July 2013 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

SIGCIS at the Manchester Congress
by Thomas Haigh 17 Jul '13

17 Jul '13

Hello everyone, Like many of you I will soon be on my way to Manchester to take part in the gigantic iCHSTM congress (which includes ICOTECH, the international history of technology meeting, and an array of other events. Below are parts of a reposted message sent to the list a few months ago by our own James Sumner, who seems to be shouldering a very large part of the organizational burden for the meeting. I've reshuffled the events into order, and removed one that has been cancelled but there are probably various changes since then so my advice is to check details here against the main program, http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/, for anything you particularly care about. Look particularly at the line "Computing, information, comms" on the chart here: http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/timetable.html. >From the list below we should have probably the biggest concentration of SIGCIS members ever gathered outside our own events at SHOT. I'm going to be there for the whole week, and expect that this will give a chance to spend happy times with many of you inside and outside the official events. It also happens that July 24 is my birthday. Given this, and the fact that I lived in Manchester for four years as a student and retain a great fondness for the place, I'm thinking that the evening of July 24 would be a particularly appropriate date on which to assemble anyone who is interested for an informal tour of historic pubs and elegant bars around the city center. Reply to this message if you are interested and I'll create a small email group to plan the specifics. (July 24 seems to be between the main SIGCIS related events so if you are interested but won't be that day reply anyway and perhaps we will move it). Extracts from James' message: SIGCIS has a symposium (group of themed sessions) at the Congress, organised by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, Miguel Garcia-Sancho and myself, and a lot of familiar SIGCIS faces will be presenting both within this symposium and elsewhere…. The theme of the SIGCIS symposium is "Data at work".... By my reckoning, there are at least 40 obviously SIGCIS-relevant papers on the programme, most of which appear on a dedicated "Computing, information, comms" track to avoid clashes: see the timetable at <http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/timetable.html>. Some wider connections to themes relevant to some researchers on this list are covered in the "Systems, data, automation, computation" section at <http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/guide/m/discipline.html#a3>. Below (with apologies for likelihood of mangled text on some systems) I have cut and pasted listings of several core relevant symposia. I would emphasise, however, that there is a *lot* of interesting material on the wider programme, in fields ranging from military communications to systems biology to the use of digital techniques in teaching history. And there are highly relevant papers in broader sessions about other themes. Two that leapt out at me are Per Lundin in S078 on oral history, and Dick van Lente in T193 on STM in the public sphere. There are almost certainly others: let me know what I've missed! My reformatting and arrangement in chronological order of the relevant session information (which, to repeat the disclaimed, may now be out of date): S086-B. Biology, agriculture and medicine Mon 22 July, early afternoon Chair: to be announced Miguel GARCIA-SANCHO | University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom Writing the history of ‘computers’ and ‘data’ through their interactions with biomedical research: from the genetic code to DNA sequencing (1950s-1980s) Joseph NOVEMBER | University of South Carolina, United States The Cochrane Collaboration, beyond Cochrane Hallam STEVENS | Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Generating value: the Ensembl database and the dynamics of data Sabina LEONELLI | University of Exeter, United Kingdom Putting data to work in plant science, 1990-2012 S086-C. Making coding cultures Mon 22 July, late afternoon Chair: James SUMNER | University of Manchester, United Kingdom Liesbeth DE MOL | Ghent University, Belgium From the machine’s eye? ENIAC and its different users Thomas HAIGH | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States Rethinking the stored-program concept David NOFRE | Independent scholar, Netherlands The promises and problems of a universal programming language: reconciling scientific inquiry and technological stability in the ALGOL project, 1960-1965 Tilly BLYTH | Science Museum, London, United Kingdom De-coding public service: the production and consumption of cultural values in