November 2016 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

IBM 610
by John Impagliazzo 25 Apr '18

25 Apr '18

Hi All, Allegedly, some consider the IBM 610 Auto-Point computer (1959) the ‘first personal computer’. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/plugboard.html Is this true – even slightly true?? John John Impagliazzo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow ACM Distinguished Educator

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12/14 "The Process" at Computer History Museum w/ Kirschenbaum and David Gerrold
by Matthew Kirschenbaum 30 Nov '16

30 Nov '16

Hi all, For those in the Bay Area I will be speaking about my book, Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing, alongside acclaimed science fiction author David Gerrold at the Computer History Museum on Dec. 14. (If Tom Haigh left anything standing, that is.) We expect to cover a lot of ground, from David's memories of early computing to larger questions about the relationship between technology and the creative process as well as new information I've come across now that the book is out. Details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-process-in-conversation-with-track-changes… Best, Matt -- Matthew Kirschenbaum Professor of English Director, Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies University of Maryland mkirschenbaum.net

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Tom Haigh's ENIAC talk - now online!
by Dag Spicer 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

Hello friends, I’m delighted to inform you that Thomas Haigh’s great ENIAC lecture at the Computer History Museum on November 18 is now live and online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z8XrC3kLJM Enjoy! 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

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Maintainers II CFP - deadline extended to Dec 15
by Andrew Russell 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

Dear colleagues - I’m writing to let you know about a deadline extension for “Maintainers II: Labor, Technology, and Social Orders,” a conference that will be held on April 6-8 2017 at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. We previously posted a deadline of December 1, but in this season of deadline extensions, we decided to move the proposal deadline to Thursday December 15. The CFP is posted here: http://themaintainers.org/maintainers-ii-cfp/. It reads, in part, "Recent scholarship on technology has too often fetishized material things and their thinginess, and excluded any consideration of the humans who make those things work. The purpose of Maintainers II is to write humans back into stories of technology, as a way to highlight social inequalities, racial and ethnic disparities, and the structural maldistribution of the fruits of technological progress.” I am sure people on this list will recognize themes here that connect to our collective work in the histories of computers & computerization, networks, automation, and so on. Several SIGCIS members made terrific contributions to last year’s conference on the subjects of software/OS maintenance, PC repair, the Internet, and so on. If you have questions, suggestions, etc., please contact me or lee.vinsel(a)gmail.com. All the best, Andy — — — — — — — — — — — Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D. Professor and Dean, College of Arts & Sciences SUNY Polytechnic Institute Donovan Hall - 2123B 100 Seymour Road Utica, NY 13502 t. 315-792-7317 w. https://sunypoly.edu/ e. arussell(a)arussell.org

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CfP: Computer Networks Histories: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives
by Enrico Natale 22 Nov '16

