July 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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Planning for SHOT meeting in Singapore, June 26-29, 2016
by Andrew Russell 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Colleagues - It was nice to see so many of you for the SHOT and SIGCIS meetings this past weekend in Albuquerque. From my point of view things went extraordinarily well, and I don’t have words to express how happy I am about the quality of scholarship and spirit of camaraderie that I felt throughout the weekend. I think we all owe Nathan Ensmenger a special thanks for such a fantastic keynote presentation on computing’s environmental history - throughout the day people were calling it powerful, moving, transformative, etc. Also on Sunday, we celebrated the achievements of our colleagues, including: - the ten young scholars who were awarded travel grants from MIT Press, the Computer History Museum, and the Mahoney Fund. - Rebecca Slayton, winner of the 2015 CHM Prize for her book Arguments that Count - David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerard Alberts, winners of the inaugural Mahoney Prize for their article “When Technology Became Language” - Sarah McLennan, winner of SHOT’s 2015 Robinson Prize for her paper “Computing and the Color Line,” presented in a session organized jointly by SIGCIS and EDITH, thanks to Marie Hicks and Ruth Cowan. The main purpose of this message is to reinforce and amplify my call on Sunday morning for proposals for SHOT in Singapore in June 2016. SHOT will issuing its call for papers very soon, with a deadline in late 2015. In anticipation, please be thinking about participating in one of the following ways: 1. Put forth an Open Panel Proposal for the main SHOT meeting. SHOT will place a special emphasis on “open panel” topics that SHOT will circulate widely as it publicizes the CFP. 2. Organize a Complete Panel Submission of 3 or 4 papers for the main SHOT meeting. Please feel free to use the list or to contact me (or anyone on the SIGCIS Exec) if you want to float ideas and/or find extra panelists. 3. Submit a paper or panel for the SIGCIS 2016 Workshop that will be held, as usual, at the end of the SHOT conference in Singapore on Sunday, June 26. We expect to issue the CFP for the SIGCIS Workshop well after the SHOT CFP is issued; watch this space in mid-November or early December for details. As you contemplate your participation in the Singapore meeting, please keep 2 additional things in mind: 1. This is a terrific opportunity to forge new bonds with colleagues working on computing and information-related history and STS topics in Asia and the Pacific. To that end, if you have contacts there who have not been active in SIGCIS or SHOT, please do encourage them to join the SIGCIS list and to reach out to me if they want to join or help organize a session. 2. If you are in North America or Europe, try not to be too put off by the expense of the trip - particularly if you are in the early stages of your career. SHOT and SIGCIS have been raising funds for this conference for some time, and the generosity of our communities has been nothing short of inspiring. Travel support will be available! In summary: SHOT and SIGCIS 2015 were fantastic; it’s now up to us to make SHOT and SIGCIS 2016 even better. Please get in touch with me (or the list) if you have questions, suggestions, etc. about making the most of our opportunities at the Singapore meeting! Cheers, Andy Russell SIGCIS Chair

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CHM Fellows - Your voice matters!
by Dag Spicer 02 Aug '16

02 Aug '16

Hello SIGCIS friends, Just a quick reminder that our 2017 Computer History Museum Fellows nominations are closing in a few weeks. The CHM Fellow Awards, held each year in the Spring, are a way to honor those who have built the computing and technology infrastructure of our world but who often are invisible to history. We especially encourage nominations of candidates from traditionally under-represented communities. The Nomination Form is here: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/_media/docs/fa-nomination-form.… If you have any questions about the process, please email us at: nominations(a)computerhistory.org<mailto:nominations@computerhistory.org> Full details on the Awards, including selection criteria are here: http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/nominations/ Thanks everyone — we greatly appreciate your support! 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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Informatics in the light of some Leibniz’s works
by Laurent Bloch 24 Jul '16

24 Jul '16

Hi, Here is my text "Informatics in the light of some Leibniz’s works": http://www.laurentbloch.org/MySpip3/Informatics-in-the-light-of-some-Leibni… Disclaimer: I'm neither an historian nor a philosopher, but an informatician. Best regards! -- Laurent Bloch - http://www.laurentbloch.org - lb(a)laurentbloch.org Dieu se rit des hommes qui déplorent les effets dont ils chérissent les causes. (B.)

