocke at Yorktown Heights on optimising compilers was truly > ground-breaking, an important early stage of a brilliant 45-year career at > IBM, very appropriately marked by her Turing Award. > > Let me encourage everyone who is not familiar with it to read the ACM > Turing Award page about her - it is at > https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/allen_1012327.cfm > > Kind regards > > Brian Randell > > > ? > > School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, > Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG > EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 > URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From burtgrad at aol.com Thu Aug 6 10:04:16 2020 From: burtgrad at aol.com (burtgrad at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2020 13:04:16 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <045e01d66c13$9eacc6f0$dc0654d0$@aol.com> I think that this story is correct, but I may have a faulty memory. Anyway, let me share a story that doesn?t seem to be included anywhere in Fran Allen?s biography. Some time after I went to work for IBM in 1960, I believe that Fran was working for IBM in a small NY City research group and I was working in White Plains in the Data Processing Division for Bob Bemer. I was working on various business technical applications and somehow I was connected to Fran to ask her to work on the problem of how to cut the cloth for men?s suits so as to have the least waste material for different men?s sizes. I?ve forgotten who the original client was, but it was a major suit maker in the New York City area. I don?t remember what mathematical techniques she used, but the solution was quite elegant, was useful to the client, and had far broader use for other cloth cutting applications. She was a pleasure to work with, and really pushed us to accurately define the problem for her. Burt Grad From: Members On Behalf Of Brian Berg Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2020 11:56 AM To: SIGCIS Listserver Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen Thank you for this important news. The URL for that story is https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/08/remembering-frances-allen/ She was also named a Computer History Museum Fellow in 2000: https://computerhistory.org/profile/frances-allen/ and she was included in the video used at the start of many CHM events until fairly recently. Brian Berg On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM Brian Randell > wrote: Hi: With great sadness I pass on this announcement from today?s issue of ACM Tech News: > Frances E. Allen, First Female Recipient of ACM A.M. Turing Award, Dies at 88 > IBM Research Blog > August 5, 2020 > > Frances Allen, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to be awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Award, has died at 88. A pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms, Allen?s achievements in inter-procedural analysis and automatic parallelization continue to straddle the leading edge of compiler research. She served as IBM?s language liaison with the U.S. National Security Agency, helping to design and construct the high-level Alpha code-breaking language, which could generate new alphabets beyond system-defined alphabets. Allen designed and built the machine-independent, language-independent optimizing component of the Experimental Compiler for IBM's Advanced Computing System. An ACM Fellow, Allen also was a fellow of IEEE and of the Computer History Museum, was inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame, and and received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association for Women in Computing. I have happy memories of working alongside, and being highly impressed by, Fran Allen first at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, and then with the ACS Project in California, in the mid-1960s. Many years later, as a member of the Alan Turing Award Committee, I had the privilege of being involved with her receiving the Alan Turing Award. Her work with John Cocke at Yorktown Heights on optimising compilers was truly ground-breaking, an important early stage of a brilliant 45-year career at IBM, very appropriately marked by her Turing Award. Let me encourage everyone who is not familiar with it to read the ACM Turing Award page about her - it is at https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/allen_1012327.cfm Kind regards Brian Randell ? School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html _______________________________________________ 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: From ken.strauss at sympatico.ca Thu Aug 6 10:16:32 2020 From: ken.strauss at sympatico.ca (Ken Strauss) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2020 13:16:32 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen In-Reply-To: <045e01d66c13$9eacc6f0$dc0654d0$@aol.com> References: <045e01d66c13$9eacc6f0$dc0654d0$@aol.com> Message-ID: <09a701d66c15$54b80f30$fe282d90$@sympatico.ca> The obituary mentions her work on Alpha for the NSA (possibly in conjunction with development of the IBM 7950?). Are any details of Alpha available? From: Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of burtgrad at aol.com Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2020 1:04 PM To: 'Brian Berg'; 'SIGCIS Listserver' Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen I think that this story is correct, but I may have a faulty memory. Anyway, let me share a story that doesn?t seem to be included anywhere in Fran Allen?s biography. Some time after I went to work for IBM in 1960, I believe that Fran was working for IBM in a small NY City research group and I was working in White Plains in the Data Processing Division for Bob Bemer. I was working on various business technical applications and somehow I was connected to Fran to ask her to work on the problem of how to cut the cloth for men?s suits so as to have the least waste material for different men?s sizes. I?ve forgotten who the original client was, but it was a major suit maker in the New York City area. I don?t remember what mathematical techniques she used, but the solution was quite elegant, was useful to the client, and had far broader use for other cloth cutting applications. She was a pleasure to work with, and really pushed us to accurately define the problem for her. Burt Grad From: Members On Behalf Of Brian Berg Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2020 11:56 AM To: SIGCIS Listserver Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen Thank you for this important news. The URL for that story is https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/08/remembering-frances-allen/ She was also named a Computer History Museum Fellow in 2000: https://computerhistory.org/profile/frances-allen/ and she was included in the video used at the start of many CHM events until fairly recently. Brian Berg On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 12:47 PM Brian Randell wrote: Hi: With great sadness I pass on this announcement from today?s issue of ACM Tech News: > Frances E. Allen, First Female Recipient of ACM A.M. Turing Award, Dies at 88 > IBM Research Blog > August 5, 2020 > > Frances Allen, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to be awarded the ACM A.M. Turing Award, has died at 88. A pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms, Allen?s achievements in inter-procedural analysis and automatic parallelization continue to straddle the leading edge of compiler research. She served as IBM?s language liaison with the U.S. National Security Agency, helping to design and construct the high-level Alpha code-breaking language, which could generate new alphabets beyond system-defined alphabets. Allen designed and built the machine-independent, language-independent optimizing component of the Experimental Compiler for IBM's Advanced Computing System. An ACM Fellow, Allen also was a fellow of IEEE and of the Computer History Museum, was inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame, and and received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association for Women in Computing. I have happy memories of working alongside, and being highly impressed by, Fran Allen first at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, and then with the ACS Project in California, in the mid-1960s. Many years later, as a member of the Alan Turing Award Committee, I had the privilege of being involved with her receiving the Alan Turing Award. Her work with John Cocke at Yorktown Heights on optimising compilers was truly ground-breaking, an important early stage of a brilliant 45-year career at IBM, very appropriately marked by her Turing Award. Let me encourage everyone who is not familiar with it to read the ACM Turing Award page about her - it is at https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/allen_1012327.cfm Kind regards Brian Randell ? School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html _______________________________________________ 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: From brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk Sat Aug 8 02:46:12 2020 From: brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell) Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2020 09:46:12 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: [IP] Remembering Frances E. Allen | IBM Research Blog References: Message-ID: Hi: A very nice tribute to Fran has just been posted to the IBM Research Blog > https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/08/remembering-frances-allen/ Cheers Brian ? School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html From brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk Mon Aug 10 13:42:26 2020 From: brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell) Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2020 20:42:26 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Frances Allen, Who Helped Hardware Understand Software, Dies at 88 References: Message-ID: <4556E618-DBDC-400C-B5B4-A9CEA03E4D08@newcastle.ac.uk> Hi: The New York Times? excellent obituary for Fran is at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/technology/frances-allen-dead.html Cheers Brian ? School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html From treese at acm.org Mon Aug 10 18:09:22 2020 From: treese at acm.org (Win Treese) Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2020 21:09:22 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen In-Reply-To: <09a701d66c15$54b80f30$fe282d90$@sympatico.ca> References: <045e01d66c13$9eacc6f0$dc0654d0$@aol.com> <09a701d66c15$54b80f30$fe282d90$@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <310AD269-C6E2-4E1C-9A93-1E52CF909B37@acm.org> > On Aug 6, 2020, at 1:16 PM, Ken Strauss wrote: > > The obituary mentions her work on Alpha for the NSA (possibly in conjunction with development of the IBM 7950?). Are any details of Alpha available? Hi, Ken. Alpha was a language on the IBM 7950 (Harvest) for the NSA?s use in writing cryptanalysis applications. Some links: - The Wikipedia article on Harvest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest gives a little context. - A declassified 1964 paper by Snyder, "History of NSA [National Security Agency] General-Purpose Electronic Digital Computers? has a little about Alpha (https://www.governmentattic.org/3docs/NSA-HGPEDC_1964.pdf) - It looks like Allen gave a talk at the Computer History Museum in 2000, but the page about it is just publicity for it: https://computerhistory.org/events/stretchharvest-compiler/ Not a lot that?s easy to get to, however. Best, Win From ken.strauss at sympatico.ca Mon Aug 10 19:10:55 2020 From: ken.strauss at sympatico.ca (Ken Strauss) Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2020 22:10:55 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen In-Reply-To: <310AD269-C6E2-4E1C-9A93-1E52CF909B37@acm.org> References: <045e01d66c13$9eacc6f0$dc0654d0$@aol.com> <09a701d66c15$54b80f30$fe282d90$@sympatico.ca> <310AD269-C6E2-4E1C-9A93-1E52CF909B37@acm.org> Message-ID: <013e01d66f84$a68fdaa0$f3af8fe0$@sympatico.ca> Thanks. Unfortunately those documents are largely non-technical. It would be great to find the "NSA-produced ALPHA Language Technical Report that was issued in June 1960" mentioned in your second link. > -----Original Message----- > From: Win Treese [mailto:treese at acm.org] > Sent: Monday, August 10, 2020 9:09 PM > To: Ken Strauss > Cc: SIGCIS Listserver > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] In Memoriam - Fran Allen > > > > > On Aug 6, 2020, at 1:16 PM, Ken Strauss wrote: > > > > The obituary mentions her work on Alpha for the NSA (possibly in > conjunction with development of the IBM 7950?). Are any details of Alpha > available? > > Hi, Ken. > > Alpha was a language on the IBM 7950 (Harvest) for the NSA's use in writing > cryptanalysis applications. > > Some links: > > - The Wikipedia article on