September 2015 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

article by Haigh and Priestley in the Sept issue of CACM
by Dave Walden 06 Sep '15

06 Sep '15

Has this been mentioned to the list already? It is titled Historical Reflections Innovators Assumble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing.

1 0

Heinz Nixdorf museum photos
by Brian Randell 05 Sep '15

05 Sep '15

PS I omitted to provide a link to the museum’s pages about the exhibition. See http://www.hnf.de/en/sonderaustellungen/preview-ada-lovelace.html Cheers Brian -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

1 0

Heinz Nixdorf museum photos
by Brian Randell 05 Sep '15

05 Sep '15

Hi Tom: I’ve placed the set of photos that I took earlier this week (using just my iPhone) at the Heinz Nixdorf museum in Paderborn on the web at http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/Web-albums/HeinzNixdorf2015/ind…. (The selection of subjects reflects my interests, and gives a far from comprehensive survey of the scope of the museum’s collection.) I was there for the opening of their special exhibition “It began with ADA - Women in Computer History 2 September 2015 - 10 July 2016”. The exhibition was impressive, though it didn’t provide much analysis of Ada’s contribution. (In contrast to the rest of the museum, all the explanatory notices were provided in English as well as German.) This was my first ever visit to the Museum. Its size and lavishness, and the richness of its collection, were very impressive. Cheers Brian -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

1 0

enigma for sale
by Jonathan Coopersmith 05 Sep '15

05 Sep '15

Bonham's is offering an Enigma at auction in two weeks: In case you have a spare $160-180,000 lying around, here is the description: ENIGMA MACHINE. A Rare Early 3-Rotor German Enigma I Enciphering Machines (aka Heeres Enigma), Berlin, early 1930s. An early Enigma machine in working condition, serial number 1024, in original oak box with hinged front panel and leather handle, inner front panel with "ENIGMA" and "Klappe schliessen" stamps, rotors I, II, III and reflector with matching serial number A1024, standard QWERTY keyboard of 26 keys, white on black backgrounds, battery switch, ebonite Steckerbrett [plugboard] with 12 stecker cables (12 plugged into the Steckerbrett and 2 spares stored in the top lid of case), battery case with 2 packages of functioning spare light bulbs, upper lid with 10 bulbs, green glare filter, and replica "Zur Beachtung" sign. 13 1/4 x 11 x 6 1/2 inches. Split in oak at lid, glass on key "Q" cracked, internal wires in wiring maze replaced to avoid problems with deteriorating insulation. WITH: A 1934/1936 German Ta.P. Baumuster T1 Telegraph key; 2 facsimile Enigma operating manuals; 1 copy of Dr. Tom Perera's book,*Inside the Enigma; The Secrets of the ENIGMA Machine and other Historic Cipher Machines*. *FULLY OPERATIONAL, EARLY ENIGMA MACHINE*. The low serial number 1024 indicates that this machine was made in the early 1930s, making it among the very first Enigmas to be delivered to the German Military as they built up their armed forces in violation of the Versailles Treaty. A video of the machine operating can be viewed on our website at *www.bonhams.com/video/19793/ <http://www.bonhams.com/video/19793/>* Patented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918, the Enigma machine utilizes three interchangeable rotors which scramble plain-text messages and produce a cipher text message which is then sent, generally via Morse code, to a receiving party with an Enigma set up in the same configuration as the sending Enigma. All of the machines could use the interchangeable wheels from any enigma, so to find a matching set of wheels with the same serial number as the Enigma is quite rare. Though the German military was familiar with the Enigma, it was not adopted as their primary cipher device until 1926, when they discovered that all German naval coded messages had been intercepted and read by the British during the latter half of WWI. It is unknown exactly how many enigma machines were made, but we know that few survived the war. Rather than have the machines fall into enemy hands, they were destroyed by the Germans upon retreat and documents pertaining to their manufacture were burned or in many cases simply lost. On top of this, Churchill ordered all Enigma machines to be destroyed at the end of the war, so few machines remain intact. This example of the standard three rotor enigma machine "Modell 1" was used principally by the army (Wehrmacht), and was their favored enciphering device. British attempts to break the Enigma code were fruitless for years. The breakthrough eventually came after the creation of the famous British codebreaking center Bletchley Park. Using the technology transferred to them from the brilliant Polish codebreaking team, as well as documents supplied by the French Intelligence from a German spy, the great Alan Turing, along with Knox, Foss and many others were able to break the Enigma code, shortening the war by en estimated two years, and saving countless lives. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/73/ http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964 Jonathan Coopersmith Associate Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.845.7151 979.862.4314 (fax) http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/author/42 * FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* is now available from Johns Hopkins University Press. The press is offering a 30% discount if ordered from its website using the code HNAF ( https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/faxed)

1 0

Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing
by Thomas Haigh 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