the BBC microcomputer P125. Enforced specialization in computing technology: debugging the history of cooperation and competition in COMECON countries Tue 23 July, early morning until early morning Chair: Thomas HAIGH | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States Pierre BOUILLON | École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr, France A paradoxical Franco-Romanian cooperation in computers, both supported and circumscribed by the Cold War Slawomir LOTYSZ | University of Zielona Gora, Poland Plaiting a whip of sand: ups and downs of optical fiber technology in pre-1989 Poland Petri PAJU | University of Turku, Finland Finlandized computing or business as usual? Computer trade between Finland and the Soviet bloc in the 1970s Frank DITTMANN | Deutsches Museum, Germany The development of network technology in COMECON countries S005-A. Approaching machines and mathematics Fri 26 July, early morning Chair: Maarten BULLYNCK | Université Paris 8, France Anthony MOORE | Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, France Music machines and aural arithmetic Peggy Aldrich KIDWELL | Smithsonian Institution, United States Mathematical recreations and machines Doron SWADE | Independent scholar, United Kingdom Mathematics and machines: from calculation to computing Gerard ALBERTS | University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Mathematics as a machine S005-B. Numerical mathematics and analog computing Fri 26 July, late morning Chair: Marie-José DURAND-RICHARD | Laboratoire SPHERE-UMR 7219, France Johannes LENHARD | University of Bielefeld, Germany Mathematics, machines, design: Carl Runge and the contested status of numerical mathematics Helena DURNOVA | Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Václav Láska (1862-1943) and Václav Hruška (1888-1954): machines and practices in calculation in interwar Czechoslovakia Ulf HASHAGEN | Deutsches Museum, Germany Analog computing as a failed modernization program in the military-industrial-academic complex of the Third Reich Loïc PETITGIRARD | Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, France Analog computing and the mathematics of dynamical systems: ‘theoretical dynamics’ at the Centre de Recherche en Physique, Marseille, France, 1948-1964 S005-C. Mathematics through the machine's eye: the advent of digital computing Fri 26 July, early afternoon Chair: Liesbeth DE MOL | Ghent University, Belgium Marie-José DURAND-RICHARD | Laboratoire SPHERE-UMR 7219, France Douglas R Hartree (1897-1958): from the differential analyzer to digital computers Allan OLLEY | Independent scholar, Canada A task that exceeded the technology: early applications of the computer to the lunar three-body problem Maarten BULLYNCK | Université Paris 8, France Computing primes with the help of machinery (1929-1949) Mark PRIESTLEY | University College London, United Kingdom From computing plan to computer program: Monte Carlo and the ‘miracle of the ENIAC’ S005-D. Programming mathematics on digital computers Fri 26 July, late afternoon Chair: Liesbeth DE MOL | Ghent University, Belgium Claude LOBRY | INRIA-MODEMIC, France De la «mise en equation» à la «mise en programme» Wolfgang BRAND | University of Stuttgart, Germany Getting in shape, form-finding in architecture: the force-density method as a bridge between mathematics and machine Edgar DAYLIGHT | Independent Scholar, Belgium Edsger W. Dijkstra in the 1980s: proving theorems by programming an ideal, non-existing, machine Commentary: Renate TOBIES | Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany T202-A. Information technology Sat 27 July, early morning Chair: to be announced Marcelo VIANNA | Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul - PUCRS, Brazil Para além dos clones – a formação do campo da Informática no Brasil nos anos 1980 através de três casos de fabricantes de microcomputadores (1980-1988). Beyond clones: the building up of the Brazilian information technology field in the 1980s through three cases of personal computer manufacturers, 1980-1988 Aracele TORRES | University of São Paulo, Brazil Os estudos do software e a compreensão da sociedade contemporânea: o caso do movimento software livre Software studies and the understanding of contemporary society: the free software movement case BAO Ou | Institution of Science Technology & Society, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, China 翻译工作在中国计算机起步中的作用（1953-1967） The role of translation in China’s starting development of the computer, 1953-1967 Scott CAMPBELL | University of Waterloo, Canada Computation centres, configured users and early computer technology in Canada Best wishes, Tom _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members(a)sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. 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Doug Engelbart
by Dag Spicer 14 Jul '13