Harvest: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest gives a little context. > > - A declassified 1964 paper by Snyder, "History of NSA [National Security > Agency] General-Purpose Electronic Digital Computers" has a little about > Alpha > (https://www.governmentattic.org/3docs/NSA-HGPEDC_1964.pdf) > > - It looks like Allen gave a talk at the Computer History Museum in 2000, > but > the page about it is just publicity for it: > https://computerhistory.org/events/stretchharvest-compiler/ > > Not a lot that's easy to get to, however. > > Best, > > Win From spertus at mills.edu Wed Aug 12 10:06:01 2020 From: spertus at mills.edu (Ellen Spertus) Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2020 10:06:01 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? Message-ID: According to the popular computer architecture textbook *Computer Organization and Design *by Turing Award winners John Hennessy and David Patterson: The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the "Top 10 List" of the *David > Letterman Late Show* on television. > I have been unable to verify this. The bug was reported in October 1994 and remained in the news until early 1995. I could find nothing relevant in the Top Ten List Archive for late 1994 or early 1995 . In early January, there was the Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer , but it has no mention of Intel or math. I did find a Master's thesis that cites Jarrett in saying that "David Letterman included a Pentium? joke in his nightly monologue": Jarrett, Jim. "A Postmortem on the Pentium Processor Crisis." Unpublished > manuscript prepared for lnteleads, 1994. > I cannot find this document, however, and Jim Jarrett passed away in 2012 . There is a satirical Top Ten list : 9.9999973251 - Your old PC is too accurate. > 8.9999163362 - Provides really good alibi when the IRS calls. > 7.9999414610 - Attracted by Intel's new You don't need to know what's > inside ad campaign. > 6.9999831538 - It redefines computing -- and mathematics! > 5.9999835137 - You've always wondered what it would be like to be a > plaintiff. > 4.9999999021 - Current paperweight not big enough. > 3.9998245917 - Takes concept of floating point to a whole new level. > 2.9991523619 - You always round off to the nearest hundred anyway. > 1.9999103517 - Got a great deal from Jet Propulsion Laboratory! > > And the number one reason to buy a Pentium: > 0.9999999998 - It'll probably work! > The same page includes this joke: "You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > Defective Pentium salsa!" (David Letterman) > I conclude that David Letterman joked about the Pentium in a monologue (although I have only circumstantial evidence) not in a Top Ten List. This is my first foray into computing history. Please let me know if you have additional information, if my reasoning is unsound, or if I should do anything besides notifying the authors and publisher. (I'm acquainted with David Patterson but would not cold email John Hennessy.) Ellen Spertus Professor of Computer Science -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From abeba.birhane at ucdconnect.ie Wed Aug 12 13:53:52 2020 From: abeba.birhane at ucdconnect.ie (Abeba Birhane) Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2020 21:53:52 +0100 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] CFP - ACM FAccT (formerly ACM FAT*) Message-ID: Dear all, Hope you are keeping safe and well. We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 2021 ACM conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency -- FAccT (formerly known as ACM FAT*) is now open. We welcome scholarship in dialogue with fairness, accountability, and transparency in computational systems, including critical approaches that investigate core assumptions and propose alternative designs, practices, and policies. This year?s conference will take place in the context of a worldwide reckoning with racism and other forms of injustice, in society generally and within the field of computing in particular. Such questions are not only a matter of personal and professional concern, but also a perennial focus of FAccT scholarship. *In this light, we especially welcome attention to insufficiently addressed issues in computing* such as: How do algorithmic systems develop in relation to racism and anti-blackness? How should the field address the problems and opportunities of intersectional perspectives on fairness? What kinds of marginalization are relevant to the concerns of ACM FAccT? How can perspectives and tools from gender/LGBTQ studies, postcolonial studies, indigenous studies, racial and ethnic studies, migration studies, work on disability and other relevant domains inform a broad perspective on how to frame and advance social justice in relation to design of computational systems? Submissions might include (but not limited to) the following areas: - *Algorithm Development* *e.g.* Fairness; Interpretable and explainable models; Data collection and curation - *Data and Algorithm Evaluation* *e.g.* Metrics; Audits; Evaluations - *Applications* *e.g.* NLP; Computer vision; Search engines; Recommender systems; Programming languages; Databases - *Human Factors* *e.g.* Human-computer interaction; Humans-in-the-loop; Information visualization; UX design; Community or participatory-research design - *Privacy and Security* *e.g.* Formal approaches; Privacy-preserving models; Usable privacy and security - *Law and Policy* *e.g.* Organizational governance; Data protection; Non-discrimination; Codes of ethics; Models from historically marginalized perspectives (*e.g.* Global Southern, feminist, communitarian, or Indigenous perspectives) - *Humanistic theory and critique* *e.g.* Interrogating foundational concepts; Bridging critical concepts across fields; Philosophical, moral and ethical analysis - *Social and organizational processes* *e.g.* Algorithms in organizations and institutions; Social, cultural, and historical shaping of algorithmic phenomena; algorithmic impacts on social phenomena - *Community-based approaches* *e.g.* Participatory algorithm design; Community designed and maintained systems; Activism-driven technological change - *Education* *e.g.* Pedagogical approaches, proposals, and experiences in areas of relevance to FAccT We welcome submissions on these topics from a broad set of expertise from a wide variety of disciplines, including computer science, statistics, the humanities, and law. More details can be found here: https://facctconference.org/2021/cfp.html Paper pre-registration: 30 September 2020 Paper submission: 7 October 2020 Notifications: 11 December 2020 Conference: early March 2021 All deadlines are at 11:59 PM anywhere on earth (AoE) on the given date. Questions? Contact the Program Co-chairs: program-chairs at facctconference.org. And stay tuned for updates by following @facctconference on Twitter. Please forward this call to other people or groups you think may be interested. Best wishes, Abeba -- Cognitive Science Ph.D. candidate Complex Software Lab, Lero - The Irish Software Research Centre School of Computer Science and Informatics University College Dublin, Ireland https://abebabirhane.wordpress.com/ t: @Abebab (she/her) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brianberg at gmail.com Thu Aug 13 18:33:36 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 18:33:36 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I recall hearing that David Letterman broadcast myself, and there was a lot of buzz about it afterward as well. I double-checked with Dave Patterson: From: David PATTERSON Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 5:41 PM Subject: Re: Pentium Bug Really in a Letterman Top 10 List? To: Brian Berg Yes. I heard it myself. Dave On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:25 PM Brian Berg wrote: > Dave, > > Your 1999 edition of *Computer organization and design: the > hardware/software interface* states on p. 306: "The Pentium > floating-point divide bug even made the 'Top 10 List" of the David > Letterman Late Show on television." > > This does not seem to be included at > https://www.oocities.org/jaylipp/Letterman/topten99.html > Was this an accurate statement? > > Thanks, Brian Berg > On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 10:06 AM Ellen Spertus wrote: > According to the popular computer architecture textbook *Computer > Organization and Design *by Turing Award winners John Hennessy and David > Patterson: > > The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the "Top 10 List" of the *David >> Letterman Late Show* on television. >> > > I have been unable to verify this. The bug was reported in October 1994 > and remained in the news until early 1995. I could find nothing relevant in > the Top Ten List Archive for late 1994 > or early 1995 > . In early January, there > was the Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer > , > but it has no mention of Intel or math. > > I did find a Master's thesis > > that cites Jarrett in saying that "David Letterman included a Pentium? > joke in his nightly monologue": > > Jarrett, Jim. "A Postmortem on the Pentium Processor Crisis." Unpublished >> manuscript prepared for lnteleads, 1994. >> > > I cannot find this document, however, and Jim Jarrett passed away in 2012 > > . > > There is a satirical Top Ten list > : > > 9.9999973251 - Your old PC is too accurate. >> 8.9999163362 - Provides really good alibi when the IRS calls. >> 7.9999414610 - Attracted by Intel's new You don't need to know what's >> inside ad campaign. >> 6.9999831538 - It redefines computing -- and mathematics! >> 5.9999835137 - You've always wondered what it would be like to be a >> plaintiff. >> 4.9999999021 - Current paperweight not big enough. >> 3.9998245917 - Takes concept of floating point to a whole new level. >> 2.9991523619 - You always round off to the nearest hundred anyway. >> 1.9999103517 - Got a great deal from Jet Propulsion Laboratory! >> >> And the number one reason to buy a Pentium: >> 0.9999999998 - It'll probably work! >> > > The same page > includes this joke: > > "You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? >> Defective Pentium salsa!" (David Letterman) >> > > I conclude that David Letterman joked about the Pentium in a monologue > (although I have only circumstantial evidence) not in a Top Ten List. > > This is my first foray into computing history. Please let me know if you > have additional information, if my reasoning is unsound, or if I should do > anything besides notifying the authors and publisher. (I'm acquainted with > David Patterson but would not cold email John Hennessy.) > > Ellen Spertus > Professor of Computer Science > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From bernardgeoghegan2010 at u.northwestern.edu Thu Aug 13 23:58:51 2020 From: bernardgeoghegan2010 at u.northwestern.edu (Bernard Geoghegan) Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 08:58:51 +0200 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F90C362-DA6A-45E2-BFEA-AF2A296324C1@u.northwestern.edu> Hi Ellen, Perhaps ask CBS archives for the footage? I?ve had some luck getting NBC archives to pull some pretty obscure archival footage and furnish copies for manageable educational rates (i.e. reduced corporate rates, which is nonetheless substantially more than many other archives, like a few hundred bucks). I think Letterman was at CBS by then, and they might well do the same. I have it in my mind that maybe Letterman had his own production company? If so, they might have the footage instead or as well? Best, b -- Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media Chair of the UG Assessment Board, Digital Culture www.bernardg.com Department of Digital Humanities King's College London The Strand Building Room S3.08 WC2R 2LS Office: +44 (0)20 7848 4750 From: Members on behalf of Brian Berg Date: Friday, 14 August 2020 at 03:33 To: SIGCIS Listserver Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? I recall hearing that David Letterman broadcast myself, and there was a lot of buzz about it afterward as well. I double-checked with Dave Patterson: From: David PATTERSON Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 5:41 PM Subject: Re: Pentium Bug Really in a Letterman Top 10 List? To: Brian Berg Yes. I heard it myself. Dave On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:25 PM Brian Berg wrote: Dave, Your 1999 edition of Computer organization and design: the hardware/software interface states on p. 306: "The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the 'Top 10 List" of the David Letterman Late Show on television." This does not seem to be included at https://www.oocities.org/jaylipp/Letterman/topten99.html Was this an accurate statement? Thanks, Brian Berg On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 10:06 AM Ellen Spertus wrote: According to the popular computer architecture textbook Computer Organization and Design by Turing Award winners John Hennessy and David Patterson: The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the "Top 10 List" of the David Letterman Late Show on television. I have been unable to verify this. The bug was reported in October 1994 and remained in the news until early 1995. I could find nothing relevant in the Top Ten List Archive for late 1994 or early 1995. In early January, there was the Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer, but it has no mention of Intel or math. I did find a Master's thesis that cites Jarrett in saying that "David Letterman included a Pentium? joke in his nightly monologue": Jarrett, Jim. "A Postmortem on the Pentium Processor Crisis." Unpublished manuscript prepared for lnteleads, 1994. I cannot find this document, however, and Jim Jarrett passed away in 2012. There is a satirical Top Ten list: 9.9999973251 - Your old PC is too accurate. 