March 2014 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

No large attachments allowed on the list (sorry Paul)
by Thomas Haigh 24 Mar '14

24 Mar '14

Hello Paul and SIGCIS members, Our list is set with a maximum message size of 200KB, and attachments are in general frowned upon. This is for two reasons. First, we have over 300 members and not all of them are interested enough in any specific topic to force large attachments into their mailboxes, which can be a problem when people are on slower links or receiving messages wirelessly with limited data plans. Second, attachments do not archive or work for digest mode subscribers. The document does sound very interesting, and I urge Paul to upload it somewhere like Dropbox. The URL for the download can then be shared to all members, and will work correctly in the archive and digest versions of the list. Full list policies at http://www.sigcis.org/node/14. Best wishes, Tom From: members-bounces(a)sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Paul N. Edwards Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 7:23 AM To: sigcis Cc: Willard McCarty Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] ADSEC Final Report, 1950 - declassified, and attached here SIGCISers and SIGCISters - Courtesy of Prof. Willard McCarty, who dug this out with a FOIA request and some help from an archivist and others at Lincoln Labs, here is the 1950 final report of the Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee (ADSEC) - classified until now. Many of you will know that this committee, aka the Valley Committee (for its leader, MIT prof George Valley), played a major role in initiating the SAGE air defense system of the 1950s. It's a fascinating read for the organism/machine metaphors, the cybernetic thinking, and the view of what was seen as possible (and not possible). To me, one of the most interesting thing about it is the awareness that converting analog signals into digital form was even more of a stumbling block than computing itself, which is seen as a relatively trivial matter that would require mainly time to develop computers with enough capacity to track hundreds or thousands of airplanes at once. Best, Paul ___________________________ Paul N. Edwards Professor of <http://www.si.umich.edu/> Information and <http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/> History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming <http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/vastmachine/index.html> (MIT Press, 2010) Terse replies are deliberate <http://five.sentenc.es/> (and better than nothing) University of Michigan School of Information <http://www.si.umich.edu/> 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

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ADSEC Final Report, 1950 - declassified, and attached here
by Paul N. Edwards 23 Mar '14

23 Mar '14

SIGCISers and SIGCISters - Courtesy of Prof. Willard McCarty, who dug this out with a FOIA request and some help from an archivist and others at Lincoln Labs, here is the 1950 final report of the Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee (ADSEC) — classified until now. Many of you will know that this committee, aka the Valley Committee (for its leader, MIT prof George Valley), played a major role in initiating the SAGE air defense system of the 1950s. It’s a fascinating read for the organism/machine metaphors, the cybernetic thinking, and the view of what was seen as possible (and not possible). To me, one of the most interesting thing about it is the awareness that converting analog signals into digital form was even more of a stumbling block than computing itself, which is seen as a relatively trivial matter that would require mainly time to develop computers with enough capacity to track hundreds or thousands of airplanes at once. Best, Paul ___________________________ Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010) Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing) University of Michigan School of Information 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

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House of Lords Debate on Bletchley Park
by B. Randell 17 Mar '14

17 Mar '14

Hi: On March 12 the House of Lords had a one hour debate on the Bletchley Park dispute (between the Bletchley Park Trust and The National Museum of Computing), at the request of the redoubtable Baroness Trumpington, who was at Bletchley Park in Hut 4 (the Naval Intelligence Codebreaking Hut), during WW2. The debate was well-informed, and very interesting (and unfailingly courteous, as is typical of House of Lords debates). Most of the speakers urged the Government to do something to bring the dispute to an end, but the final speech for the Government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport, though full of nice words, was unfortunately rather non-committal. The BBC has an item about the debate at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/house-of-lords-26550583 (This item includes the full video record of the debate.) There is an excellent transcript of the debate online in Hansard at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/140312-0002… (This transcript, which was made available just three hours after the debate ended, will I understand move after it has been checked and archived.) 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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Bletchley Park Saga continues
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

Hope to see many of you in Frankfurt over the weekend Bernardo >From Facebook If you read the rather slanted and therefore misleading article in the Daily Telegraph today, you might like to read why TNMOC really wants an independent review of the Bletchley Park situation. The Bletchley Park Trust has yet to respond to the call. >From their webpage http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/tnmoc-restates-call-independent-rev… The "offending" article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10690205/Why-Bletchley-Par… -- ================== Twitter @BatizLazo Technological Innovation in Retail Finance: International Historical Perspectives Edited by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, J. Carles Maixé-Altés, Paul Thomes http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415880671 Home page: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/business/staff/bernardo_batiz-lazo.en.php Working papers: http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba14.html

