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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Hello everyone,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I’m pleased to say that I have heard from The National Museum of Computing to confirm that the startling phrasing in the EDSAC press release was a mistake which has now been corrected in the online version. So we are not seeing a new outbreak of hostilities in the old wars over the “first computer,” just a glitch in public relations oversight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Good to see all the interesting discussion of “firsts” on the list – still a significant concern in this community. My own position is that if something would not be of historical interest if it was the second then it is probably still not worth much attention as the first. So it is best to justify the significant of something in terms of its influence, use, distinctive features, evidence of a path not taken, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>It reminded me of the case of the “inventor of email” you may remember me getting tied up in a couple of years ago (<a href="http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai">http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai</a>). The interesting thing to me was that in his quest for fame he put a huge amount of energy and misguided ingenuity into pinning the earliest possible date on his electronic mail system and arguing that everything produced prior to 1980 was merely “messaging” and not mail. However he has never, as far as I can see, even tried to argue that his system had any influence developments outside the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Leaving aside the problem his system does not appear to have exhibited any significant “firsts” we are still left with the fascinating assumption that a completely isolated “first” with no historical legacy would give one a kind of moral ownership of the all subsequent innovations in the area. This is perhaps a kind of cultural leakage from the patenting process, as he also seemed to be confusing holding the copyright on a system with a particular name (“EMAIL”) with holding a patent on the corresponding technology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The funny thing, as I tried to explain, is that the things that historians might find interesting or useful in his papers describing the system really have nothing to do with whether it was the first or the thousandth. Though admittedly we weren’t really his target audience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Tom<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>