8.9999163362 - Provides really good alibi when the IRS calls. 7.9999414610 - Attracted by Intel's new You don't need to know what's inside ad campaign. 6.9999831538 - It redefines computing -- and mathematics! 5.9999835137 - You've always wondered what it would be like to be a plaintiff. 4.9999999021 - Current paperweight not big enough. 3.9998245917 - Takes concept of floating point to a whole new level. 2.9991523619 - You always round off to the nearest hundred anyway. 1.9999103517 - Got a great deal from Jet Propulsion Laboratory! And the number one reason to buy a Pentium: 0.9999999998 - It'll probably work! The same page includes this joke: "You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? Defective Pentium salsa!" (David Letterman) I conclude that David Letterman joked about the Pentium in a monologue (although I have only circumstantial evidence) not in a Top Ten List. This is my first foray into computing history. Please let me know if you have additional information, if my reasoning is unsound, or if I should do anything besides notifying the authors and publisher. (I'm acquainted with David Patterson but would not cold email John Hennessy.) Ellen Spertus Professor of Computer Science _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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: From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Fri Aug 14 11:55:50 2020 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (Dave Walden) Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 14:55:50 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] How Harvard CS department came into existence Message-ID: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/09/features-a-science-is-born -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spertus at mills.edu Fri Aug 14 15:00:49 2020 From: spertus at mills.edu (Ellen Spertus) Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:00:49 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <7F90C362-DA6A-45E2-BFEA-AF2A296324C1@u.northwestern.edu> References: <7F90C362-DA6A-45E2-BFEA-AF2A296324C1@u.northwestern.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, Brian and Bernard. I wouldn't know what date to request footage for, even if I had the time or money to pursue it. I remain skeptical, because of the information (and absence of information) that I cite, but I think I should drop it if David Patterson is adamant that it happened.It's not a matter of great historic importance, just a minor curiosity. Ellen On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 11:58 PM Bernard Geoghegan < bernardgeoghegan2010 at u.northwestern.edu> wrote: > Hi Ellen, > > > > Perhaps ask CBS archives for the footage? I?ve had some luck getting NBC > archives to pull some pretty obscure archival footage and furnish copies > for manageable educational rates (i.e. reduced corporate rates, which is > nonetheless substantially more than many other archives, like a few hundred > bucks). I think Letterman was at CBS by then, and they might well do the > same. > > > > I have it in my mind that maybe Letterman had his own production company? > If so, they might have the footage instead or as well? > > > > Best, b > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan > > Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media > > Chair of the UG Assessment Board, Digital Culture > > www.bernardg.com > > > > Department of Digital Humanities > > King's College London > > The Strand Building > > Room S3.08 > > WC2R 2LS > > > > Office: +44 (0)20 7848 4750 > > > > *From: *Members on behalf of Brian > Berg > *Date: *Friday, 14 August 2020 at 03:33 > *To: *SIGCIS Listserver > *Subject: *Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a > Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? > > > > I recall hearing that David Letterman broadcast myself, and there was a > lot of buzz about it afterward as well. I double-checked with Dave > Patterson: > > > > From: *David PATTERSON* > Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 5:41 PM > Subject: Re: Pentium Bug Really in a Letterman Top 10 List? > To: Brian Berg > > > > Yes. I heard it myself. > > Dave > > > > On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:25 PM Brian Berg wrote: > > Dave, > > > > Your 1999 edition of *Computer organization and design: the > hardware/software interface* states on p. 306: "The Pentium > floating-point divide bug even made the 'Top 10 List" of the David > Letterman Late Show on television." > > > > This does not seem to be included at > > https://www.oocities.org/jaylipp/Letterman/topten99.html > > Was this an accurate statement? > > > > Thanks, Brian Berg > > > > > > On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 10:06 AM Ellen Spertus wrote: > > According to the popular computer architecture textbook *Computer > Organization and Design *by Turing Award winners John Hennessy and David > Patterson: > > > > The Pentium floating-point divide bug even made the "Top 10 List" of the *David > Letterman Late Show* on television. > > > > I have been unable to verify this. The bug was reported in October 1994 > and remained in the news until early 1995. I could find nothing relevant in > the Top Ten List Archive for late 1994 > or early 1995 > . In early January, there > was the Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer > , > but it has no mention of Intel or math. > > > > I did find a Master's thesis > > that cites Jarrett in saying that "David Letterman included a Pentium? > joke in his nightly monologue": > > Jarrett, Jim. "A Postmortem on the Pentium Processor Crisis." Unpublished > manuscript prepared for lnteleads, 1994. > > > > I cannot find this document, however, and Jim Jarrett passed away in 2012 > > . > > > > There is a satirical Top Ten list > : > > > > 9.9999973251 - Your old PC is too accurate. > 8.9999163362 - Provides really good alibi when the IRS calls. > 7.9999414610 - Attracted by Intel's new You don't need to know what's > inside ad campaign. > 6.9999831538 - It redefines computing -- and mathematics! > 5.9999835137 - You've always wondered what it would be like to be a > plaintiff. > 4.9999999021 - Current paperweight not big enough. > 3.9998245917 - Takes concept of floating point to a whole new level. > 2.9991523619 - You always round off to the nearest hundred anyway. > 1.9999103517 - Got a great deal from Jet Propulsion Laboratory! > > And the number one reason to buy a Pentium: > 0.9999999998 - It'll probably work! > > > > The same page > includes this joke: > > > > "You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > Defective Pentium salsa!" (David Letterman) > > > > I conclude that David Letterman joked about the Pentium in a monologue > (although I have only circumstantial evidence) not in a Top Ten List. > > > > This is my first foray into computing history. Please let me know if you > have additional information, if my reasoning is unsound, or if I should do > anything besides notifying the authors and publisher. (I'm acquainted with > David Patterson but would not cold email John Hennessy.) > > > > Ellen Spertus > > Professor of Computer Science > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > _______________________________________________ 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 > _______________________________________________ > 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: From pi at berkeley.edu Fri Aug 14 19:08:24 2020 From: pi at berkeley.edu (Paul Ivanov) Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 19:08:24 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> Ellen Spertus, on 2020-08-14 15:00, wrote: > I remain skeptical, because of the information (and absence of > information) that I cite, but I think I should drop it if David > Patterson is adamant that it happened.It's not a matter of > great historic importance, just a minor curiosity. I think your scepticism is well placed, Ellen, and the Royal Society motto "Nullius in verba" ("Take nobody's word for it") certainly comes to mind. I took the liberty of contacting Don Giller, an authoritative Letterman archivist (see or ) and he categorically rejects the existence of a Pentium bug Top Ten list from the show. As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point humour in the late night show cannon, it seems that this one isn't true. Don Giller, on 2020-08-15 00:27, wrote: > Hi, Paul, > > First, thanks for the twitter follow. Appreciated! > > Second, nope, no Top Ten List, ever. > > The only mention of the Pentium issue was during his monologue > on December 15, 1994: > > "You know, you know what you can do if you have any of those > defective Pentium computer chips? You know what I?m talking > about? If you have any of those defective Pentium computer > chips, get yourself some defective Pentium salsa, uhmm! I?m > telling you, unbelievable! Knock yourself out." > > Don > > > > -----Original Message----- > Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2020 7:46 pm > Subject: Letterman Top 10 list about Pentium bug? > > Hi Don, > > There's a email thread on the SIGCIS list (Special Interest Group > for Computing, Information, and Society) that piqued my interest > that you might be in a position to shed some light on. > > To the best of your knowledge and databases, did David Letterman > ever have a top 10 list about the pentium bug? See the original > email attached, it seems like if it happened it was in late 1994 > or early 1995. > > > If you're curious about what other people have said? - see the > "Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the > Pentium bug?" thread on the list archives here: > http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/2020-August/thread.html > > best, > pi best, -- _ / \ A* \^ - ,./ _.`\\ / \ / ,--.S \/ \ / `"~,_ \ \ __o ? _ \<,_ /:\ --(_)/-(_)----.../ | \ --------------.......J Paul Ivanov https://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7 From amm5ae at virginia.edu Fri Aug 14 20:46:44 2020 From: amm5ae at virginia.edu (Andrew Meade McGee) Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2020 23:46:44 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> References: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> Message-ID: I'd just like to add that this thread tickles me to no end in both its geniality and its thoroughness. When humor meets citation-checking, it's serious business indeed. I can't speak as to whether the Pentium explicitly popped up in a Letterman Top Ten list, Dr. Spertus, but I can suggest that the January 5th, 1995, list you mentioned, "Top Ten Signs You Bought a Bad Computer," may include an oblique reference specific to that time period. Item "# 2" reads, "The only chip inside is a Dorito." I remember the above gag from an edited volume of Late Show lists I was given. Link from the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20061207001549/http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/top_ten/archive/ls_topten_archive1995/ls_topten_archive_19950105.shtml . Best, Andrew On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 10:08 PM Paul Ivanov wrote: > > Ellen Spertus, on 2020-08-14 15:00, wrote: > > I remain skeptical, because of the information (and absence of > > information) that I cite, but I think I should drop it if David > > Patterson is adamant that it happened.It's not a matter of > > great historic importance, just a minor curiosity. > > I think your scepticism is well placed, Ellen, and the Royal > Society motto "Nullius in verba" ("Take nobody's word for it") > certainly comes to mind. > > I took the liberty of contacting Don Giller, an authoritative > Letterman archivist (see > < > https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/fashion/mens-style/david-letterman-late-show-don-giller.html> > > or > > ) and he categorically rejects the existence of a Pentium bug > Top Ten list from the show. > > As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point > humour in the late night show cannon, it seems that this one > isn't true. > > > Don Giller, on 2020-08-15 00:27, wrote: > > Hi, Paul, > > > > First, thanks for the twitter follow. Appreciated! > > > > Second, nope, no Top Ten List, ever. > > > > The only mention of the Pentium issue was during his monologue > > on December 15, 1994: > > > > "You know, you know what you can do if you have any of those > > defective Pentium computer chips? You know what I?m talking > > about? If you have any of those defective Pentium computer > > chips, get yourself some defective Pentium salsa, uhmm! I?m > > telling you, unbelievable! Knock yourself out." > > > > Don > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > Sent: Fri, Aug 14, 2020 7:46 pm > > Subject: Letterman Top 10 list about Pentium bug? > > > > Hi Don, > > > > There's a email thread on the SIGCIS list (Special Interest Group > > for Computing, Information, and Society) that piqued my interest > > that you might be in a position to shed some light on. > > > > To the best of your knowledge and databases, did David Letterman > > ever have a top 10 list about the pentium bug? See the original > > email attached, it seems like if it happened it was in late 1994 > > or early 1995. > > > > > > If you're curious about what other people have said - see the > > "Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the > > Pentium bug?" thread on the list archives here: > > > http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/2020-August/thread.html > > > > best, > > pi > > best, > -- > _ > / \ > A* \^ - > ,./ _.