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SHOT 2014, Dearborn, Michigan - CFP and SIGCIS panels
by Andrew Russell 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

Hello everyone - As many of you know, I’m taking over from Tom Haigh as SIGCIS Chair, effective October 2014. As part of our transition, I am taking the lead this year in organizing the SIGCIS-sponsored panels at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), our parent society. This year, SHOT is meeting in Dearborn, Michigan from November 6-9. The Call for Papers is posted at http://www.historyoftechnology.org/call_for_papers/. ***The deadline for proposals is March 31, 2014.*** [Note: this is NOT the call for papers for the SIGCIS annual workshop, which usually takes place on the final Sunday of the SHOT conference (this year it will be November 9, 2014). The SIGCIS workshop call for papers will follow, and it will have a much later deadline.] This year SIGCIS is, once again, offering to help assemble individual paper ideas into coherent panel proposals for the main SHOT conference. SIGCIS (led by Tom) has been quite successful with this in the past, so I am going to follow his lead and paste below a lightly modified version of what Tom has distributed in previous years. The most important piece of information is this: if you would like to participate in a SIGCIS-sponsored panel at SHOT 2014, please send me an informal expression of interest no later than March 10. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from those of you who are interested! Andy OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN SIGCIS SPONSORED PANELS: SIGCIS generally organizes two or three panel proposals for the main SHOT conference, and individual members sometimes also use the email list to put together panel proposals with SIG sponsorship. These proposals are reviewed like any others by the SHOT program committee. Sponsorship doesn't guarantee acceptance, but working with the SIG raises the chance of your paper being part of a coherent, relevant, and polished proposal. We also work to match people at different career stages, of different genders, and in different countries which the CFP says will boost chances of acceptance. If you are interested in being part of such a panel please send me (arussell(a)stevens.edu) an informal expression of interest with a brief description of your possible contribution. I would like this by March 10, well ahead of SHOT’s March 31 deadline, so that we have plenty of time to work on the panels. I will then try to find common themes to develop in the topics that could tie them together into a coherent looking proposal, and work with the authors to refine the individual abstracts to meet the expectations of SHOT’s program committee. SIGCIS members are also encouraged to develop their own panel proposals. These can also be sponsored by the SIG. Feel free to reply to the list (members(a)sigcis.org) to find additional panel members. For some years now SHOT has been calling for more diverse kinds of proposals, “unconventional sessions” (as the CFP indicates) such as roundtables or interactive sessions. HOW SHOT PANELS WORK: Certain things are normal for history conferences but can confuse those from other disciplines. Here’s what you need to know: · Panels generally run for 90 minutes and consist of three panelists, a commentator, and a chair. Speakers get about 20 minutes each, with 10 for the commentator, 10-15 for questions, and the remaining few minutes lost in setup, handover, and late return of the audience from the coffee break. Some panels are proposed as a whole. Others are assembled by the program committee from papers submitted individually. · Most people now use PowerPoint, at least for images. Some people use bullet points. Many historians still read papers word for word, but in recent years this practice has been discouraged at SHOT. · Reviewing is based on a one page abstract and one page cv, and thus is obviously not double blind. Usually about 1/3 of submissions are rejected, but you will never know why as you do not receive comments from the reviewers. Selection is done by the program committee members themselves, with program balance and session coherence a concern. Therefore the odds of being accepted are generally higher as part of a coherent panel than as an individual paper. · The full paper is never reviewed or published, but you are still expected to write out some version of it for the commentator to read prior to the meeting. The commentator is supposed to weave together useful common threads in the papers, add context where missing, and make suggestions on possible improvements. This role is known as a "discussant" in some disciplines. SHOT commentators generally err on the side of niceness, and SHOT takes great pride in welcoming young scholars and scholars from different disciplines. · All the chair does is to introduce the speakers, moderate the question period, and make sure that everything runs to time. It's a good way to get yourself onto the program if you don't have any new work to present. · Only one paper submission per person per year is allowed. SHOT has a relatively new policy about consecutive presentations, which is that it now "allows paper presentations at consecutive meetings but rejects submissions of papers that are substantially the same as previous accepted submissions. Submissions covering the same fundamental topic should explain the difference(s) with the prior presentation." · SHOT usually has travel money from the NSF and other sources to help graduate student presenters and others who may need help funding conference travel. This is applied for separately after acceptance of your paper.