22 Nov '16

//Sorry for cross-postings// International Conference - Computer Networks Histories: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives 14-15 December 2017 Lugano, Switzerland Aims and scope Recently several works in the fields of Internet Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Media Studies have stressed the importance of early local, national and transnational computer networks histories for a deeper understanding of technological and social change in contemporary societies. This two-day conference has a triple aim. First, gathering scholars and researchers from a variety of disciplines working on theoretical and empirical analysis of computer network histories. Second, providing a wide perspective on these histories, including case studies from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania as well as international organizations dealing with the control and management of networks: this interdisciplinary and international debate could be useful to compare worldwide experiences and to provide new frames on this topic. Third, the conference aims to develop new frameworks and a space of discussion on the historical role of computer networks, representing the starting point of an international community of scholars. Potential topics may include, but are in no way limited to, the following: - The origins and development of computer networks under a local, national, international, or transnational perspective; - Political, economic, and cultural representations of computer networks in Western and Eastern cultures; - Comparative analysis of early and late networks; - Physical infrastructures and materiality of computer networks; - The political economy of national digital infrastructures; - Histories of the digitalization of analogic networks; - The history of failed and forgotten computer networks projects; - The influence of early computer networks on the development of the Internet and of the World Wide Web; - The cultural and social history of computer networks communities (e.g. communitarian networks, academic networks, professional networks, civic networks). All the authors are invited to send an abstract of a max 500 words and a short bio by February 28, 2017 to nethistories(a)gmail.com <mailto:nethistories@gmail.com>. All invited speakers interested in publish their papers in the journal revue Histoire et Informatique will be asked to send a paper of max 5000 words by October 31, 2017. Conference venue The two-day conference will take place in Lugano, Switzerland, hosted by the Faculty of Communication Sciences of USI – Università della Svizzera italiana. The organizing committee comes from a collaboration between the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) of USI and the Association Histoire & Informatique Suisse of Bern. Travel grants A limited number of travel grants may be available for participants without access to other financial resources. To request travel funding, please add to your proposal the motivation of your request and an estimate of the needed budget. Deadlines 28 February 2017 Deadline for abstract submission 31 March 2017 Notification of acceptance 31 October 2017 Short papers (max 5000 words) to be delivered 14-15 December 2017 2-days conference Organizers Association Histoire & Informatique Suisse – Bern <http://blog.ahc-ch.ch/> IMeG Institute of Media and Journalism, Università della Svizzera italiana – Lugano <http://www.imeg.com.usi.ch/> For further information please contact the organizational secretariat Prof. Gabriele Balbi <http://search.usi.ch/en/people/9fca22404467d1801cfd4213b9fb7e7e/Balbi-Gabri…> Paolo Bory <http://search.usi.ch/en/people/707f4dc7632673d2a6b44a4281bb5874/bory-paolo> Gianluigi Negro <http://search.usi.ch/en/people/2166df9d09fa4387be828efc6a84441d/Negro-Gianl…> <http://www.chinamediaobs.org/credits> Keynote speakers Hu Yong is a professor at Peking University’s School of Journalism and Communication, and a well-known new media critic and Chinese Internet pioneer. Hu Yong is a founding director for Communication Association of China (CAC) and China New Media Communication Association (CNMCA). His publications include Internet: The King Who Rules, the first book introducing the Internet to Chinese readers, and The Rising Cacophony: Personal Expression and Public Discussion in the Internet Age, documenting major transformations in the Chinese cyberspace. http://sjc.pku.edu.cn/English.aspx <http://sjc.pku.edu.cn/English.aspx> // Tweet @huyong Benjamin Peters is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Tulsa and affiliated fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. His research focuses on the cultural history and social theory of digital media, with emphases on the former Soviet Union and the West. Professor Peters has recently published two books: Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society & Culture (Princeton University Press) and How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (MIT Press) in which he offers an account of the Soviet Union’s failed attempts to construct their own national computer networks for civilians during the height of the Cold War tech race. https://petersbenjamin.wordpress.com/ <https://petersbenjamin.wordpress.com/> Enrico Natale infoclio.ch Hirschengraben 11 Postfach 6811 3001 Bern Tel: +41 31 311 75 72 Follow infoclio.ch on Twitter <https://twitter.com/infoclio> / Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/infoclio.ch>.

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: CCS News - 2016 Tony Sale Award winner
by Schmudde 20 Nov '16

20 Nov '16

All - I was at the HNF in early 2015 for research. The staff and the space are both fantastic. This exhibit wasn't running at that time, but it looks to be part of their life-sized ENIAC "model." They have enough floor space set aside so a visitor can walk inside the machine as one might have in the 1940s. Although there are very few artifacts or interactive panels, it does help one appreciate the actual magnitude of the computer. I assume this reconstruction helps fill out the rest of the picture. To directly address Mark's question, RE: exhibiting the essence machine programming, I felt that many of the HNF exhibits focused on tackling the encoding of information through history - ancient record keeping, Morse code, Jacquard loom - which leads up to the ENIAC installation. That's likely the through line here. I like the thought of conveying more abstract concepts like conditional branching and functional programming /Schmüdde On 11/18/16 11:36 AM, members-request(a)lists.sigcis.org wrote: > Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 16:36:12 +0000 > From: Mark Priestley <m.priestley(a)gmail.com> > To: Sigcis <members(a)sigcis.org> > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Fwd: CCS News - 2016 Tony Sale Award > winner > Message-ID: > <CAHWAic2n0bpEqicTrpUFibXQM3RWumDZ6zHWn0HA4AJrwG0Cqw(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Hello list, > > That looks like a nice exhibit, but I must admit that the video leaves me > wondering just what insight it gives into programming ENIAC, as opposed to > operating it. It looks like the demonstrator is setting up operations on > the exhibit one at a time, and then executing them by hand. Actual ENIAC > usage, of course, involved setting up a whole series of instructions at > once (including loops, conditional branches etc) and then letting them > execute automatically. > > ENIAC "programmers" - more properly, perhaps, the machine's developers, the > scientists who used it, and the operators who helped them - used a variety > of graphical notations to plan these set-ups. An simple example is at > http://markpriestley.net/akg.pdf - this diagram shows exactly how to set > the switches and plug the wires to calculate n, n^2 and n^3, stopping > before an overflow happens. Even with a simulator, this is quite hard to > follow ... > > The same goes for other reconstructions, in my experience. For example, > watching the Colossus rebuild working at Bletchley Park is a wonderful > experience, but gives little insight into many aspects of what the machine > was doing, or what it was capable of. Does anyone know of museum exhibits > that successfully convey something about programming, or it is just too > abstract an activity? > > Cheers, > Mark -- w: http://schmud.de t: @dschmudde p: 312.451.5952 e: d(a)schmud.de

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Importance of history to practitioners
by Len Shustek 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