`\\ / \ > / ,--.S \/ \ > / `"~,_ \ \ > __o ? > _ \<,_ /:\ > --(_)/-(_)----.../ | \ > --------------.......J > Paul Ivanov > https://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7 > _______________________________________________ > 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: From dspicer at computerhistory.org Sat Aug 15 15:04:06 2020 From: dspicer at computerhistory.org (Dag Spicer) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 22:04:06 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fran Allen lecture on STRETCH / HARVEST just released Message-ID: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> Hi everyone, Here is a great lecture from the Computer History Museum archives ? just released ? with Fran Allen discussing the Stretch/Harvest compiler at the Museum, November 8, 2000, on the occasion of her being made a CHM Fellow. She won the ACM Turing Award in 2006. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/BD035veZd-E Synopsis: In response to government requests, IBM Research designed a system for a very large data processing application, known as the HARVEST system, based on the Stretch supercomputer (IBM 7030), which was delivered to the National Security Agency in the early 1960s. The combined Stretch-HARVEST Project created a milieu for developing new technologies, new hardware architectures, and new software to meet the challenges of both systems. One of the guiding principles of the project was to make programming easier by the use of a compiler to generate code automatically from statements in the user's language. Frances "Fran" Allen was a member of the ALPHA language design team which created a very high level language featuring, among other things, the ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets (e.g. English, decimal, integer, binary) and treat complex, heterogeneous data in high-level statements. In addition to an overview of Stretch-HARVEST, the talk will describe some of the lesser known aspects of the project the people and institutions involved, the political climate, and the shared knowledge, views, and value systems which were part of this interesting project at an interesting time in the history of computing. Catalog number: 102621818 Lot number: X4835.2009 Dag [cid:37DA9F70-22BF-4CE3-8817-E5AF13D99DD8 at hsd1.ca.comcast.net.] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png Type: image/png Size: 33274 bytes Desc: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png URL: From spertus at mills.edu Sat Aug 15 15:42:56 2020 From: spertus at mills.edu (Ellen Spertus) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 15:42:56 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> References: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> Message-ID: Thank you, Paul! As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point > humour in the late night show cannon, it seems that this one > isn't true. Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 internal Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his *monologue*, which may have been: You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? Defective Pentium salsa! Do any of you know someone with enough clout at Intel to find out what their archivists say? This may be an instance of the Mandela Effect . Here's another story involving floating point: I used to spend time at the University of Washington CSE Department and Microsoft. To drive from one to the other, you would drive over the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. I always referred to it as the "floating point" bridge, and nobody ever raised an eyebrow. I see a nonironic reference to the Evergreen Floating Point Bridge in a Los Angeles Times article about a traffic accident . Ellen -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thequeensofcode at gmail.com Sat Aug 15 16:57:19 2020 From: thequeensofcode at gmail.com (Eileen Buckholtz) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 19:57:19 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fran Allen lecture on STRETCH / HARVEST just released In-Reply-To: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> References: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> Message-ID: Dag, you have made my day releasing this Fran Allen lecture on Harvest. For the last 2 years I have been working on the Queens of Code Project to tell the stories of NSA's Computing Women from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And I wanted to include the contractors like Fran Allen and Ann Hardy who worked on Harvest and other agency systems as well as our own NSA women. So thank you! Eileen Buckholtz Queens of Code Project On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 6:42 PM Dag Spicer wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Here is a great lecture from the Computer History Museum archives ? just > released ? with Fran Allen discussing the Stretch/Harvest compiler at the > Museum, November 8, 2000, on the occasion of her being made a CHM Fellow. > She won the ACM Turing Award in 2006. > > Enjoy! > > https://youtu.be/BD035veZd-E > > Synopsis: > In response to government requests, IBM Research designed a system for a > very large data processing application, known as the HARVEST system, based > on the Stretch supercomputer (IBM 7030), which was delivered to the > National Security Agency in the early 1960s. The combined Stretch-HARVEST > Project created a milieu for developing new technologies, new hardware > architectures, and new software to meet the challenges of both systems. One > of the guiding principles of the project was to make programming easier by > the use of a compiler to generate code automatically from statements in the > user's language. > > Frances "Fran" Allen was a member of the ALPHA language design team which > created a very high level language featuring, among other things, the > ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets (e.g. > English, decimal, integer, binary) and treat complex, heterogeneous data in > high-level statements. In addition to an overview of Stretch-HARVEST, the > talk will describe some of the lesser known aspects of the project the > people and institutions involved, the political climate, and the shared > knowledge, views, and value systems which were part of this interesting > project at an interesting time in the history of computing. > > Catalog number: 102621818 > Lot number: X4835.2009 > > Dag > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png Type: image/png Size: 33274 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jcortada at umn.edu Sat Aug 15 18:02:53 2020 From: jcortada at umn.edu (James Cortada) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 20:02:53 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fran Allen lecture on STRETCH / HARVEST just released In-Reply-To: References: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> Message-ID: Fitto. And thanks so much about mentioning Ann Hardy!!!! Jim On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 6:57 PM Eileen Buckholtz wrote: > > Dag, you have made my day releasing this Fran Allen lecture on Harvest. > For the last 2 years I have been working on the Queens of Code Project to > tell the stories of NSA's Computing Women from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And > I wanted to include the contractors like Fran Allen and Ann Hardy who > worked on Harvest and other agency systems as well as our own NSA women. > So thank you! > > Eileen Buckholtz > Queens of Code Project > > > > On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 6:42 PM Dag Spicer > wrote: > >> Hi everyone, >> >> Here is a great lecture from the Computer History Museum archives ? just >> released ? with Fran Allen discussing the Stretch/Harvest compiler at the >> Museum, November 8, 2000, on the occasion of her being made a CHM Fellow. >> She won the ACM Turing Award in 2006. >> >> Enjoy! >> >> https://youtu.be/BD035veZd-E >> >> Synopsis: >> In response to government requests, IBM Research designed a system for a >> very large data processing application, known as the HARVEST system, based >> on the Stretch supercomputer (IBM 7030), which was delivered to the >> National Security Agency in the early 1960s. The combined Stretch-HARVEST >> Project created a milieu for developing new technologies, new hardware >> architectures, and new software to meet the challenges of both systems. One >> of the guiding principles of the project was to make programming easier by >> the use of a compiler to generate code automatically from statements in the >> user's language. >> >> Frances "Fran" Allen was a member of the ALPHA language design team which >> created a very high level language featuring, among other things, the >> ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets (e.g. >> English, decimal, integer, binary) and treat complex, heterogeneous data in >> high-level statements. In addition to an overview of Stretch-HARVEST, the >> talk will describe some of the lesser known aspects of the project the >> people and institutions involved, the political climate, and the shared >> knowledge, views, and value systems which were part of this interesting >> project at an interesting time in the history of computing. >> >> Catalog number: 102621818 >> Lot number: X4835.2009 >> >> Dag >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 -- James W. Cortada Senior Research Fellow Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota jcortada at umn.edu 608-274-6382 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png Type: image/png Size: 33274 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pi at berkeley.edu Sat Aug 15 18:31:31 2020 From: pi at berkeley.edu (Paul Ivanov) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 18:31:31 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Letterman Top 10 list about Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20200816013131.GB115633@reef.gulag.archipelago> Hi Ellen! Ellen Spertus, on 2020-08-15 15:42, wrote: > Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 internal > Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his *monologue*, which > may have been: > > You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > Defective Pentium salsa! I think I made my reply text too long and obscured Don's response which contained the exact date and exact quote, so I'm including it again here: Don Giller, on 2020-08-15 00:27, wrote: > The only mention of the Pentium issue was during his monologue > on December 15, 1994: > > "You know, you know what you can do if you have any of those > defective Pentium computer chips? You know what I?m talking > about? If you have any of those defective Pentium computer > chips, get yourself some defective Pentium salsa, uhmm! I?m > telling you, unbelievable! Knock yourself out." So there you have it, pi -- _ / \ A* \^ - ,./ _.