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History of computing/information at BHC in Frankfurt, March 13-15
by Andrew Russell 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

Hello everyone - The annual meeting of the Business History Conference is this weekend (March 13-15) in Frankfurt, Germany, and there are a number of SIGCIS-related papers on the program—too many for me to list individually! The program is available at http://www.thebhc.org/annmeet/program14.html, and the history of computing and information is featured on a wide array of panels, including: - “Corporate Social Responsibility and its Antecedents” - "Business and Wartime Patriotism” - “Investors, Creditors, and Information” - “Historicizing ‘Open Source’" - “Exploiting the Information Revolution” - "IBM and the Evolution of Corporate Virtue” - "Reassessing Shareholder Value" - “Gambling and Gaming” - “Standardization and its Discontents” - “IBM and Technological Nationalism” On the website you will find many paper abstracts available, as well. For those of you who will be attending the conference in Frankfurt: we don’t have any SIGCIS events planned, but I’m hopeful that many of us will meet informally at the Presidential reception on Thursday night, and/or the Emerging Scholars reception on Friday night. See you in Frankfurt! Andy

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Oggetto: Priority controversies in computer science
by Nathan Ensmenger 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

> Da: Giuditta Parolini <giudittaparolini(a)gmail.com> > > I would also appreciate very much if you could give me references of articles or books in which it is spelled out clearly why priority controversies are detrimental in understanding the history of computer development. Guiditta — On the question of “firsts” and why the attempt to define them can be counter-productive: Michael Williams has a nice introductory essay on this topic in the volume edited by Raul Rojas and Ulf Hashagen entitled *The First Computers.* As he argues in reference to the debate about the first electronic digital programmable computers, if you add enough adjectives to a description you can always claim priority for your own favorite. -Nathan -- Nathan Ensmenger Associate Professor of Informatics School of Informatics and Computing Indiana University, Bloomington homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/

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FW: Questions on "Firsts" in personal computing and computer hardware
by Thomas Haigh 11 Mar '14

11 Mar '14

[Forwarded for Giuditta Parolini Tom] Da: Giuditta Parolini <giudittaparolini(a)gmail.com> Data: 04 marzo 2014 00.49.25 GMT+01.00 A: sigcis <members(a)SIGCIS.org> Oggetto: Priority controversies in computer science Dear List Members, I am writing with a request of help about priority controversies in the history of computing. I know it is (luckily) an out-of-date topic among historians, but unfortunately the appeal of 'firsts' in the popular discourse on science and technology is still incredibly strong and this leads to the propagation of unreliable information, from partial truths to unforgivable lies. My case is related to Italian computer science and in specific to the manufacturing of the mainframe Elea 9003 (claimed to be the first full transistorized commercial computer sold on the market from 1959 onwards) and the electronic calculator Programma 101 (P101) (presented in 1965 and claimed to be the first PC). In the last book on the topic, written by a journalist, you could read section headings such as "The cradle of informatics is in Italy", "Elea 9003: the Italian people invented the computer" and sentences such as "In 1975 the PC had already been there for ten years and it had been invented by an Italian [with reference to the P101]". The translation is faithful to the Italian original and you can guess the general standard of the book. As I am now revising a book manuscript for the general public on Mario Tchou, the head of the laboratory who developed the mainframe Elea 9003, I would like to set - for what is possible in a trade book - the record straight (even against myself who naively wrote that the P101 was a desktop computer in a conference proceeding). Could you please help me to deal with these priority controversies? - What was the first fully transistorized mainframe that was not just a prototype, but sold on the market in tens? [Some of the candidates seem to me the IBM 608 (announced 1955, delivered 1957), Philco Transac models S-1000 and S-2000 (introduced 1957), CDC 1604 (announced 1958), IBM 1401 (announced 1959)] - Which is the most important aspect for which the P101 was not a PC? [I would say that it is because it was not 'an information machine', but just a programmable calculator and so fulfilled only one of the tasks for which general purpose computers are used] I would also appreciate very much if you could give me references of articles or books in which it is spelled out clearly why priority controversies are detrimental in understanding the history of computer development. Let me thank you in advance for any help you can give me. Best regards, Giuditta -------------------------------- Giuditta Parolini Postdoctoral fellow Berliner Zentrum für Wissensgeschichte and Technische Universität Berlin Office address: Technische Universität Berlin Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte Sekretariat H72 Straße des 17 Juni, 135 10623 Berlin Germany

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