<div dir="ltr">I am reminded of the mathematician Paul Erdős's comment, "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." Of course, he also used amphetamines as an aid to productivity. </div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 6:15 PM Michael Halvorson <<a href="mailto:halvormj@plu.edu">halvormj@plu.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Kevin and James,<div><br></div><div>At Microsoft/Redmond in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a lot of lore around the distribution of "free" sodas in refrigerators in most of the break rooms. This was before bottled water became a thing, for the most part. On tours for new employees and guests, there was a lot of admiration for the relatively narrow selection of Code, Diet Code, Milk, and Chocolate Milk, which people could freely consume if they wished. Coffee was less popular, but people did venture off "campus" for burgers, ribs, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>The most popular stimulant beverage by far at Microsoft was Mountain Dew, among developers and the documentation teams. In other circles, Jolt Cola was popular, and mentioned in publications like <i>The Cyberpunk Handbook</i> (Random House, 1995), edited by R. U. Sirius [Ken Goffman], St. Jude [Jude Milhon], and Bart Nagel. See p. 66.</div><div><br></div><div>--Michael</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 2:52 PM Kevin Driscoll <<a href="mailto:kdriscoll@alum.mit.edu" target="_blank">kdriscoll@alum.mit.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hello Jim and SIGCIS,<br><br>Two references come to mind:<br><br>1. The "Trojan Room coffee pot" at the U of Cambridge is often cited as the first live camera on the web: <br>- Quentin Stafford-Fraser, “On Site: The Life and Times of the First Web Cam,” Communications of the ACM 44, no. 7 (July 1, 2001): 25–26. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/379300.379327" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1145/379300.379327</a>.<br>- Full text of above without paywall: <a href="https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/cacm200107.html" target="_blank">https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/cacm200107.html</a><br>- Captured by the Wayback Machine on 10 December 1997: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/19971210230542/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html" target="_blank">http://web.archive.org/web/19971210230542/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html</a><br><br>2. Roy Levin of Microsoft Research published a paper about running an industry lab in which he recommends that managers "INSTALL A WORLD-CLASS COFFEE MACHINE" and notes that "the first capital purchase" at MSR-Silicon Valley was an espresso machine. <br>- Roy Levin, “A Perspective on Computing Research Management,” ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review 41, no. 2 (April 1, 2007): 3–9, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/1243418.1243420" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1145/1243418.1243420</a>.<br><div><br></div><div>
I've heard other lore about coffee culture at Microsoft that involves the proximity of Starbucks in the 1990s. Allegedly, management lobbied for coffee carts in every building to keep programmers from driving to off-campus coffeehouses. No cite for that one but it would be fun to track down the origin of the story. <br></div><div><br></div>Looking forward to a caffeinated special issue of the Annals on the transnational history of stimulants and computing. <br><br>Best of luck,<br><br><div>Kevin Driscoll</div><div>U of Virginia</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 3:41 PM James Cortada <<a href="mailto:jcortada@umn.edu" target="_blank">jcortada@umn.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><br clear="all"><div>The IT community of users, programmers, vendors, etc have for decades had a reputation for being extensive consumers of coffee. In some parts of the IT ecosystem, especially among those who work odd hours, such as programmers, computer operators, and vendor field engineers. I am studying the corporate ephemera of this industry and its cultural attachments, such as coffee cups and what they tell us about computing. Do any of you have any information, ephemera, or sources and citations on this specific issue of coffee and computing? I can get many industry folks, such as IBM retirees, to wax eloquently on the subject in their private FB accounts, but that is not enough. Corporate culture is tough to study. Thanks in advance for your help. Jim </div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>James W. Cortada</div><div>Senior Research Fellow</div>
<div>Charles Babbage Institute</div><div>University of Minnesota</div>
<div><a href="mailto:jcortada@umn.edu" target="_blank">jcortada@umn.edu</a></div>
<div>608-274-6382</div></div></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a href="http://sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, 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 <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></blockquote></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a href="http://sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, 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 <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Michael J. Halvorson</div><div>Benson Family Chair in Business and Economic History</div><div><br></div><div><img src="https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1Chn_BocFjstcEok5GoFVzNdLEmwsBvxz&revid=0B3dHWWUVLHTNYUZHTS9kZGt0a0VqNHp4NlhUWGNxMDh5c0ZBPQ" width="78" height="96"><br></div><div><div>Author of: <i><a href="http://www.thiscodenation.com" target="_blank">Code Nation: Personal Computing and the Learn to Program Movement in America (2020)</a></i></div><div><br></div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
This email is relayed from members at <a href="http://sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">sigcis.org</a>, 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 <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/</a> and you can change your subscription options at <a href="http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org</a></blockquote></div>