`\\ / \ / ,--.S \/ \ / `"~,_ \ \ __o ? _ \<,_ /:\ --(_)/-(_)----.../ | \ --------------.......J Paul Ivanov https://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7 From spertus at mills.edu Sat Aug 15 18:40:20 2020 From: spertus at mills.edu (Ellen Spertus) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2020 18:40:20 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Letterman Top 10 list about Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <20200816013131.GB115633@reef.gulag.archipelago> References: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> <20200816013131.GB115633@reef.gulag.archipelago> Message-ID: I did miss it. Totally my fault. Thanks for sending it back out. Ellen On Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 6:31 PM Paul Ivanov wrote: > Hi Ellen! > > Ellen Spertus, on 2020-08-15 15:42, wrote: > > Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 > internal > > Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his *monologue*, > which > > may have been: > > > > You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > > Defective Pentium salsa! > > I think I made my reply text too long and obscured Don's response > which contained the exact date and exact quote, so I'm including > it again here: > > Don Giller, on 2020-08-15 00:27, wrote: > > The only mention of the Pentium issue was during his monologue > > on December 15, 1994: > > > > "You know, you know what you can do if you have any of those > > defective Pentium computer chips? You know what I?m talking > > about? If you have any of those defective Pentium computer > > chips, get yourself some defective Pentium salsa, uhmm! I?m > > telling you, unbelievable! Knock yourself out." > > So there you have it, > pi > > -- > _ > / \ > A* \^ - > ,./ _.`\\ / \ > / ,--.S \/ \ > / `"~,_ \ \ > __o ? > _ \<,_ /:\ > --(_)/-(_)----.../ | \ > --------------.......J > Paul Ivanov > https://pirsquared.org | GPG/PGP key id: 0x0F3E28F7 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dcb at dcbrock.net Sun Aug 16 08:54:20 2020 From: dcb at dcbrock.net (David C. Brock) Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2020 11:54:20 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fran Allen lecture on STRETCH / HARVEST just released In-Reply-To: References: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> Message-ID: <1088769B-F32E-483A-BCAB-D1B896D907AF@dcbrock.net> Dear Eileen, You might want to check out the Museum?s oral history with Ann Hardy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIPo9Eeve9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIWMvtM02NA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMPoRy3BWwQ Best wishes, David +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb at dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock Pronouns: he, him, his > On Aug 15, 2020, at 7:57 PM, Eileen Buckholtz wrote: > > > Dag, you have made my day releasing this Fran Allen lecture on Harvest. For the last 2 years I have been working on the Queens of Code Project to tell the stories of NSA's Computing Women from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And I wanted to include the contractors like Fran Allen and Ann Hardy who worked on Harvest and other agency systems as well as our own NSA women. So thank you! > > Eileen Buckholtz > Queens of Code Project > > > > On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 6:42 PM Dag Spicer > wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Here is a great lecture from the Computer History Museum archives ? just released ? with Fran Allen discussing the Stretch/Harvest compiler at the Museum, November 8, 2000, on the occasion of her being made a CHM Fellow. She won the ACM Turing Award in 2006. > > Enjoy! > > https://youtu.be/BD035veZd-E > > Synopsis: > In response to government requests, IBM Research designed a system for a very large data processing application, known as the HARVEST system, based on the Stretch supercomputer (IBM 7030), which was delivered to the National Security Agency in the early 1960s. The combined Stretch-HARVEST Project created a milieu for developing new technologies, new hardware architectures, and new software to meet the challenges of both systems. One of the guiding principles of the project was to make programming easier by the use of a compiler to generate code automatically from statements in the user's language. > > Frances "Fran" Allen was a member of the ALPHA language design team which created a very high level language featuring, among other things, the ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets (e.g. English, decimal, integer, binary) and treat complex, heterogeneous data in high-level statements. In addition to an overview of Stretch-HARVEST, the talk will describe some of the lesser known aspects of the project the people and institutions involved, the political climate, and the shared knowledge, views, and value systems which were part of this interesting project at an interesting time in the history of computing. > > Catalog number: 102621818 > Lot number: X4835.2009 > > Dag > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 _______________________________________________ > 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: From ralphenator at gmail.com Sun Aug 16 10:14:44 2020 From: ralphenator at gmail.com (Ralph Simpson) Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2020 10:14:44 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Fran Allen lecture on STRETCH / HARVEST just released In-Reply-To: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> References: <826B5C15-20FE-4D0B-9C7B-7FB08B760D0B@computerhistory.org> Message-ID: Hi Dag, Thanks for sending this video, it was very interesting. I liked the part at 21:30 when she finally says, "Did I mention this was for codebreaking?" LOL Best Wishes, Ralph *Ralph Simpson* phone:*.**408-429-5291* *SimpsonHistory **Ci **pherHistory * [image: SimpsonHistory.com] [image: CipherHistory.com] Virus-free. www.avast.com <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 3:04 PM Dag Spicer wrote: > Hi everyone, > > Here is a great lecture from the Computer History Museum archives ? just > released ? with Fran Allen discussing the Stretch/Harvest compiler at the > Museum, November 8, 2000, on the occasion of her being made a CHM Fellow. > She won the ACM Turing Award in 2006. > > Enjoy! > > https://youtu.be/BD035veZd-E > > Synopsis: > In response to government requests, IBM Research designed a system for a > very large data processing application, known as the HARVEST system, based > on the Stretch supercomputer (IBM 7030), which was delivered to the > National Security Agency in the early 1960s. The combined Stretch-HARVEST > Project created a milieu for developing new technologies, new hardware > architectures, and new software to meet the challenges of both systems. One > of the guiding principles of the project was to make programming easier by > the use of a compiler to generate code automatically from statements in the > user's language. > > Frances "Fran" Allen was a member of the ALPHA language design team which > created a very high level language featuring, among other things, the > ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets (e.g. > English, decimal, integer, binary) and treat complex, heterogeneous data in > high-level statements. In addition to an overview of Stretch-HARVEST, the > talk will describe some of the lesser known aspects of the project the > people and institutions involved, the political climate, and the shared > knowledge, views, and value systems which were part of this interesting > project at an interesting time in the history of computing. > > Catalog number: 102621818 > Lot number: X4835.2009 > > Dag > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png Type: image/png Size: 33274 bytes Desc: not available URL: From slirish at illinois.edu Mon Aug 17 05:09:24 2020 From: slirish at illinois.edu (Irish, Sharon Lee) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2020 12:09:24 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Reminder: SIGCIS Community Values and Acceptable Use Policy Message-ID: Dear SIGCIS listserv members, We hope this message finds you healthy and coping as well as possible. You may recall that when we re-opened the SIGCIS listserv in September of 2017, we indicated that we would send out the Acceptable Use Policy and the Statement of Community Values on an occasional basis as reminders of our commitments. SIGCIS officers put considerable time and substantial thought into these documents and we?d like to share them with you again. The Statement of Community Values is on the About page of the sigcis.org site, https://www.sigcis.org/about_values The Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is also on the sigcis.org site https://www.sigcis.org/aup; we will revisit these policies, as needed. We, the volunteer moderators, use this AUP as our guide to manage the listserv; any response to messages is post-facto. If you, dear members, want to call our attention to a post, you may do so by emailing us at members-owner at lists.sigcis.org. A description of the Moderator Responsibilities and Guidelines, as well as contact information for each of us, is posted at https://www.sigcis.org/listserv We would welcome more moderators, and invite you to send a note of interest or questions to any of us. Best wishes, Sharon Irish Bill McMillan Janet Toland Barbara Walker The current moderators -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hemmendd at union.edu Tue Aug 18 11:45:12 2020 From: hemmendd at union.edu (David Hemmendinger) Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2020 14:45:12 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] submissions to Annals of the History of Computing Message-ID: <20200818184512.9F63D13200E1@athena.union.edu> SIGCIS members, Con has asked me to serve as acting EIC of Annals for the rest of the year as he deals with some urgent matters. I see my main task as keeping the pipeline full for the coming year or more. We have several special issues under way, and expect two more proposals soon. Our queue of regular articles is small and I am writing now to ask if you have anything in progress or ready to publish that you might submit to Annals as a peer-reviewed article. A small queue means a short time to publication, as we like to hae two regular and two special issues each year. Please send us your work! Best wishes, David Hemmendinger hemmendd at union.edu Professor Emeritus http://athena.union.edu/~hemmendd Computer Science Dept. +1 518 346 4489 Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308 FAX: +1 518 388 6789 Acting Editor-in-chief, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing From treese at acm.org Wed Aug 19 20:49:07 2020 From: treese at acm.org (Win Treese) Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2020 23:49:07 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: References: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> Message-ID: <260B4F66-7E39-467C-A104-CA58DFE2A386@acm.org> Hi, Ellen. I had a vague idea of Pentium top ten lists from back when it happened, but not from Letterman. You may have seen this: the web page https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=PentiumJokes has a couple of lists, ,which are excerpted below for general amusement. It was certainly common at the time for people to make up their own Top Ten lists. Best, Win TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug 8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So 7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes 6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside 5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well 4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really 3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful 2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point? 1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws 0.9999999998 The Errata Inside THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BUY A PENTIUM MACHINE ============================================ 10. YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER IS TOO ACCURATE 9. YOU WANT TO GET INTO THE GUINNESS BOOK AS "OWNER OF MOST EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT" 8. MATH ERRORS ADD ZEST TO LIFE 7. YOU NEED AN ALIBI FOR THE I.R.S. 6. YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT 5. YOU'VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE A PLAINTIFF 4. THE "INTEL INSIDE" LOGO MATCHES YOUR DECOR PERFECTLY 3. YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT CPU OVERHEATING 2. YOU GOT A GREAT DEAL FROM JPL 1. IT'LL PROBABLY WORK > On Aug 15, 2020, at 6:42 PM, Ellen Spertus wrote: > > Thank you, Paul! > > As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point > humour in the late night show cannon, it seems that this one > isn't true. > > Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 internal Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his monologue, which may have been: > > You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > Defective Pentium salsa! > > Do any of you know someone with enough clout at Intel to find out what their archivists say? > > This may be an instance of the Mandela Effect. > > Here's another story involving floating point: I used to spend time at the University of Washington CSE Department and Microsoft. To drive from one to the other, you would drive over the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. I always referred to it as the "floating point" bridge, and nobody ever raised an eyebrow. I see a nonironic reference to the Evergreen Floating Point Bridge in a Los Angeles Times article about a traffic accident. > > Ellen > _______________________________________________ > 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 From j-coopersmith at tamu.edu Fri Aug 21 08:41:13 2020 From: j-coopersmith at tamu.edu (Jonathan Coopersmith) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2020 10:41:13 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] computer user groups article Message-ID: >From Adam Lashinsky's *Fortune Data Sheet* newsletter, August 20: *FOOD FOR THOUGHT * Way before Slack and Reddit and pretty much anything online, people used to swap information about technology and computers by meeting up in real life. Tech writer Esther Schindler has a great deep dive at Ars Technica into the history of computer user groups. *Back when the microcomputer industry was smaller, it was easy to get access to the movers-and-shakers?often before they moved or shook anything. User groups gave everyone the opportunity to learn about technology, often from the people who invented it.