14 Jul '13

Greetings SIGCIS Friends! As we all know, computer pioneer Doug Engelbart passed away recently. Here is an interview, conducted by the NYT's John Markoff, for CHM from 2002: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSgaJt27PM Also, for an *excellent* summary of his life and accomplishments, have a look at our blog this week, with CHM Internet curator Marc Weber: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/chm-fellow-douglas-c-engelbart/ Cheers! Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd Mountain View, CA 94043 650.810.1035 direct 650.810.1055 fax Follow Us: CHM Blog I Facebook I Twitter I YouTube

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(Free) NEW HISTORY ON THE COMPUTERISATION OF A SPANISH FINANCIAL INSTITUTION - available in a free access online version
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 12 Jul '13

12 Jul '13

> > >> >> >> NEW HISTORY ON THE COMPUTERISATION OF A SPANISH FINANCIAL INSTITUTION >> >> A new book on the processes of computerisation and technological and organisational change of a Spanish financial institution is available in a free access online version and in paperback: La Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones de Barcelona – “la Caixa”, from 1950 to 2011. Throughout the 20th century, "la Caixa" has been one of the main European savings banks and is currently the leading savings bank in Spain and the third largest financial entity in the country, doing its banking activity indirectly through CaixaBank. This is a savings bank which, in the sixties, was one of the first financial institutions which implemented ONLINE, REAL TIME TELEPROCESSING SYSTEMS. The book analyses its processes of technological change which occurred after the WW2 which permitted a substantial qualitative leap from classical electromechanical systems to the first computers. Visits to its European counterparts to get to know new technologies on data processing and the collaboration processes in the field of International Savings Banks Institute (ISBI) characterise the starting point in the nineteen fifties. On this basis, the first computers were introduced which, once third generation computers arrived, permitted the implementation of I.T. connections between a dense network of branches and offices via teleprocessing. The interest that this institution can cause resides in the fact that it has maintained its technological leadership until the present day: "la Caixa" is currently the leader of CONTACTLESS TECHNOLOGY at international scale and in 2011, it received the award for the most innovative bank in the Global Banking Innovation Awards (Bank Administration Institute and Finacle). >> >> Although the book is only accessible in Spanish and Catalan, it is recommended that non-Spanish readers consult a wide span of figures, photographs of I.T. teams of a very different nature, data storage systems and other machines used in different periods for financial companies. Also, the book contains some technical schema which reflect the configuration of the first public and private networks of teleprocessing to arrive in modern communication systems. >> >> Spanish edition: >> J. Carles Maixé-Altés (2012): Innovación y compromiso social. 60 años de informatización y crecimiento, "la Caixa" 1950-2011. Barcelona, "la Caixa" - Edicions 62. >> >> available online: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/10101 >> >> Catalan edition: >> Innovació i compromís social. 60 anys d'informatització i creixement, "la Caixa" 1950-2011. Barcelona, "la Caixa" - Edicions 62. >> >> avalaible online: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/10102 >

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Another Hero Gone
by John Impagliazzo 05 Jul '13

05 Jul '13

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/technology/douglas-c-engelbart-inventor-o… John Impagliazzo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow; ACM Distinguished Educator Editor-in-Chief, ACM Inroads

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Origin of "Computer Science"
by Martin Campbell-Kelly 02 Jul '13

02 Jul '13

I'm trying to find when the term "computer science" came into general use. The term "software" seems to be quite accurately dated as appearing in 1960 in several contemporary publications, but I have found nothing similar for computer science. Martin - Martin Campbell-Kelly, Dept of Computer Science University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K. voice: +44 24 7652 3193 fax: +44 24 7657 3024 email: <mailto:M.Campbell-Kelly@warwick.ac.uk> M.Campbell-Kelly(a)warwick.ac.uk

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The National Security Agency and Technological Change
by Brian Randell 01 Jul '13

01 Jul '13

Hi: I recently saw, on another mailing list, an interesting post from Lee Vinsel which contained the comment: "As a historian of technology, I am interested in how PRISM and the other NSA programs fit into a longer trajectory, namely how government spending and programs shape technological change. I have not read anyone discussing this issue explicitly yet." I asked Lee for permission to copy his post across to the SIGCIS mailing list - he suggested that instead I draw the mailing list's attention to a revised blog post he has since written. This is at: http://americanscience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-national-security-agency-… and starts: > This post builds on the one Lukas put up last week. Most commentaries on the Snowden Affair, PRISM, and the other NSA programs that have come to light have focused on whether these programs are constitutional, whether Snowden is a hero or villain or something else, and, now, what these programs will mean for US foreign relations. I have also heard people ask how any of us could be surprised by these programs, and for a few days, people spent a lot of time talking about Snowden's girlfriend's pole-dancing skills. In other words, the Snowden Affair has all the markings of a major American media event. > > In this post, I'd like to exercise the historian's prerogative by exploring how these NSA programs fit into a longer historical trajectory, namely how government spending and procurement influence technological change. > The history and sociology of science and technology are full of well-known stories of how government funding affected the direction and growth of technological innovation. The best known stories in the United States have to do with technical advances made at MIT, Harvard, and Los Alamos during World War II and the wide variety of scientific breakthroughs and technologies that emerged from Cold War defense spending. (Mark Buchanan recently put up an entertaining postabout the many technologies that ultimately have roots in government spending.) There are many earlier examples in the United States from WWI and even the 19th century. Of course, any comprehensive history of the military-science-technology relationship would have to go back much further; in the West, right through 18th century French science societies through da Vinci at least back to Archimedes. > > We can assume that spending on intelligence and the technology that undergirds it exploded after 9/11. 9/11 was to the surveillance-industrial complex what Sputnik was for Cold War sci-tech funding. It would be interesting to know whether the programs that developed after that date were merely extensions—if massively scaled up extensions—of things that were already in the works. It would also be interesting to know how many new programs developed after that date (versus building on old programs). > > But it would also be fascinating to learn how these programs have influenced technological change, if at all. Do fundamentally new and largely unknown computing technologies lay behind the NSA's capabilities. Are these capabilities mostly the result of hugely scaling up technologies that are already well known (server farms, data mining algorithms, etc.)? Or will we look back at the NSA's programs as greatly changing computing technologies? If so, which companies would have produced these technologies for the agency? Mostly defense contractors? Or mostly computing firms? Or might the government have its own internal R&D shops? <snip> Cheers Brian Randell School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

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