January 2009 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Another question - "Giant Brains"
by Evan Koblentz 31 Oct '09

31 Oct '09

Was the term "Giant Brains" already popular when Edmund Berkeley used it in his 1949 book title, or should he get credit for popularizing it? I'm mentioning the term in a footnote and want to be sure credit goes to the right source.

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Introducing myself
by Armand Van Dormael 09 May '09

09 May '09

Dear Colleagues, It is a great pleasure for me to join Sigcis. I hope I can make a contribution to your research. Several eminent historians have drawn attention to major gaps in the history of computing. Much of computing technology was developed in Europe, but its originators are not recognized even in their home country. Since Europe has no computer industry, historians have not been interested. On February 24, 2003, the New York Times published an article titled: Herbert F. Mataré. An Inventor of the Transistor Has His Moment. Fifty-five years after the fact, this was the first time Mataré was given credit for his work. In 1986, the Boston Computer Museum held a contest to determine who invented the microcomputer. The Micral created by François Gernelle was recognized as the first commercially distributed microcomputer. . Both Mataré and Gernelle have provided me with ample documentation and information about their work. My forthcoming book The Silicon Revolution explores this unmapped area of history. It constitutes a documented analysis and a coherent narrative of the development of computing in the United States, Europe and Asia. Please see:/http://www.avandor.net IEEE paper The French Transistor. NY Times: Herbert F. Mataré. An Inventor of the Transistor Has His Moment. Armand Van Dormael 33A Drève de la Meute 1410 Waterloo Belgium Tel/fax +32 2 354 96 63 a.vandormael(a)skynet.be

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ENIAC move from Penn to Aberdeen
by Evan Koblentz 31 Jan '09

31 Jan '09

Does anyone know the details about how ENIAC was physically moved from Penn to Aberdeen? I've heard conflicting accounts of whether it was put on trucks or train(s). I would like to read a detailed and accurate account of the moving process -- exactly how it was done, by whom, what problems they encountered, etc.

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BRL computer reports?
by Evan Koblentz 29 Jan '09

29 Jan '09

This week I "discovered" the Army's Ballistics Research Lab computer reports from 1961 and 1964 here: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/on-line-docs.html#History. Does anyone know if the BRL continued publishing such reports after 1964, and if so, where I might find them (ideally online)...? - Evan

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IEEE Life Members' Prize in Electrical History
by Rob MacDougall 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Dear colleagues, This is the annual call for submissions for SHOT's IEEE prize in electrical history. If you or someone you know has published a deserving article in 2008 dealing with any aspect of the history of electricity, electronics, telecommunications, or any other electrically-related field -- and this should includes most work in the history of computing -- please consider nominating it for the IEEE Life Members' Prize in Electrical History. Paper authors are encouraged to nominate themselves by submitting a copy of their article, and everyone is asked to submit notice of anything that they have seen published in 2008 that they feel is worthy of being considered for the Prize. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2009. The official prize announcement appears below. For more information, please contact me at rmacdou(a)uwo.ca. Robert MacDougall Prize Committee Chair THE IEEE LIFE MEMBERS' PRIZE IN ELECTRICAL HISTORY The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Life Members' Prize in Electrical History, supported by the IEEE Life Members' Fund and administered by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), is awarded annually to the best paper in the history of electrotechnology--power, electronics, telecommunications, and computer science--published during the preceding year. Any article published in a learned periodical is eligible if it treats the art or engineering aspects of electrotechnology and its practitioners. The article must be written in English, although the journal or periodical in which it appears may be a foreign language publication. The prize consists of a cash award of $500 and a certificate. To nominate an article, please send a copy (paper or electronic) of the article to each member of the prize committee. Deadline for the 2008 prize is April 15, 2009. Robert MacDougall (chair) Department of History University of Western Ontario Social Science Centre 4328 London, Ontario N6A 5C2 CANADA rmacdou(a)uwo.ca Susan Schmidt Horning Department of History St. John's University 8000 Utopia Parkway Jamaica, NY 11439 schmidts(a)stjohns.edu Andrew J. Butrica P.O. Box 30223 Bethesda, MD 20824-0223 abutrica(a)earthlink.net