* *Harry McCracken attended Boston Computer Society meetings beginning in 1979, and he recalls its Q&A sessions with fondness. ?The questions were so tough,? the longtime tech journalist reminisces. ?There was no hero worship, just smart computer users asking sensible questions.?* *?Microsoft, WordPerfect, and Adobe were the headliners,? recalls a 1980s member of the Oklahoma City PC User Group. ?They gave presentations that drew hundreds and provided wonderful giveaways of full versions of their software. You could always expect that the introduction of new versions of their products would be a big event, much like the way Samsung and Apple launch new hardware today.?* Stay sane, keep washing those hands, and practice social solidarity as well as distancing, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.291.2925 (cell) 979.862.4314 (fax) Racial disparities in waiting to vote: https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-long-time-to-vote-141267 To teach or not to teach: https://www.tact.org/post/to-teach-in-person-or-not-that-is-the-question *FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press) is the co-recipient of the 2016 Business History Conference Hagley Prize for best book in business history. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grier at email.gwu.edu Fri Aug 21 09:18:53 2020 From: grier at email.gwu.edu (David Grier) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2020 12:18:53 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] computer user groups article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Jonathan Thanks for the link. It?s a nice piece. It begs the question of the link to the mainframe vendors? users groups, which date to '54 (in theory) and to ?62 (in practice.) The vendors cut them loose in the late 60s and let them become self-organized. The Burroughs group took that step in ?69. The IBM and Univac groups followed and incorporated themselves as independent groups. DECUS, which was a little later, may have started as an independent group. They quickly established some of the practices identified in the article, such as having both the technical and managerial leaders of the vendors The vendors resisted this move, of course, and the tensions came to a head in the early 70s. It was wrenching for the Burroughs group but 74-75 the practice of having vendor leadership present and having them accountable was well established. At that period you also see the start of the software and PC industries starting at the fringes of these meetings. You would find rump gatherings of users who were interested in those technologies and discussing how to incorporate them into their systems and companies. They remained focussed more on company than individual usage, of course, but they followed the same sort of pattern until they began to vanish in the early 80s. Both the vendors user groups and those described in the article, of course, examples of the self-organized mutual interest society that goes back to the 1830s in American history. However, it is worth noting that this mode of organization and education has been applied several times and in slightly different ways in this technological sector. David > On Aug 21, 2020, at 11:41 AM, Jonathan Coopersmith wrote: > > From Adam Lashinsky's Fortune Data Sheet newsletter, August 20: > FOOD FOR THOUGHT > > Way before Slack and Reddit and pretty much anything online, people used to swap information about technology and computers by meeting up in real life. Tech writer Esther Schindler has a great deep dive at Ars Technica into the history of computer user groups. > > Back when the microcomputer industry was smaller, it was easy to get access to the movers-and-shakers?often before they moved or shook anything. User groups gave everyone the opportunity to learn about technology, often from the people who invented it. > > Harry McCracken attended Boston Computer Society meetings beginning in 1979, and he recalls its Q&A sessions with fondness. ?The questions were so tough,? the longtime tech journalist reminisces. ?There was no hero worship, just smart computer users asking sensible questions.? > > ?Microsoft, WordPerfect, and Adobe were the headliners,? recalls a 1980s member of the Oklahoma City PC User Group. ?They gave presentations that drew hundreds and provided wonderful giveaways of full versions of their software. You could always expect that the introduction of new versions of their products would be a big event, much like the way Samsung and Apple launch new hardware today.? > > Stay sane, keep washing those hands, and practice social solidarity as well as distancing, > > Jonathan > > Jonathan Coopersmith > Professor > Department of History > Texas A&M University > College Station, TX 77843-4236 > 979.291.2925 (cell) > 979.862.4314 (fax) > > Racial disparities in waiting to vote: https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-long-time-to-vote-141267 > > To teach or not to teach: https://www.tact.org/post/to-teach-in-person-or-not-that-is-the-question > > FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine (Johns Hopkins University Press) is the co-recipient of the 2016 Business History Conference Hagley Prize for best book in business history. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From adamspring at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 09:28:15 2020 From: adamspring at gmail.com (Dr Adam P. Spring PhD) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2020 12:28:15 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] History of 3D laser scanning articles Message-ID: Hello Everyone, My history of laser scanning articles are now available at both my website and the ASPRS website. https://laserarchaeology.com I made the articles open access, so that anyone can access them. They were published in *Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing* - the leading journal of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). It was a long term research project. Friendly Regards, Adam P. Spring IEEE Senior Member -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adamspring at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 09:54:25 2020 From: adamspring at gmail.com (Dr Adam P. Spring PhD) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2020 12:54:25 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] History of 3D laser scanning articles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: PS. Please find a direct link to the journal here https://www.asprs.org/asprs-publications/pers There was a bug at one point that was preventing open access articles to be read. If you experience this - for anyone interested - let me know. I will contact the editor if the bug is still in place. On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 12:28 PM Dr Adam P. Spring PhD wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > My history of laser scanning articles are now available at both my website > and the ASPRS website. > > https://laserarchaeology.com > > I made the articles open access, so that anyone can access them. They were > published in *Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing* - the > leading journal of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote > Sensing (ASPRS). > > It was a long term research project. > > Friendly Regards, > > Adam P. Spring > IEEE Senior Member > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 10:22:18 2020 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave walden) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2020 13:22:18 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] History of 3D laser scanning articles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <99d25789-7623-3a96-2164-2e5a77009eef@gmail.com> I had a hard time accessing Adam's two articles.? The following URLs work better for me: https://laserarchaeology.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Photogrammetric-Engineering-and-Remote-Sensing-July-2020.pdf and https://laserarchaeology.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Photogrammetric-Engineering-and-Remote-Sensing-August-2020.pdf On 8/21/2020 12:28 PM, Dr Adam P. Spring PhD wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > My history of laser scanning articles are now available at both my > website and the ASPRS website. > > https://laserarchaeology.com > > I made the articles open access, so that anyone can access them. They > were published in /Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing/ - > the leading journal of the American Society for Photogrammetry and > Remote Sensing (ASPRS). > > It was a long term research project. > > Friendly Regards, > > Adam P. Spring > IEEE Senior Member > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: From brianberg at gmail.com Sat Aug 22 18:29:51 2020 From: brianberg at gmail.com (Brian Berg) Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2020 18:29:51 -0700 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Is it a myth that David Letterman had a Top Ten List about the Pentium bug? In-Reply-To: <260B4F66-7E39-467C-A104-CA58DFE2A386@acm.org> References: <1169738956.1894751.1597451247619@mail.yahoo.com> <20200815020824.GE76939@reef.gulag.archipelago> <260B4F66-7E39-467C-A104-CA58DFE2A386@acm.org> Message-ID: OK, folks, I checked the index of a book on my library shelf - *Inside Intel* - for "Letterman" and bingo. See the attached for the excerpt from this 1997 book, with this being the most important part from the last page of the attached file: [image: Monolog.jpg] So, indeed, apparently monolog and not Top Ten. Brian Berg On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 8:49 PM Win Treese wrote: > > Hi, Ellen. > > I had a vague idea of Pentium top ten lists from back when it happened, > but not from Letterman. You may have seen this: the web page > https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=PentiumJokes has a couple of > lists, ,which are excerpted below for general amusement. It was certainly > common at the time for people to make up their own Top Ten lists. > > Best, > > Win > > TOP TEN NEW INTEL SLOGANS FOR THE PENTIUM > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > 9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug > 8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So > 7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes > 6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside > 5.9999835137 Redefining the PC -- and Mathematics As Well > 4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really > 3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful > 2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point? > 1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws > 0.9999999998 The Errata Inside > > > THE TOP TEN REASONS TO BUY A PENTIUM MACHINE > ============================================ > > 10. YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER IS TOO ACCURATE > 9. YOU WANT TO GET INTO THE GUINNESS BOOK AS "OWNER OF MOST > EXPENSIVE PAPERWEIGHT" > 8. MATH ERRORS ADD ZEST TO LIFE > 7. YOU NEED AN ALIBI FOR THE I.R.S. > 6. YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT > 5. YOU'VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO BE A > PLAINTIFF > 4. THE "INTEL INSIDE" LOGO MATCHES YOUR DECOR PERFECTLY > 3. YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT CPU OVERHEATING > 2. YOU GOT A GREAT DEAL FROM JPL > 1. IT'LL PROBABLY WORK > > > On Aug 15, 2020, at 6:42 PM, Ellen Spertus wrote: > > > > Thank you, Paul! > > > > As nice of a story as it would have been to have floating point > > humour in the late night show cannon, it seems that this one > > isn't true. > > > > Per my original email, there was a 1996 thesis referencing a 1994 > internal Intel document that Letterman did make a joke during his > monologue, which may have been: > > > > You know what goes great with those defective Pentium chips? > > Defective Pentium salsa! > > > > Do any of you know someone with enough clout at Intel to find out what > their archivists say? > > > > This may be an instance of the Mandela Effect. > > > > Here's another story involving floating point: I used to spend time at > the University of Washington CSE Department and Microsoft. To drive from > one to the other, you would drive over the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. > I always referred to it as the "floating point" bridge, and nobody ever > raised an eyebrow. I see a nonironic reference to the Evergreen Floating > Point Bridge in a Los Angeles Times article about a traffic accident. > > > > Ellen > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Monolog.