December 2011 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

New book about Turing Award winner Peter Naur
by Edgar Daylight 20 Jun '12

20 Jun '12

************ Book announcement *********** `Pluralism in Software Engineering: Turing Award Winner Peter Naur Explains' --- by Edgar G. Daylight As a software engineer and aspiring historian of computing, I have had the honor of meeting the computing pioneer Peter Naur at his home in Copenhagen in the spring of 2011. My lengthy discussion with Naur is documented in my new book and is published by Lonely Scholar. I invite historians of science to have a look at the book's summary at: http://www.lonelyscholar.com/node/7 Naur discusses varying topics, ranging from astronomy to programming and from philosophy to psychology. An underlying theme is Naur's rejection of Western philosophy. best wishes, Edgar G. Daylight www.dijkstrascry.com

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Obituaries in the History of Computing
by Chris McDonald 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

SIGICSers, I've posted a blog entry about some of the men and women of significance to the history of computing who have died in the last year:http://www.sigcis.org/node/318 <https://exchange1.ecfs.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=1d28094030c14dddae21e80534de9a9…> Let me know who I've missed! Chris McDonald

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Science Museum gift press release
by Blyth Tilly 16 Dec '11

16 Dec '11

Google formally announced their gift to the Science Museum in London today, which will enable a new temporary Alan Turing exhibition to co-incide with the centenary of his birth and support the development of a new permanent Information and Communications gallery. More information is on the Google European Public Policy Blog <https://mobileuser.nmsi.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://googlepolicy…> . best wishes, Tilly Dr Tilly Blyth Curator of Computing and Information Science Museum Exhibition Road London SW7 2DD For updates on all Science Museum news and events sign up to our free e-newsletter at www.sciencemuseum.org.uk This e-mail and attachments are intended for the named addressee only and are confidential. If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender immediately, delete the message from your computer system and destroy any copies. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and may not reflect the views of the National Museum of Science & Industry. This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs Email Security System.

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interesting paper
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 15 Dec '11

15 Dec '11

Something a bit out of the norm which might be of interest Season's greetings Bernardo Bangor University (Wales) An Historically-Grounded Critical Analysis of Research Articles in MIS Date: 2011 By: François-Xavier De Vaujany (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - CNRS : UMR7088 - Université Paris IX - Paris Dauphine) Isabelle Walsh (Humanis - Humans and Management in Society - Université de Strasbourg) Nathalie Mitev (Departement of information systems - London School of Economics) URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00644398&r=his In order to explore scientific writing in Information Systems (IS) journals, we adopt a combination of historical and rhetorical approaches. We first investigate the history of universities, business schools, learned societies and scientific articles. This perspective allows us to capture the legacy of scientific writing standards, which emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then, we focus on two leading IS journals (EJIS and MISQ). An historical analysis of both outlets is carried out, based on data related to their creation, evolution of editorial statements, and key epistemological and methodological aspects. We also focus on argumentative strategies found in a sample of 436 abstracts from both journals. Three main logical anchorages (sometimes combined) are identified, and related to three argumentative strategies: 'deepening of knowledge', 'solving an enigma' and 'addressing a practical managerial issue'. We relate these writing norms to historical imprints of management and business studies, in particular: enigmafocused rhetorics, interest in institutionalized literature, neglect for managerially grounded rhetoric and lack of reflexivity in scientific writing. We explain this relation as a quest for academic legitimacy. Lastly, some suggestions are offered to address the discrepancies between these writing norms and more recent epistemological and theoretical stances adopted by IS researchers. Keywords: argumentative strategies; history; academic writing; legitimacy

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CHM Digital Repository Grant Press Release
by Al Kossow 14 Dec '11

14 Dec '11

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/computer-history-museum-receives-goo gleorg-grant-for-digital-repository-1598242.htm December 14, 2011 03:00 ET Computer History Museum Receives Google.org Grant for Digital Repository Preserving and Creating Access to Original Digital and Digitized Artifacts MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - Dec 14, 2011) - The Computer History Museum announced today that Google.org has provided a grant of $500,000 for the Museum to preserve its valuable digital collection chronicling the birth of computing through the modern networked world. Support from Google.org will allow the Computer History Museum to create a Digital Repository infrastructure that will effectively preserve its present digital collection as well as future acquisitions, to prevent the loss of digital material through physical degradation and digital obsolescence, as well as support increased storage capacity, to allow the Museum to expand its collection to include new media, such as email, websites, databases and datasets. ...