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Three future conferences
by Petri Paju 20 Jan '09

20 Jan '09

Hi all, Here are three conferences that may be relevant for some of us. 1. Call for Papers – Workshop Announcement Telecommunication and Globalization: Information Flows in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century 24-25 September 2009, Heidelberg, Germany (Proposals dead line 30 April 2009.) - For more, see below. 2. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science October 28 – November 1, 2009, Washington, DC Submit Abstract and Session Proposals by March 1 - For more, see below. 3. 21st Annual Conference on Accounting, Business & Financial History at Cardiff University, 14-15 September 2009 Announcement of Conference and Call for Papers Those wishing to offer papers to be considered for presentation at the conference should send an abstract of their paper (not exceeding one page) by 1 June 2009 to:...google for more. ** Best wishes, Petri Paju 1. Call for Papers – Workshop Announcement Telecommunication and Globalization: Information Flows in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century 24-25 September 2009, Heidelberg, Germany Organized by the Junior Research Group “Asymmetries in Cultural Information Flows: Europe and South Asia in the Global Information Network since the Nineteenth Century” (headed by Dr Roland Wenzlhuemer) at the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”, University of Heidelberg (http://www.asia-europe.uniheidelberg.de/Plone/research/areas/b/projects/b9-…) Globalization challenges the established relationship between time and space and detaches human interaction from co-locality or proximity. By bringing geographically distant and socioculturally diverse places in touch, it creates a placeless global sphere. When its constituting transregional connections and transfers become numerous and significant enough, this sphere develops a rationale of its own and starts to interact with the local. Globalization becomes a historically relevant process that has a formative impact on local life and culture. By enabling ever-increasing flows of information and knowledge which connect people over great geographic and cultural distances, telecommunication technologies have played and continue to play a key role in processes of globalization. The emergence during the nineteenth and early twentieth century of a global telecommunication network significantly altered the nature of human communication and represented a vital phase in the history of global connections. For the first time in history, long-distance communication became “dematerialized”, i.e. it became detached from the physical medium which enabled its transmission. This workshop invites scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences to explore the complex interrelations between telecommunication technologies and globalization in a historical and socio-cultural perspective. The focus of the workshop rests on the emergence of a global network of telegraph and telephone lines during the nineteenth and early twentieth century and its impact on various domains of human activity, such as government, administration, trade, transport, commerce, labour, news, language, and knowledge production. The workshop organizers seek to provide an interdisciplinary forum for debating how this significant historical development impacted on the rationale of the global sphere and translated into economic, political, social and cultural changes at the local level. It is hoped that this forum will allow for new and fascinating perspectives on the interplay of telecommunication technologies and globalization. Potential questions to be explored include: ‐ Which socio-economic and cultural factors contributed to the emergence of particular global network patterns? ‐ What was the role of telecommunication in linking the global and the local? How did it change the rationale of the global sphere? ‐ How did new telecommunication technologies transform existing perceptions of time and space? ‐ How were the global and the local negotiated through telecommunication technologies? In what ways did agents in non-information societies adopt and adapt foreign (i.e. European/North American) information technologies to their own ends? How did such developments in the field of technology and colonial enterprise impact upon European societies? ‐ Did technologies shape their own networks? And how did emerging communication patterns impact upon the development of the technology itself? ‐ Can we find asymmetries in global network patterns and information flows? Did lessconnected regions automatically find themselves at the receiving end of information flows? ‐ Can we find evidence for processes of political and cultural centralization? If so, have there been counterstrategies in order to preserve the influence and leeway of agents in the periphery? ‐ How did these new technologies impact upon news collection and distribution? How did they change pre-existing ideas and practices of networking? ‐ What was the impact of these new communication technologies on language and cultural perceptions of language? How did they contribute to processes of language standardization and language globalization? Proposals of not more than 500 words may be submitted electronically (Word or PDF) to the organizing committee (Amelia Bonea, bonea(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de and Paul Fletcher, fletcher(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de) by 30 April 2009. For further inquiries, please contact the organizing committee. -- Dr Roland Wenzlhuemer Junior Research Group Leader Cluster of Excellence 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context' University of Heidelberg Karl Jaspers Centre Voßstraße 2, Gebäude 4400 69115 Heidelberg Germany Phone +49 (0) 6221 54 4095 Fax +49 (0) 6221 54 4012 Web http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de Email wenzlhuemer(a)asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de 2. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science October 28 – November 1, 2009, Washington, DC Submit Abstract and Session Proposals by March 1 Dear Colleague: 4S conference welcomes contributions on topics from the range of fields found within science and technology studies. This year’s conference will not have a predetermined theme. Consequently, proposals for sessions and papers should emphasize how they will make innovative and timely contributions to any theme relevant to science and technology studies (STS). Our new abstract submission system is now online. All submitters and authors will need to create a new user account in this system. Aside from this small inconvenience, we are confident the new system will enable more efficient conference management and improved communication with participants. Submit abstracts and session proposals here. Deadline is March 1. Program practices Given the growing size of the 4S conferences and the desire to be as inclusive as possible, the program committee will need to make full use of the available time slots. Therefore, individuals may be listed for a paper presentation and one other role (such as session chair or discussant but not a second paper) for a maximum of two appearances. Paper abstracts may be submitted individually or by a session organizer. Submissions are in the form of abstracts of 500 words or less, and must include a summary of the paper’s main arguments and methodology, as well as a brief statement on the contribution to the STS literature. Session proposals should be limited to 500 words total, and should contain a summary and rationale for the session, as well as a brief discussion of its contribution to STS. Session proposals should list names of all session organizers and panelists, including institutional affiliations and (electronic) addresses. Session proposals should be based on the assumption of two-hour time slots with twenty minutes per presentation. A typical session may have five papers, one discussant, and a ten-minute open discussion slot. You must have a minimum of three complete paper abstracts in order to submit a session proposal. The program committee may assign additional papers to proposed sessions. Proposals for double and triple sessions on a single topic may receive a request to consolidate the topic into one panel or to break the multiple sessions into different topics. The meeting welcomes papers, sessions and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics, type of public and which bring new resources to the STS community to explore these new relations and themes. Apart from traditional research papers, the conference will also welcome proposals for sessions and papers using ‘new media’ or other forms of innovative presentation. New session format This year, for the first time, the 4S is including a new “workshop” format. This is an opportunity for informal presentations, with presenters and other attendees seated around tables. This format is ideal for a more interactive presentation of preliminary ideas and work in progress. Authors and session organizers should indicate if they would like to be part of a workshop table. Submissions for “workshop” presentations are included under the one first-authored submission limit, stated above. It is also possible for sessions to be proposed as workshop tables. For more information, visit the 4S website at http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm . Sincerely, Barbara Allen and Daniel Breslau, Program co-chairs, meeting(a)4sonline.org -- Petri Paju, FT, tutkija, Turun yliopisto -- Ph.D. Researcher, Univ. of Turku http://users.utu.fi/petpaju/

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Yates, _Structuring the Information Age_ now available in paperback
by JoAnne Yates 09 Jan '09

09 Jan '09

Hi, all-- With apologies for dual posting and for the advertisement, I wanted to let you know that Johns Hopkins Univ. Press just issued _Structuring the Information Age: Life Insurance and Technology in the Twentieth Century_ in paperback form, considerably reducing its price. Happy New Year to all! JoAnne Yates -- JoAnne Yates Deputy Dean Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management MIT Sloan School of Management MIT E52-475 50 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02472-1347 617-253-7157 Administrative Assistant Kathleen Doyle PH: 617-253-5555 email: kdoyle(a)mit.edu

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