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 37453 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: InsideIntel(excerpt-Letterman).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1097280 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dspicer at computerhistory.org Sun Aug 23 19:28:24 2020 From: dspicer at computerhistory.org (Dag Spicer) Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2020 02:28:24 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New book on semiconductor history: The Microchip Revolution: A brief history References: <2C56589F-E654-4BD9-94A5-4313964B3B90@nanodimension.com> Message-ID: <23F15720-A26B-41AF-A17A-9B6E0985FBFD@computerhistory.org> A new book from a semiconductor pioneer Dr Luc-Olivier Bauer? Synopsis: Numerous books have been written about the key founders of the semiconductor industry, about the early companies, the reasons for their success and failures, on the star products, and the men behind them. In conversations with the Computer History Museum (CHM) of Mountain View, California, the two authors, veterans of semiconductor manufacturing organizations, found that the history of semiconductor process development has been treated as an ancillary issue in top down discussions of what drove the extraordinary growth of this industry. We tell the story from a bottom-up point of view of wafer fab operation managers, which we were for many years. We narrate the extraordinary contributions from all team members of these wafer fab organizations: hourly operators, supervisors, maintenance technicians, as well as the creative scientists and engineers that created and managed the companies we profile. We concentrate on the dramatic improvements in manufacturing productivity in the main MOS technologies, which eventually all merged into very similar CMOS processes. We concentrate on the time period from 1957 (Fairchild founding) to the end of the last century, when much of the technology development migrated to foundry operations overseas. We tried to exercise great care to be fair in assessing the contributions of the various companies to the overall progress of the industry. In this spirit, we also recognize the huge contributions made by the semiconductor equipment companies, and their key engineers to the success of process development and production organizations. While basing the story of process developments on historical facts, with the help of the large document and library resources available, including those of the CHM, we also tell the extraordinary human experience of working with the early wafer fab teams, with the process architecture breakthroughs pioneers, and all other wafer fab workers. To this end we also interviewed many key contributors to these process and equipment breakthroughs that made the rapid advancements in the semiconductor technologies possible. +++++ Dag [cid:37DA9F70-22BF-4CE3-8817-E5AF13D99DD8 at hsd1.ca.comcast.net.] Dear Friends, The book Marshall Wilder and I have been talking about with you, for some time, and to which many of you offered valuable contributions, is out! Its title is The Microchip Revolution, A Brief History. It is available from KDP-Amazon, the link to it is: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GCYX4LF. Or you can go to the website Books at Amazon.com, there will be a window at the top off the page, and you type the book title and you get it. Many of you at CHM were instrumental in getting this project done, both in offering access to your numerous library ressources and introducing us to people we did not know and with your constant encouragements. You encouraged us to write a book about the history of semiconductor technology, more than two and half years ago. It starts in the late 1950s and goes through the remainder of the century, with an epilogue that takes us to the present day. We cover the amazing technical issues that had to be solved to allow the state of the art to progress from one transistor to 10 Billion that is the norm for modern integrated circuits like the Apple 12X processor. We tell the stories of the people and companies that were involved, by focusing on nine companies that we were involved with or were most significant in the Microchip Revolution: Fairchild, Hughes, Intersil, Eurosil, Intel, AMD, IDT, Cypress and Micron. We hope you are going to enjoy the stories we relate, and if so, please tell your friends, and give us a favorable review on Amazon. Thank you again for your contributions and your heart warming help! Luc-Olivier Bauer + 1 949 547 9174 PS: here is a 3D rendition of our book [cid:F110DF81-D866-4C8B-A647-3DBD58C60364 at home] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png Type: image/png Size: 33274 bytes Desc: Screen Shot 2020-07-08 at 3.12.33 PM.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 3DBook 1597859373.png Type: image/png Size: 501519 bytes Desc: 3DBook 1597859373.png URL: From renzotaddei at gmail.com Mon Aug 24 05:01:26 2020 From: renzotaddei at gmail.com (renzotaddei at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2020 09:01:26 -0300 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] 2 Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Coastal Management and Socio-Environmental Conflicts in Santos, Brazil Message-ID: <01dc01d67a0e$4e397ed0$eaac7c70$@gmail.com> Apologies for cross posting. Please forward to potentially interested parties. Thank you. 2 Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Coastal Management and Socio-Environmental Conflicts Two post-doctoral positions for young researchers are available within the scope of a project on participatory processes for the resolution of conflicts in fishing communities and the use of scientific communication to strengthen the interface between science and public policies in promoting the blue economy. The team is formed by multidisciplinary researchers, civil society organizations and managers of Environmental Protection Areas and is part of an international consortium in which scientists from Brazil, USA, Norway, Sweden, India and South Africa team together. Scholarship holders will be based at Instituto do Mar, Federal University of S?o Paulo (UNIFESP) in Santos, Brazil, contributing to the exchange of knowledge in the consortium International. Field activities will take place on the coast of the state of S?o Paulo and south of the state of Rio de Janeiro. In addition to the requirements by FAPESP, the following are desirable, but not excluding: - Skills for working in multidisciplinary, multisectoral and multinational groups; - Leadership in knowledge production in coastal management and sustainable development; - Fluency in English (mandatory) and Portuguese (desirable); - Experience with traditional or indigenous communities. Interested candidates should send the FAPESP Curriculum Summary, motivation letter and two reference letters. After the initial selection based on the documents, there will be an interview. This opportunity is open to candidates of any nationalities. The selected candidate will receive a FAPESP?s Post-Doctoral fellowship in the amount of R$ 7,373.10 monthly and a research contingency fund, equivalent to 15% of the annual value of the fellowship which should be spent in items directly related to the research activity. N?: 3827 Field of knowledge: interdisciplinary FAPESP process: 2019/24416-8 Project title: OCEAN Sustainability Pathways for Achieving Conflict Transformation (OCEAN PACT) Working area: Coastal Management and Socio-Environmental Conflicts Number of places: 2 Principal investigator: Ronaldo Christofoletti Unit/Institution: Institute for Oceanic Studies (Instituto do Mar), Federal University of Sao Paulo (UNIFESP) Deadline for submissions: 2020-09-25 Publishing date: 2020-08-21 Address: Rua Doutor Carvalho de Mendon?a, 144 ? Edif?cio Acad?mico II, Santos, Brazil E-mail for proposal submission: christofoletti at unifesp.br -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Frank.Smith at usnwc.edu Tue Aug 25 06:45:21 2020 From: Frank.Smith at usnwc.edu (Smith, Frank L., CIV, NAVWARCOL) Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:45:21 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Job opportunity: Assistant/Associate Professor, cyber and innovation policy In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Job announcement number: VA#NWC-20-11 Department: Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute, Strategic and Operational Research Department, Center for Naval War Studies Location: U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI PP-Series-GR: AD-1701-03/05 Open Period: Friday, 14 August 2020 through Wednesday, 14 October 2020 Position: Assistant/Associate Professor Security Clearance: Position requires eligibility for a Top Secret/SCI clearance Who May Apply: This position is open only to U.S. Citizens The U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island invites applications for an Assistant/Associate Professor in the Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute, in the Strategic and Operational Research Department, at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Applications will be accepted through 14 October 2020. Applications must be submitted by e-mail to: NWC-20-11 at usnwc.edu and must reference VA#NWC-20-11. Applicants must submit: (1) cover letter, (2) curriculum vitae, and (3) names and contact information for three references. Please see attachment for more information about this position. Frank L. Smith III Director and Professor, Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute Strategic and Operational Research Department U.S. Naval War College https://franksmithiii.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: CIPI CNWS faculty ad FINAL.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 128690 bytes Desc: CIPI CNWS faculty ad FINAL.pdf URL: From kathrin.wernsdorf at ip.mpg.de Tue Aug 25 09:07:27 2020 From: kathrin.wernsdorf at ip.mpg.de (Wernsdorf Kathrin) Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 16:07:27 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Data on Bitnet Message-ID: <3A9BCEBE91A30247A08501B85A15142D0188677E@s-mail-be1.ip.local> Hello everyone, My coauthors and I are currently working on a project measuring the impact of Bitnet on academic patenting. After the adoption of Bitnet by a university between 1981 and 1990, we find a substantial increase in patenting by university-affiliated researchers. We are now wondering why this is the case. Reading about Bitnet, we came across the fact that email lists were an especially popular item. We think it would be fascinating to know the content of these email lists. Do you happen to know whether data on these email lists exists and is available somewhere? Also, do you know whether some archives of listserves or discussion groups exist where users discussed for what they used Bitnet and what challenges they faced? Any thoughts and hints are highly appreciated. Many thanks in advance. Kathrin _________________________________ Kathrin Wernsdorf Doctoral Student and Junior Research Fellow Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Marstallplatz 1 80539 M?nchen kathrin.wernsdorf at ip.mpg.de www.ip.mpg.