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Search information technology history - not via Google
by Info ＠ IT History Society 13 Dec '11

13 Dec '11

The IT History Society Historical Resources sites database has just grown over 1,500 websites. These worldwide websites contain information technology history of our information industry. Each month computers at the Internet Archive under the direction of Archive-IT crawl and index the entire database. Educators, IT professionals, IT companies, students, and information technology historians both professional and hobbyists can now roam with information technology searches and not have extraneous entrees that are not related to information technology. Take a moment and have some fun going back in time. Go to http://ithistory.org/archiveit/archiveit-search.php and start with some search terms such as IBM 701, PDD-11, ENIAC, Grace Hopper, COBOL, Apple 1, etc. To view a listing of all the websites that are crawled and indexed monthly, go <http://ithistory.org/resource_sites/resource-sites.php> to http://ithistory.org/resource_sites/resource-sites.php We are still adding sites daily. If you would like to have a site added, please go to http://ithistory.org/resource_sites/resource-form.php <http://u106606.sendgrid.org/wf/click?c=GpFvcUDYuAwQI4JxQ4Vn6H9hwH3YCfhBKFPj pS7v7ZPvdz8mOkQMRTPzBRDPfBkKnFNwDzftGKTe0DpLceJtyw%3D%3D&rp=buZGV13pDR7RFjMH D2IQxY%2FTb5sgbNVmeUmSudFLwu4n2jzaQX5eGWVw%2B%2BhyZ4I%2Fbq59qFrDcllOhPbH9VnL h%2FNHQAVkE8VdfVoOsDPDe%2Bc%3D&u=94GVE13CTUuhFw6czGdadA%2Fh1> IT History Society One Blackfield Drive - Suite 331 Tiburon, CA 94920 (415) 435-2263 info(a)ITHistory.org www.ITHistory.org <http://www.ithistory.org/> Sm logo dropEnsuring the Future by Preserving the Past <http://www.twitter.com/ithistoryorg> twitter <http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/It-History-Society/143799552346273> find-us-on-facebook

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Springer History of Computing titles ---> $24.95
by Thomas J. Misa 13 Dec '11

13 Dec '11

Hi all, I've been admiring the titles that Martin Campbell-Kelly is publishing in the Springer History of Computing series, six titles to date, . . . but also (to be honest) fretting about the high price (mostly $99). <http://www.springer.com/series/8442?detailsPage=titles> You can get these titles (if <your> library happens to subscribe to a Springer list) for the very decent price of $24.95 -- including shipping. I ordered Mark Priestly's _Science of Operations_ (regular price at $129) for the same price. Here's a route worth trying: 1. Look up the Springer title in WORLDCAT.org (not your library). 2. Navigate to an "E-book" listing for the title; then look for "SpringerLink" and click on it. 3. At the top of the "SpringerLink" page, under the Shopping Cart, look for and click on: "Buy a Print Copy" • Buy a Print Copy (USD 24.95) • Because your library offers access to Springer eBooks, you can have a printed copy of this book delivered to you from SpringerLink for just EUR 24.95 [US$ as well] (free shipping) What came (in a week or so) was a print-on-demand softcover book, nicely done, color cover, black-and-white insides; completely readable. Great value. The book is clearly stamped for /personal/ use only. Clearly, Springer hopes that libraries buy the expensive hardback edition. Best, Tom Misa

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book announcement: Cybernetic Revolutionaries
by Medina, Eden 13 Dec '11

13 Dec '11

Dear SIGCIS colleagues: Just a short note to announce the publication of my book Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile, which was just released from MIT Press. I am pasting the back cover blurb below. More information about the book is available at: http://cyberneticrevolutionaries.com. Best wishes for the holidays, Eden ---- Book Summary: In Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina tells the history of two intersecting utopian visions, one political and one technological. The first was Chile’s experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to build a computer system that would manage Chile’s economy. Neither vision was fully realized—Allende’s government ended with a violent military coup; the system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely implemented—but they hold lessons for today about the relationship between technology and politics. Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews, Medina examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean government—which was to feature holistic system design, decentralized management, human-computer interaction, a national telex network, near real-time control of the growing industrial sector, and modeling of the behavior of dynamic systems. She also describes, and documents with photographs, the network’s Star Trek-like operations room, which featured swivel chairs with armrest control panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing red lights to indicate economic emergencies. Studying Project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the technological ambitions of a government in the midst of political change but also the limitations of the Chilean revolution. This history further shows how human attempts to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society can open new technological, intellectual, and political possibilities. Technologies, Medina writes, are historical texts; when we read them we are reading history. -- Eden Medina Assistant Professor of Informatics Adjunct Assistant Professor of History School of Informatics and Computing Indiana University, Bloomington edenm(a)indiana.edu<mailto:edenm@indiana.edu> www.edenmedina.com<http://www.edenmedina.com> Learn about "Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile" (MIT Press, 2011) @ www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com<http://www.cyberneticrevolutionaries.com/>

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google on noyce
by Coopersmith, Jonathan 12 Dec '11

12 Dec '11

Enjoy the Google celebration of Noyce's 84th birthday today. Jonathan -- Jonathan CoopersmithAssociate Professor    Department of History   Texas A&M University  College Station, TX  77843-4326 979.845.7151    979.862.4314 fax   http://aggiegaijin.blogspot.com/    Secretary   Section L, History & Philosophy of ScienceAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)www.aaas.org

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People love this stuff: "Larry's Museum of Dead Technology"
by William McMillan 07 Dec '11

07 Dec '11

This photo gallery from ZDNet.com shows a very nice little collection of old computers and other tech, apparently located in a guy's office in San Francisco. *http://tinyurl.com/77zmyeb* or http://www.zdnet.com/photos/larrys-museum-of-dead-technology/6332044?tag=ma… As was pointed out in discussions at the SIGCIS meeting in Cleveland, there's a lot of latent interest in the history of such technology.

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