September 2009 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Vacuum Tube Development Committee
by Evan Koblentz 09 Sep '10

09 Sep '10

Last week I visited Harvard's archives of the Radio Research Lab, and found some meeting minutes of the Vacuum Tube Development Committee (1943-1945 timeframe) .... I can't find much online that nicely summarizes this committee and its activity / purpose. Can someone here point me to a good overview?

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Semi-rare John Mauchly document
by evan＠snarc.net 01 Feb '10

01 Feb '10

Hi all. I received this document from Bill Mauchly today. I asked him if it's okay to share freely; he said yes. File is attached. Bill added: "In 1979, just a few months before he died, John Mauchly had a letter published in DATAMATION. Examples of his writing are rare, but here he clearly wanted to have his say. In it he laid out very clearly how he and Eckert, in the wee hours of 1944, worked out the stored-program architecture of EDVAC, the successor to ENIAC. Later they told von Neumann, and he published it as his own work. He also talks about BINAC. This was at the time that Burks and Goldstine were trying to drain as much credit away from Eckert and Mauchly and towards von Neumann as they could.I've attached a copy of the letter; it a good read if you like this sort of thing. This short essay does not seem to be available on the web. I typed it in from a copy I had that was among my mother's things, apparently a draft from his TRS-80 word processor, on the prompting of Jean Bartik. Enjoy.Bill Mauchly"

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IEEE Annals CFP-Theme issue on labor history of computing
by Jeff Yost 15 Dec '09

15 Dec '09

Dear SIGCIS members, Please find below (and attached) a call for papers for an upcoming (32:4 October 2010) thematic/special issue of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing on the labor history of computing. Please note the deadline for submission for this issue is January 15, 2010. Best, Jeff Jeffrey Yost Associate Director, Charles Babbage Institute Editor in Chief, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing University of Minnesota 222 21st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 612 624 5050 612 625 8054 (Fax) Call for Papers Thematic Issue: Labor History of Computing IEEE Annals of the History of Computing// IEEE Annals of the History of Computing invites article manuscript submissions for a thematic/special issue on the history of labor and computing. Manuscripts that connect to the broader literature on labor history are particularly encouraged. Submissions can address labor issues, practices, or structures within a wide range of settings including computer, software, networking, or semiconductor/components companies throughout the world; user organizations (corporations, government, universities, hospitals, etc.); peer production projects (open source); trade organizations; professional associations; etc. Possible themes and approaches include, but are not limited to, the history of work practices, work culture, shop floor dynamics, labor organization, legislation/lobbying, professionalization, automation and labor displacement, offshoring, gender/race/ethnicity and IT work, safety and risk in the workplace, etc. The deadline for submission to this thematic issue is January 15, 2010. Manuscripts will go through IEEE Annals of the History of Computing’s standard peer review process. If there are more accepted manuscripts than slots for the issue, editors will decide which articles to include based on quality, coverage, and synergies between manuscripts. If there are accepted manuscripts not included in the issue, they will be added to the general publication queue and published in a later issue of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. All articles must be between 5,000 and 8,000 words, including citations/endnotes. To submit your manuscript go to http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/annals/home Select “Write for Us” tab at the top and follow instructions (including selecting the Labor History thematic/special issue). If you have any questions or would like feedback on ideas/manuscripts prior to submission, please contact IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Editor in Chief Jeffrey Yost (yostx003(a)umn.edu <mailto:yostx003@umn.edu> or 612 624 5050)

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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] computers and management science
by Joel West 02 Oct '09

02 Oct '09

Dear Eden, I share many of Gerard's concerns about the unmeasurability of such claims and even how dubious making them might be. (I also agree with Tom that "management science" is too vague -- does he possibly mean operations research?) However, as a positivist (are there any others on this list?) I am inclined to take the claim at face value and see what they might mean. So while "first" is likely unprovable, I do think it would be interesting to say "most computers were bought to do payroll or missile trajectories and this one was bought to do management science." I suspect it would be relatively easy to document the "typical" motivation or application for computers in the era, even if the actual use (post hoc) is not easily measured. (Ideally, you'd want a list of who had login accounts, and if necessary assume each used their account proportionately). But in some ways, the inputs question is less interesting than the outputs question. If Beer was the first boy in the invisible college of his discipline to have a new toy, what did he do with it? Is there any evidence that this strategic foresight (or dumb luck) enabled him to advance his field in ways that his less-endowed rivals could not? I would find it terribly interesting if Beer has the best computing power but the major advances in numerical approaches to management science were being made elsewhere. IIRC, the field's major scientific prize (originally from ORSA, now INFORMS) is named after a mathematician who made his most important contributions before these sorts of computers existed. Joel On 6:25 PM +0200 7/17/09, Alberts, G. hath said: >What in heaven would be the purport of such claim? Computers were not only expensive, they involved major investments, certainly machines the size of Pegasus. Hence, the legitimation for making such investment was seldomly based on the single use for one field of application, or rather for one department in an enterprise or university. Historians usually can trace the considerations leading to the actual purchase in the company archives. Also one may be able to guess where (in which subdepartment) the first initiative to such deep investment in modernizing business originated. >How the machine was in fact used, once installed, is much harder to reconstruct. Did the administrative support staff actually get to use the computer or were they pushed out by the scientific computers from the laboratory departments. Were management scientists favored before the statisticians and the down to earth daily bookkeeping? In the incidental case where a logbook is preserved, or where a very early computing center kept statistics, one may be able to tell something about who was using the machine. >So, what could be the meaning of "dedicated to"? Was that "dedicated" on the level of legitimation of the purchase, or was it "dedicated" in terms of seconds and minutes of use of the system? Let alone that we could judge the claim of "entirely" or even "first". > >Rather, to us historians being aware of inclusion and exclusion mechanisms around the use of computers, simply power struggles if you will, the claim of "dedicated entirely" made in a first person account has a clear intent. Other users, other interested parties, were succesfully made invisible, at least in the account of the "management science" department. Probably bookkkeeping use didnot count, or was counted under management science in the first place, etcetera. > >Rather than investigating the claim, my suggestion would be to investigate the fact that such claim was made, when and by whom. On 11:11 AM -0400 7/17/09, Medina, Eden wrote: >I am hoping that your collective wisdom might help me check out a claim. The British cybernetician Stafford Beer claims that the Ferranti Pegasus 1 machine he bought in 1956 was the only computer at that time dedicated entirely to applications in management science. Do you know of any other examples of computers fully dedicated to management science applications during this time period? -- Joel West, Ph.D. http://www.JoelWest.org/ Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship College of Business, San Jose State University BT 555, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0070

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CFP for Colloqium on European information history 1880-1913, Mons, 20-21 May 2010
by Thomas Haigh 28 Sep '09