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grier at email.gwu.edu Tue Aug 25 09:21:38 2020 From: grier at email.gwu.edu (David Grier) Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:21:38 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Data on Bitnet In-Reply-To: <3A9BCEBE91A30247A08501B85A15142D0188677E@s-mail-be1.ip.local> References: <3A9BCEBE91A30247A08501B85A15142D0188677E@s-mail-be1.ip.local> Message-ID: <8118EAB0-1A1C-4AAF-BF3A-A54FDA3CCC5D@email.gwu.edu> Kathrin Bitnet had an early variant of the of the listserve program developed by a student at the Ecole Politechnique in Paris. The program ran on IBM mainframes. It spread rapidly across the net though only a couple of dozen sites had large number of lists. Most of the lists dealt with network management. A number deal with with the usual techie hobbies. A few took the Apranet lists and redistributed them. (And you might want to look there in terms of chasing patent ideas. Arpanet/CSnet/NSFNet were far more technically inclined than the Bitnet community. In fact they advertised themselves as" the network for everybody else.?). A few of the list serves have been archived but they tended to be abandoned as schools switched their primary servers from 370 architecture machines ro unix machines. It is attached I did an article on bitnet and the list serves in the Annals 20 years ago. It is attached if it may be of use. David > On Aug 25, 2020, at 12:07 PM, Wernsdorf Kathrin wrote: > > Hello everyone, > > My coauthors and I are currently working on a project measuring the impact of Bitnet on academic patenting. After the adoption of Bitnet by a university between 1981 and 1990, we find a substantial increase in patenting by university-affiliated researchers. We are now wondering why this is the case. > > Reading about Bitnet, we came across the fact that email lists were an especially popular item. We think it would be fascinating to know the content of these email lists. Do you happen to know whether data on these email lists exists and is available somewhere? Also, do you know whether some archives of listserves or discussion groups exist where users discussed for what they used Bitnet and what challenges they faced? > > Any thoughts and hints are highly appreciated. Many thanks in advance. > > Kathrin > _________________________________ > > Kathrin Wernsdorf > > Doctoral Student and Junior Research Fellow > > > Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition > > Marstallplatz 1 > > 80539 M?nchen > > kathrin.wernsdorf at ip.mpg.de > www.ip.mpg.de > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2000.ahc..4.A Social History Of Bitnet And Listserv, 1985-1991 - Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 96754 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Tue Aug 25 17:27:23 2020 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave walden) Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 20:27:23 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Yngvar Lundh died on August 25th Message-ID: See https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngvar_Lundh and maybe use Google translate. Yngvar's story is told in greater detail at https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/02 The department editor's note at the beginning of the a2018 Annals anecdote says: Yngvar Lundh was instrumental in the development of some of Norway?s earliest digital computers, having started his investigation of digital electronics in the 1950s. He continued his involvement with digital computers and digital communications for the next 40 years. A 10 April 2017 article about Lundh in the Norwegian online information and telecommunications newspaper digi.no quotes another pioneer of Norwegian computing, saying, ?Yngvar Lundh is the most important person in Norwegian IT ever.? From AlexRamirez at CUNET.CARLETON.CA Wed Aug 26 08:18:53 2020 From: AlexRamirez at CUNET.CARLETON.CA (Alex Ramirez) Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:18:53 +0000 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Yngvar Lundh died on August 25th In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Dave, The end of your message caught my attention: ?Yngvar Lundh is the most important person in Norwegian IT ever.? I wonder what is the hierarchy they used, since Ole-Johan Dahl & Kristen Nygaard's contribution to Programming Languages changed the way we build our systems. Alex -----Original Message----- From: Members On Behalf Of dave walden Sent: August 25, 2020 8:27 PM To: members at sigcis.org Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Yngvar Lundh died on August 25th [External Email] See https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngvar_Lundh and maybe use Google translate. Yngvar's story is told in greater detail at https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/02 The department editor's note at the beginning of the a2018 Annals anecdote says: Yngvar Lundh was instrumental in the development of some of Norway?s earliest digital computers, having started his investigation of digital electronics in the 1950s. He continued his involvement with digital computers and digital communications for the next 40 years. A 10 April 2017 article about Lundh in the Norwegian online information and telecommunications newspaper digi.no quotes another pioneer of Norwegian computing, saying, ?Yngvar Lundh is the most important person in Norwegian IT ever.? _______________________________________________ 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 This email contains links to content or websites. Always be cautious when clicking on external links or attachments. If in doubt, please forward suspicious emails to phishing at carleton.ca. -----End of Disclaimer----- From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Wed Aug 26 08:56:36 2020 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave walden) Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 11:56:36 -0400 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Yngvar Lundh died on August 25th In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The quote is from a newspaper writing an article about Yngvar, I believe.? The criteria was perhaps to find some other notable person who would say something nice about Yngvar.? The person quoted certainly knows about the work of Dahl and Nygaard and perhaps has given his considered opinion.? The quoted person didn't address the worldwide impact of Yngvar versus Dahl and Nygaard.? From what I know about the computing history in Norway, Yngvar's impact was bigger. On 8/26/2020 11:18 AM, Alex Ramirez wrote: > Hi Dave, > > The end of your message caught my attention: ?Yngvar Lundh is the most important person in Norwegian IT ever.? > I wonder what is the hierarchy they used, since Ole-Johan Dahl & Kristen Nygaard's contribution to Programming Languages changed the way we build our systems. > > Alex > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Members On Behalf Of dave walden > Sent: August 25, 2020 8:27 PM > To: members at sigcis.org > Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Yngvar Lundh died on August 25th > > [External Email] > > See https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yngvar_Lundh and maybe use Google translate. > > Yngvar's story is told in greater detail at > https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/02 > > The department editor's note at the beginning of the a2018 Annals anecdote says: > Yngvar Lundh was instrumental in the development of some of Norway?s earliest digital computers, having started his investigation of digital electronics in the 1950s. He continued his involvement with digital computers and digital communications for the next 40 years. A 10 April > 2017 article about Lundh in the Norwegian online information and telecommunications newspaper digi.no quotes another pioneer of Norwegian computing, saying, ?Yngvar Lundh is the most important person in Norwegian IT ever.? > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > This email contains links to content or websites. Always be cautious when clicking on external links or attachments. If in doubt, please forward suspicious emails to phishing at carleton.ca. > > -----End of Disclaimer----- > From petereckstein at comcast.net Wed Aug 26 10:44:25 2020 From: petereckstein at comcast.net (PETER ECKSTEIN) Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 13:44:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Smart phones vs. classic computers Message-ID: <840880680.2128.1598463865172@connect.xfinity.com> After many years, I am completing work on the manuscript of book on the early lives of America?s computer hardware pioneers. To put things in a bit of historical perspective, I have included in the conclusions a reference to today?s smart phones as having a ?processing capacity that dwarfs that of ENIAC or even the fastest of Seymour Cray?s supercomputers.? (Mauchly, Eckert, and Cray are three of my subjects) Before I try to pass that along as fact, I would appreciate some expert opinion. Is it true? Is ?processing capacity? the best measure of the contrast? Wouldn?t it also be true of storage capacity? Peter Eckstein Ann Arbor Michigan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thomas.haigh at gmail.com Wed Aug 26 14:04:56 2020 From: thomas.haigh at gmail.com (thomas.haigh at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 16:04:56 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Smart phones vs. classic computers In-Reply-To: <840880680.2128.1598463865172@connect.xfinity.com> References: <840880680.2128.1598463865172@connect.xfinity.com> Message-ID: <009c01d67bec$8df41410$a9dc3c30$@gmail.com> I think you are on safe ground with both claims, based on some cursory research I did to support similar language in the New History of Modern Computing. ENIAC had a writable electronic memory of 200 decimal digits and could do around 300 multiplications a second ? caveats apply pre/post conversion to the modern code paradigm and which version of the setup was being used. (Multiplication time is a better measure of performance than addition time, and also avoids making assumptions about parallelism under ENIAC?s original control mode). That?s why ENIAC quickly became a yardstick to which any other system could be flatteringly compared. The faster cellphone IIRC is an iPhone 11 based on the Apple A13 Bionic system on chip. According to context-less numbers fetched with a quick Google that does 154.9 GigaFLOPS which is around a thousand times more powerful than the 160 MegaFLOPS of the Cray 1. Now there are probably a lot of footnotes about sustaining peak performance, assumptions about multithreading or vectorization, etc. but when there are three zeros to play with I can?t imagine them overcoming the gap. The interesting question is how many year you would have to go back in time for the iPhone to be the world?s most powerful supercomputer. I don?t think we did that, but we did try something similar to make the point that graphics cards are where processing power is concentrated these days, to the extent that bitcoin mining and supercomputers are both being built from them. So if anyone who knows more about these things would like to fact-check the following paragraph I?d appreciate it: A desktop computer with eighteen process cores on a single giant chip brings an impressive degree of parallel processing. Compared to the latest graphics hardware, though, that is barely parallel at all. As of early-2019, Nvidia lists its flagship Titan V graphics card for a price might give pause to even the most dedicated gamer: $3,000. Yet given its 5,750 processor cores it could also be viewed as an extremely affordable alternative to a large building stuffed with mainframes. Nvidia markets the Titan for ?deep learning? applications, claiming a throughput that would have made it the world?s most powerful supercomputer just fifteen years earlier. Similar chips drive the world?s fastest supercomputers, including the Titan system that Cray built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2012 and its successor, the Summit computer delivered by IBM in 2018. The later holds 9,216 IBM Power processors and 27,648 Nvidia chips each similar to the one on the Titan V card. I?m trying to hedge bets a little with ?claiming a throughput.? And of course this is out of date already, and will be further out of date next year when the book appears. So we should at least switch to the past tense. Best wishes, Tom From: Members On Behalf Of PETER ECKSTEIN Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 12:44 PM To: SIG Computer Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Smart phones vs. classic computers After many years, I am completing work on the manuscript of book on the early lives of America?s computer hardware pioneers. To put things in a bit of historical perspective, I have included in the conclusions a reference to today?s smart phones as having a ?processing capacity that dwarfs that of ENIAC or even the fastest of Seymour Cray?s supercomputers.? (Mauchly, Eckert, and Cray are three of my subjects) Before I try to pass that along as fact, I would appreciate some expert opinion. Is it true? Is ?processing capacity? the best measure of the contrast? Wouldn?t it also be true of storage capacity? Peter Eckstein Ann Arbor Michigan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From batizlazo at icloud.com Sat Aug 29 17:11:21 2020 From: batizlazo at icloud.com (Bernardo Batiz-Lazo) Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 19:11:21 -0500 Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] =?utf-8?q?Let=27s_not_forget=2C_Bill_Gates_hasn?= =?utf-8?q?=27t_always_been_the_good_guy=E2=80=A6?= Message-ID: Might be of interest... A quick note on the birth of Internet and the role of Gates https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/29/lets-not-forget-bill-gates-hasnt-always-been-the-good-guy Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse my brevity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: