<html><body><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000"><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Hello Doug,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Other members (particularly Tom Haigh and Peter Eckstein) have objected already that Turing's 1936 paper <i>Computable Numbers</i> was essentially a solution to an abstract problem of mathematical logic, NOT the invention/project of a universal computer, which appeared a decade later in the ENIAC team and the Von Neumann reports. (Warning: You've innocently walked into a worldwide quarrel "Historians vs. Martin Davis' <em>The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing"</em>!)<br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Yet this does not alter the main object of your query, to which the answer is definitely your option n°2. As far as I know, just like designing the first computers was essentially an engineers' effort (inventing storage devices, etc.), "people first begin hooking computers up to one another experimentally, and then a theorist subsequently created an idea to describe/frame what was happening". Peter Eckstein's message mentions Binac, which is a remarkable "first" case; it was designed by an engineers' company to solve a practical problem.<br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;"><br data-mce-bogus="1"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">From what I have seen in Europe, the teams which designed early computers included telecom engineers, who quite "naturally" experimented with distant connections between a computer and a teleprinter, then imagined how to integrate computers in data networks and found a need for that in air-defense systems. An example is given in the memoirs of FH Raymond, published in 1989 in the <em>Annals of the History of Computing</em>, "SEA: An Adventure with a Sad Ending": This small French computer company demonstrated in 1955 a remote processing link between its Paris computer and a teleprinter installed in Brussels at a professional fair. Shortly after, Raymond wrote a report suggesting to replace, in the future, paper with electronic data in the phone directory. His company simultaneously participated in the design of computerized air-defense systems (the contract was finally won by IBM France in 1958), which brings us nearer to the interconnection of computers, not just to remote-processing. France was some 5 years behind the US and Britain in computer development, so what I describe here certainly goes for other countries. The Soviet side is particularly interesting (see "InterNyet", Sacha Gerovitch's publications, etc.)<br></span></div><div><br><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">For more suggestions of readings, I would just copy-paste Tom Haigh's message.</span><br data-mce-bogus="1"></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Regarding theoretical work, one could add a subsidiary question : To what extent were theoretical studies of digital networks extensions of studies about data flows within a computer (queuing problems, etc.), and what were the radically novel problems raised by digital network design?</span><br data-mce-bogus="1"></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Best,<br data-mce-bogus="1"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;" data-mce-style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif;">Pierre<br><br>Pierre Mounier-Kuhn<br>CNRS, Sorbonne Université & CentraleSupelec<br>https://cnrs.academia.edu/PierreMounierKuhn<br>http://laboutique.edpsciences.fr/produit/846/9782759818198/Histoire%20illustree%20de%20linformatique<br>http://www.rdv-histoire.com/mounier-kuhn-pierre-eric<br data-mce-bogus="1"></span></div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><hr id="zwchr" data-marker="__DIVIDER__"><div data-marker="__HEADERS__"><b>De: </b>"Douglas Lucas" <dal@riseup.net><br><b>À: </b>"members" <members@sigcis.org><br><b>Envoyé: </b>Mardi 24 Août 2021 23:44:24<br><b>Objet: </b>[SIGCIS-Members] Query about invention of wired networking<br></div><div><br></div><div data-marker="__QUOTED_TEXT__"><p>Dear SIGCIS members,<br>
</p>
<p>I'm a freelance writer/journalist who's published in multiple
news outlets on hacktivism and who's lurked on this email list for
some time. The past several months, I've been reading a great
dealing about Alan Turing and the math behind <i>Computable
Numbers</i> (fundamental theorem of arithmetic, Gödel
encoding, etc). A fairly straightforward question occurred to me,
one I hope this list can help answer:<br>
</p>
<p>As is well known, Turing's 1936 paper <i>Computable Numbers</i>
invented the concept of a universal machine, which includes what
today would be called an airgapped computer. For quite a while,
all computers (universal machines) were airgapped devices. The
historical casual chain is clear: first the idea documented in <i>Computable
Numbers </i>came into existence, and only later are physical
computers actually built, initially as standalone, airgapped
devices.<br>
</p>
<p>But how did plugging computers into one another with wires/cables
begin? Did a thinker first conceive of a profound idea
underpinning wired/cabled networking, and then only later,
engineers implemented that concept in the physical realm? Or, did
people first begin hooking computers up to one another, perhaps
experimentally, and then a theorist subsequently created an idea
to describe/frame what was happening (maybe a mathematical graph
theory or something)?</p>
<p>To put it another way, in terms of a simple standardized
test-like verbal analogy, <i>Computable Numbers</i> is to
airgapped computers as ??? is to wired/cabled networking of
computers.<br>
</p>
<p>I omit wireless connections (e.g., Bluetooth) for the time being.</p>
<p>Thanks much,</p>
<p>Doug Lucas<br>
</p>
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