28 Sep '09

The announcement below may be of interest to people working on 19th century information technologies or those conveniently located for travel to Belgium. It is coming from a separate stream of historical work on what's been called "history of information science" and is increasingly being dubbed "information history" conducted almost exclusively by people inside schools of library and information science. The CFP seems to be written to welcome STS perspectives. Most work has been unashamedly internalist, although the positive side of that is that the scholarship of librarianship traditionally included space for historical work (which unfortunately seems to be getting squeezed out a little in the rush to make things called "iSchools"). Efforts to integrate our two communities seem overdue. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Boyd Rayward [mailto:wrayward@illinois.edu] Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 2:15 AM To: Kathryn La Barre; Thomas Haigh; Michael Buckland; Trudi Bellardo Hahn; Julian Warner; wrayward(a)uiuc.edu; bobwill(a)gwm.sc.edu; furner(a)gseis.ucla.edu; adebons(a)mail.sis.pitt.edu; thomas.haigh(a)gmail.com Subject: Re: SIG/HFIS and the Mons Colloquium: Transcending Boundaries Dear colleagues, Stephanie Manfroid and I are organising the next in a series of colloquia that began with Architecture of Knoweldge in Mons 2002, was followed by European Modernism at the University of Illinois in 2005 and Analogous Spaces at the University of Ghent last year. The colloquia all deal with aspects of knowedge organization and have had an historical orientation. Their details are on the website given below. I thought you might be interested to learn of the next in the series which we are organizing for May 20-21 next year. We are calling it: Transcending Boundaries in Europe in the Period of the Belle Epoque: Organizing Knowledge, Mobilizing Networks, and Effecting Social Change. We would like to ask you to consider participating in the colloquium in two ways: 1. by sending us an abstract of a paper (of course!) and 2. by helping to publicise the colloquium by distributing the call for papers. Do we have a SIG/HFIS mailing list for example? I thought too that you might think of various colleagues who you think might be interested and perhaps other listsevs and bulletin boards that might be appropriate. So many of our US colleagues are interested in aspects of LIS history that connect to Europe in various ways and of course there are all sorts of New World boundaries to be transcended in the context of the collqouium. Anything you can do to help get the word out about the collqouium and indeed to participate would be greatly appreciated. With many thanks and best wishes Boyd and Stephanie ------------- CALL FOR PAPERS Transcending Boundaries in Europe in the Period of the Belle Epoque: Organizing Knowledge, Mobilizing Networks, and Effecting Social Change -A colloquium to be held at the Mundaneum, Mons, 20-21 May 2010 Papers for the colloquium will explore aspects of network development, information creation, organization and exchange, and related “boundary spanning” activities of individuals and institutions and the scholarly tools and techniques that this enabled them to develop during the period of the “Belle époque” in which the Western European world underwent extensive social, political and “epistemic” change from approximately 1880 to 1914. Those interested in submitting papers for the colloquium are asked to submit an abstract of not more than 500 words by January 31, 2010. Abstracts may be in French or English and will be refereed. Authors will be notified by of the outcome of this process by February 28, 2010. Accepted papers must be delivered at the Colloquium in English. For further information see ENGLISH: http://www.mundaneum.be/index.asp?ID=621 FRENCH:http://www.mundaneum.be/index.asp?ID=616 Enquiries should be sent to: W Boyd Rayward -- wrayward(a)illinois.edu Stephanie Manfroid -- stephanie.manfroid(a)mundaneum.be) W. Boyd Rayward Professor Emeritus Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 E. Daniel St Champaign, IL 61820-6211 ph: 217 - 244- 9741 fax: 217 244 -3302

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I'm coming up for tenure... letters?
by Thomas Haigh 24 Sep '09

24 Sep '09

Hello Everyone, I'm coming up for tenure at UWM this semester in the school of information studies (http://www4.uwm.edu/sois/) . My office is currently knee deep in papers as I get my file together. External reviews should already have received packets for evaluation, and the school's internal committee will do its reviewing in about a month's time. One of the things we are asked to do is gather evidence of a lot of things, including service and the impact of research. This can take the form of letters of recommendation. SIGCIS is the community I've done most of my service with, if any of you happen to be willing to write a letter in documentation of the usefulness of my work here to your own involvement in the field then I would appreciate this. I'm thinking of things like the conference panels, resource guide, lunch meetings, dinners, members directory, email list, etc. (Of course I've had a lot of help from the other SIGCIS volunteers in implementing these). Likewise, if you have found any of my published research useful in shaping your own thinking, providing facts, or for teaching purposes then a short statement of recommendation explaining this would be very welcome. Or if you've found my comments or guidance helpful at some point. These letters are not anonymous and do have to attempt an evaluation of my overall case as those from the official external reviewers do. Therefore it is fine just to send them to me. But in the letter itself, maybe use "Dear Dr. Zhang" (the chair of the SOIS executive committee) as the addressee -- it would seem a little weird to be writing to me to tell me how great I am. The file has to be submitted on paper. My postal address here is Thomas Haigh, UWM School of Information Studies, Bolton Hall 5th Floor, 3210 N Maryland Ave Milwaukee, WI 53211. However, if you send the letter as an attachment, scanned PDF, etc. to thaigh(a)computer.org then I can print it out myself. Pardon any presumption. This seemed less intrusive than making individual requests, which then could create awkwardness or a feeling of obligation. I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the SHOT conference and SIGCIS workshop next month. If you have any announcements of your own (new books, papers, resources discovered, etc) then please do share them with the list. Tom Haigh www.tomandmaria.com/tom

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the global computer industry
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 20 Sep '09

20 Sep '09

Might be of interest Bernardo University of Leicester Technology adoption and factor proportions in open economies : theory and evidence from the global computer industry Date: 2009-09-01 By: Cusolito , Ana P. Lederman, Daniel URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5043&r=his Theories of international trade assume that all countries use similar and exogenous technologies in the production of any good. This paper relaxes this assumption. The marriage of literatures on biased technical change and trade yields a tractable theory, which predicts that differences in factor endowments and intellectual property rights bias technical change toward particular factor intensities, and thus unit factor input requirements can vary across economies. Using data on net exports of a single industry, computers, intellectual property rights and factor endowments for 73 countries during 1980-2000, the paper shows that once technological choices are considered, countries with different factor endowments can become net exporters of the same product. Keywords: Technology Industry,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies,E-Business,Labor Policies

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Future conferences in Europe
by Petri Paju 18 Sep '09

18 Sep '09

Hi all, For SIGCIS purposes, I listed some future conferences you might find interesting. Best regards, Petri 1. "Cultural Histories: Close Readings, Critical Syntheses", May 26-30, 2010, Turku, Finland, Annual Conference of the International Society for Cultural History; http://www.abdn.ac.uk/isch/ The deadline for abstracts is 30 October 2009. 2. "Technology & East-West relations: Transfers, parallel histories, and the European laboratory," June 17-20, 2010 at Sofia University (Bulgaria). -Closing ESF EUROCORES Inventing Europe Conference & 4th Tensions of Europe Plenary Conference. - Deadline paper abstracts: December 18, 2009 3. ICOHTEC conference REUSING THE INDUSTRIAL PAST, Tampere, Finland, 10-15 August 2010. See http://www.tampere.fi/industrialpast2010/ The final deadline for all submissions is Monday 16 November 2009. 4. EASST Conference, PRACTISING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, PERFORMING THE SOCIAL, 2-4 September 2010 University of Trento, Italy (Now: Call for convenors and thematic tracks) Many deadlines, incl. March 15 (2010): deadline for abstracts submission. http://www.easst.net/node/2326

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SIGCIS Workshop Registration
by Jeffrey D. Tang 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

Hello SIGCIS Members, SHOT's Special Interest Group in Computers, Information, and Society (SIGCIS) invites you to attend our first workshop in the history of computing to be held Sunday, October 18. The workshop, which follows the formal program of the annual meeting of SHOT in the conference hotel, has a theme of "Michael Mahoney and the Histories of Computing(s)" in honor of the late Mike Mahoney. The program is available at: http://www.sigcis.org/files/SIGCIS%202009%20Workshop%20Schedule%20--%202009… Abstracts of the papers can be viewed at: http://www.sigcis.org/files/SIGCIS%202009%20Workshop%20Abstracts.pdf REGISTRATION: Registration for the SIGCIS workshop has no additional charge beyond that for the main SHOT meeting. If you want to attend the workshop and are not already listed on the workshop program as a participant simply e-mail the SIGCIS Secretary to confirm your attendance. Please send a message to Jeffrey Tang by September 21 at secretary(a)sigcis.org. Also include your meal preference (see below). The SIGCIS Workshop is being treated part of the SHOT meeting, so if you haven't registered for the main SHOT conference you will need to do so. If you are planning on attending ONLY the SIGCIS Workshop, SHOT is offering a very reasonable $30 one-day rate (this is ONLY available to those attending for a single day -- all others need the normal, full registration). The form for SHOT registration is at http://www.historyoftechnology.org/pdf/pittsburgh_registration.pdf but must be faxed or mailed. Note that the $30 one-day option is not listed on the form, but will be accepted if you indicate this as your preference. For those who want to make a late decision, this one-day rate will also be available on-site at the conference. MEAL ARRANGEMENTS: In addition to the workshop itself, SIGCIS will be organizing group lunch and dinner reservations on Sunday at nearby restaurants to maximize efficiency and allow participants to chat during meals. You will pay the restaurant directly, but please specify in your workshop registration whether you will be attending the lunch, the dinner, or both. Note that these meals are different than the SIGCIS lunch on Friday. Also, let us know your preference for price range and style of restaurant so that we can select an option that best suits the workshop attendees. Once restaurant choices have been finalized we will email participants again to provide more information and confirm interest. We hope to see you in October, and please register for the workshop ASAP so that we can make the necessary arrangements to help our first workshop go smoothly. Cheers, Jeffrey Tang SIGCIS Secretary *************************************** Dr. Jeffrey Tang Asst. Prof. of Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) Coordinator, Minor in Science, Technology, and Society James Madison University 800 South Main St. MSC 4102 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 Phone: 540-568-2758 E-mail: tangjd(a)jmu.edu

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