Hello SIGCIS, Following our recent discussion, it's fitting that my new article with Mark Priestley puts a toe into matters cultural. "Innovators Assemble" mashes up Isaacson's The Innovators and Marvel's Avengers Assemble (as the first movie is known in the UK) to explore the reliance of popular history on superhero narratives and the damage that does to responsible history. Among other things, we critique his posturing as a rescuer of forgotten women, open up some black boxes to argue that Ada Lovelace's famous table wasn't actually a program, reposition the "women of ENIAC" as hands-on operators rather than programmers, and dive into some accounting records to reveal that (contrary to the myth that men built hardware and women programmed it) that ENIAC was built by forgotten blue collar women. So it's an odd mix of perspectives from cultural history, labor history, and technical history. It's in Communications of the ACM, so I'll be interested to see how the computer science community takes it. We're grateful to the SIGCIS community, including comments made by Janet Abbate during our discussion of Isaacson's book last year and private exchanges with Brian Randell, Doron Swade, and Laine Nooney. Open access, HTML at http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/9/191176-innovators-assemble/fulltext (missing some figures) Proper PDF from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2817191.2804228 <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2817191.2804228&coll=portal&dl=ACM> &coll=portal&dl=ACM. Best wishes, Tom

4 3

The Women of Datamation
by Dag Spicer 04 Sep '15

04 Sep '15

Dear SIGCIS friends, I’m beginning research for a long-form essay on how women were used to sell computers as protrayed in the industry magazine Datamation. I have completed my survey of images and am now seeking some guodance abdout possible theoretical perspectives to consider. Estelle Freedman at Stanford pointed me to The Feminine Mystique, which I am now reading. Of course, that was written many decades ago. I don’t really track the scholarship in this area so any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Working observation: In the late 1950s, women were portrayed as functional, "sensibly” dressed, clerical workers using the computer in a (contrived) but plausibly real-world application. Beginning in the mid-1960s and onwards into the mid 1970s, women were portrayed as highly sexualized, alluringly dressed “human parsley,” garnishing a computer product -- in one case literally draped over a mainframe CPU cabinet in a bikini — with no relevance or appeal to the usual benfits cited for computers, viz. efficiency, cost-control, &c. One of many questions I have: Does this long-term movement to sex rather than the prior economic or technical arguments reflect a change in the people making computer purchasing decisions? Was it an ephemeral trope in adverstising — “it was the 60s, man!” or something else? Sex sells… but who’s buying? How does the portrayal of women in the leading journal for the ccomputer industry over decades reflect buerys and sellers? Can we draw parallels with how other technologies have used women in their advertising? &c. Thanks for any thoughts… Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 Fax: +1 650 810 1055

6 6

Call for "paper"
by "Dr. Stefan Höltgen" 03 Sep '15

03 Sep '15

Dear SIGCIS members, I am planning to publish a book on handwritten programming code (means: written without computer, only with pencil and paper). That kind of „programming“ has been manily practiced in the 1970s and 1980s when kids without own computers planned their programs on paper to type them in later (at school, in computer ware houses, at friends, …) But that kind of programming is as old as programmable computers themselves, I guess. Every programmer surely had written short algorithms as drafts by hand or had corrected and commented program printouts by hand. Handwritten code, I think, today is almost extinguished. So the book will show today’s computational scientist that special kind of programming history and will also give a slightly insight into how the programmer anticipates the work of machine works while he is trying to think as the machine that runs his/her code. The book will show such handwritten codes and code fragments (of any programming language) as scans, gives informations about the author, date of origin, programming language, computer where it was typed in (if so) and a about the planned function of the code or fragment. If the system and language are available and the code is readable and (sort of) complete, it will be tested and a screenshot of the output will addet to the text. The book will be published in 2017 and there will be an exhibition at the „Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum“ in Paderborn (Germany) - one of the largest computer museums in Europe. WHAT DO I NEED FROM YOU? 1. Original paper* with handwritten code or reprintable scans of such papers (300 dpi, color, TIFF, with the edges of the paper in the picture). 2. A permission to reprint that code from its author. 3. Informations about the origin of the paper (author name, date of origin, programming language and system, if remembered: anecdotes about that code and its genesis) * If you want your paper to be shown at the exhibition at „Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum“ in 2017 you have to send in the original. Before you send in anything please contact me (se below)! Sent-in original papers will be scanned and kept safely until they are not needed anymore and than will be returened to the owner. Shipping fees from the sender to me can’t be refunded, since the project is completely unsalaried. But those who’s code has been reprinted or shown at the exhibition will get a free copy of the book. The book with the working title „Papier-Maschinen“ (engl. „Paper Machines“) will be published in summer 2017 in our series „Computerarchäologie“ (engl.: „Computer Archaeology“) at the German „Projekt-Verlag"). If you need more informations do not hesitate to contact me at: email(a)computerarchaeologie.de or visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/computerarchaeologie I would appreciate it if you would spread my call for „paper“! thanks, Stefan Hoeltgen --- Dr. Stefan Höltgen Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Medienwissenschaft Fachgebiet Medienwissenschaft Zimmer 2.33 Georgenstraße 47 D-10117 Berlin Studienfachberater für Medienwissenschaft Telefon: (+49) (0)30 2093-66-185 Telefax: (+49) (0)30 2093-66-181 (Sekretariat) Mobil: (+49) (0)173 9025982 E-Mail: stefan.hoeltgen(a)hu-berlin.de Web: http://u.hu-berlin.de/hoeltgen Sprechstunde: Mittwochs, 13-14 Uhr

12 16

Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Call for "paper"
by Taylor-Smith, Ella 03 Sep '15

03 Sep '15

Hi, earlier in the year I heard Dame Stephanie Shirley talk about her career (promoting her book). She'd run a software company mostly staffed by women writing code on paper in their own homes (and working at the times that suited them). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley Hope this helps -Ella Ella Taylor-Smith Institute for Informatics and Digital Innovation Edinburgh Napier University 10 Colinton Road Edinburgh, EH10 5DT Email: e.taylor-smith(a)napier.ac.uk http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/e.taylor-smith http://about.me/EllaTaylorSmith @EllaTasm This message and its attachment(s) are intended for the addressee(s) only and should not be read, copied, disclosed, forwarded or relied upon by any person other than the intended addressee(s) without the permission of the sender. If you are not the intended addressee you must not take any action based on this message and its attachment(s) nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please respond to the sender and ensure that this message and its attachment(s) are deleted. It is your responsibility to ensure that this message and its attachment(s) are scanned for viruses or other defects. Edinburgh Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or damage which may result from this message or its attachment(s), or for errors or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium. Emails entering Edinburgh Napier University's system are subject to routine monitoring and filtering by Edinburgh Napier University. Edinburgh Napier University is a registered Scottish charity. Registration number SC018373

1 0

gender advertisements/Datamation
by Sharon Traweek 02 Sep '15

02 Sep '15

Hi For a quick survey of the visual conventions when the images you describe appeared see Erving Goffmann’s Gender Advertisements (Harvard, 1979). I presume Estelle recommended that you read Friedan’s 1963 book so you would get an introduction to the first ten years of "second wave" scholarship on representations of women/gender/sexuality. For research generated since 1963 on gendered media images see first the foundational work in England/France/Italy/US by Irigaray, de Lauretis, Mayne, Mulvey, Penley, and Silverman; they launched a new field of inquiry. To access some of that work search for “male gaze” at https://scholar.google.com and get links to 24,800 articles; adding the word 'computers' to your search will limit the links to 5,000, etc. Cheers, Sharon Sharon Traweek, UCLA ________________________________________ From: Members [members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Dag Spicer [dspicer(a)computerhistory.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2015 7:54 PM To: members(a)lists.sigcis.org Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] The Women of Datamation Dear SIGCIS friends, I’m beginning research for a long-form essay on how women were used to sell computers as protrayed in the industry magazine Datamation. I have completed my survey of images and am now seeking some guodance abdout possible theoretical perspectives to consider. Estelle Freedman at Stanford pointed me to The Feminine Mystique, which I am now reading. Of course, that was written many decades ago. I don’t really track the scholarship in this area so any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Working observation: In the late 1950s, women were portrayed as functional, "sensibly” dressed, clerical workers using the computer in a (contrived) but plausibly real-world application. Beginning in the mid-1960s and onwards into the mid 1970s, women were portrayed as highly sexualized, alluringly dressed “human parsley,” garnishing a computer product -- in one case literally draped over a mainframe CPU cabinet in a bikini — with no relevance or appeal to the usual benfits cited for computers, viz. efficiency, cost-control, &c. One of many questions I have: Does this long-term movement to sex rather than the prior economic or technical arguments reflect a change in the people making computer purchasing decisions? Was it an ephemeral trope in adverstising — “it was the 60s, man!” or something else? Sex sells… but who’s buying? How does the portrayal of women in the leading journal for the ccomputer industry over decades reflect buerys and sellers? Can we draw parallels with how other technologies have used women in their advertising? &c. Thanks for any thoughts… Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 Fax: +1 650 810 1055 _______________________________________________

1 0

Handwritten "First Draft" in Dyson's book?
by Mai Sugimoto 02 Sep '15

02 Sep '15

Dear SIGCIS members: I found George Dyson's book, Turing's Cathedral (2012), seems to show the original hand-written version of the "First Draft" (probably?) in a picture page, which is on 13 pages after p.136. Since the caption says the picture is from Princeton University Libraries, I contacted archivists of the Libraries to access the manuscript. But the archivists answered they cannot find any material like the picture within the collection or elsewhere in related collection. I also asked to the IAS Library, but they cannot find anything, either. Then, as the archivists suggested, I contacted the publisher to send a message to Mr. Dyson. They told me just a forwarding address, so I sent a regular mail to Mr. Dyson in last February to make sure of the location of the manuscript. I have not received the reply yet. I am stranded. Does anyone know contact information of Dyson, or have any idea about the picture on the book or the original hand-written version of the draft? My colleagues and I have been working of a Japanese translation of von Neumann's original paper. Dyson's book is very interesting, but it seems to have a lot of unreferenced information, so my collaborators and I think that we should be careful to handle this book in the bibliographical comments. Best, Mai Sugimoto Associate Professor Faculty of Sociology, Kansai University 3-3-35, Yamate-cho, Suita-shi Osaka, Japan 564-8680 msgmt(a)kansai-u.ac.jp

8 8