At 09:59 AM 11/10/2016, McMillan, William W wrote: >I thought you might like to hear the following. In a meeting with a >small software company in Ann Arbor that emphasizes user-centered, >agile development, a colleague and I asked what subjects should be >included in an academic program in interaction design. The firm's >chief designer, who also has a programming background, said that the >most important course would be history of computing! Even better would be to have the history of computing embedded in academic computing programs. Physicists learn about Newton, and chemists learn about Lavoisier, so why shouldn't computer scientists learn about Babbage, Turing, and Von Neumann? My frustration teaching computer architecture at Stanford in the mid-1990s with a required syllabus that avoided history led me to start a museum nearby, because I knew I wouldn't be able change the curriculum. If you are interested in the story of how that happened, see http://s3data.computerhistory.org/atchm/documents/Personal_Reflections_on_t… which is referenced in my blog article on the Computer History Museum's 35th [sic] anniversary. http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/computer-history-museum-celebrating-35… -- Len

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Tony Sale Award
by Dag Spicer 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

This year’s winner, How to Program ENIAC: http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/tony-sale-award-2016 Tony Sale Award blurb from Computer Conservation Society website: The National Museum of Computing warmly welcomes the establishment of the Tony Sale Award by The Computer Conservation Society. Here is the CCS release issued on 8 May 2012: A new international award for computer conservation has been established in memory of Tony Sale, a pioneer of computer conservation and globally acclaimed for rebuilding Colossus, the world's first electronic programmable computer. The Tony Sale Award, managed by the Computer Conservation Society (CCS) and supported by Google UK Ltd, is to recognise an individual or group that has made an outstanding engineering achievement in computer conservation. The closing date for nominations for the first award is 31 July 2012. The award will be for demonstrable computer conservation work, preferably completed in the past three years, which is already on display or could be made publicly accessible. Open to any individual or group anywhere in the world, the award will be judged by an international judging panel appointed by the CCS. The award will be presented at a special event each October. Tony Sale, in whose honour the award has been established, is perhaps best known for leading the team that rebuilt the Colossus computer. He was also a key figure in starting the campaign to save Bletchley Park in the early 1990s, in helping to found of The National Museum of Computing and in jointly establishing the Computer Conservation Society. 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

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Fwd: CCS News - 2016 Tony Sale Award winner
by Brian Randell 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

Hi: Here’s an interesting news release that has just reached me: Computer Conservation Society news release: When programming was physical Interactive 1950’s computer programming reconstruction from Germany wins 2016 Tony Sale Award 18 November 2016 The 2016 Tony Sale Award for computer conservation has been won by the Heinz-Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF) for its evocative and educational reconstruction showing how ENIAC, one of the first electronic computers, was programmed. The Tony Sale Award, managed by the Computer Conservation Society and sponsored by Google, recognises achievements in the growing area of computer conservation. ENIAC was programmed by plugging wires and turning knobs, a physical skillset quite different from those deployed today. The reconstruction of part of the huge 1946 American computer has the look and feel of the original, but has been simplified to make it readily understood and even programmable by non-specialists. Photos and video of the reconstruction here: http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/tony-sale-award-2016 Chers Brian Randell -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Importance of history to practitioners
by Murray Turoff 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

Liza I appreciate your comments but i would like to add what i think is an important observation. I got my PhD in physics in 1965 but i was fortunate in my last two years of my bachelors summer I spent in a naval lab that had a vacuum tube burrows computer that filled a gym and you could walk through the middle of it. I than got an IBM fellowship from my graduate physics department in mass where i was told to go to MIT and learn how to program on their "large" IBM machine so i could do any programming for any of the physics professors that needed it. One things that was definitely exciting about that was a lot of computer people came from many different fields and it was highly interdisciplinary around 1960 through about the early 1970's. But it was the mathematicians and the management scientists that were taking over the field with some engineers. there was very little social science presence and that is a long story. The social scientists did not come back till Ben Schniderman's book (software psychology) in 1981 and after they also got into using personal computers. The big problem was the attitude of computer scientists was that they could replace people with programs and every problem had a logical solution. Experience did not count in making decisions and that upper management could run their company from their office. This was the standard MIT evening program for managers in the late sixties. While finishing my phd in the last three years I was a part time systems engineer in the Boston branch office of IBM advising. This leads to many interesting stories in those early dates. The IBMer was some sort of priest with a new truth or religion!! I was almost fired by showing in one company that the problem was due to a lack of human communication between different units of the company instead of designing a massive linear program for them to implement. We are dealing with the history of computer science we should take up the many problems and mistakes that were also made in its history. Abby Mowshowitz wrote some good stuff on what could go wrong or right in those early days. -- *please send messages to murray.turoff(a)gmail.com <murray.turoff(a)gmail.com> do not use @njit.edu <http://njit.edu> addressDistinguished Professor EmeritusInformation Systems, NJIThomepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff <http://is.njit.edu/turoff>*

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