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Call for Abstracts - Lives of Data Workshop, Sarai-CSDS (Deadline: 15 Sept.)
by Sandeep Mertia 23 Jul '16

23 Jul '16

*Call for Abstracts -** ‘Lives of Data’ Workshop, 06-07 January 2017, The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. * ‘Data’ has been recently termed as the new oil, new soil, new world currency and the raw material for the new industrial revolution. It has been hypothesised that the era of Big Data will finally see the ‘end of theory <http://www.wired.com/2008/06/pb-theory/>’. This hyperbole has it that the new technologies being developed today can produce truth based on computations of large amounts of machine readable digital data. Beyond such deterministic claims, the ‘Data Revolution’ indeed poses compelling theoretical and methodological challenges in all fields with stakes in knowledge. The present conjuncture, we would argue, is loaded with possibilities for rethinking ‘data-driven knowledge’ through longer histories of classification, enumeration, quantification, techno-scientific practices, and forms of media storage, retrieval, computational analysis and use. Scholarship in the emerging field of data studies has established close connections with science & technology studies (STS), and media and software studies. There is now a growing body of work <http://bds.sagepub.com/> which questions the Big Data hubris and the excesses of the post Web 2.0 digital deluge. ‘Raw Data’, as Geoffrey Bowker and Lisa Gitelman among others have suggested, is an ‘oxymoron’. In the Indian context, concerns about statistics, governance and knowledge, evident in the histories of colonial census, the work of P C Mahalanobis at the Indian Statistical Institute and the Planning Commission, the emergence of scientific computing in the 1950s-60s, government regulation of media, electronics and telecom, provide a vivid background to think about the new technics, materiality and aesthetics of our digital cultures. In times when Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have passed their initial developmental hype-cycles and mobile phones have somewhat flattened the so-called ‘digital divides’ (while creating many new ones), the fields of information research in India are grappling with socio-technical reconfigurations of a widening scope and scale. The projections and contestations around our much promoted march towards a #DigitalIndia <http://www.digitalindia.gov.in/> with the world’s largest biometric database (#Aadhaar <https://uidai.gov.in/>); a nation-wide digging campaign for broadband connectivity in villages and the building of one hundred #SmartCities <http://smartcities.gov.in/>; and the intense pursuit of the ‘Next Billion’ users by a floating array of large technology companies and startups (#FreeBasics <https://0.freebasics.com/desktop>, #StartupIndia <http://startupindia.gov.in/>); have inundated the space for reflection and critique. The many known and unknown lives and after-lives of data in this ecosystem of flux demand description, interpretation, concepts, and – if the data permits – theory. In the past Sarai has organised workshops on ‘Social & Cultural Lives of Information <http://sarai.net/social-and-cultural-life-of-information-workshop-discussio…>’ and the ‘Lives of Information’ <http://sarai.net/lives-of-information/>, to reflect upon the cultures of information practices and the connections between colonial and post-colonial information infrastructures in South Asia. Continuing our focus on contemporary realities, ICTs and infrastructures, the ‘Lives of Data’ workshop aims to encourage research on pertinent questions concerning ‘data’ – its imaginaries, infrastructures, knowledge politics, and techno-science and media cultures in India and South Asia. The ‘Lives of Data’ workshop hopes to bring together interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners to examine the historical and emergent conditions of data-driven knowledge production and circulation in Indian and South Asian contexts. We are interested in a conversation which dynamically moves back and forth in science, technology and media history and anthropology to reflect upon the many layered abstractions and materialisations of data, information and knowledge. The key questions which the workshop will explore are: – What is data? How is it imagined, collected, archived, developed, scraped, parsed, mined, cleaned, used, interpreted, re-produced, circulated and deleted? – How do we map the relationships between data, infrastructure and knowledge production? – How do we reimagine data and information through longer histories of statistics, bureaucracy, governmentality and development? – What are the stakes involved in analysing the ever increasing volume, velocity, variety and value of data? How do practitioners understand the changing nature of their work with data? – How do we conceptualise the new data publics? Workshop themes include: – Histories of State and Statistics, Classification, Enumeration and Planning – Data Analytics, Data Ontologies, Digital Objects – Digital Humanities, Computational Social Sciences, Cultural Analytics – Cultures of Software Engineering and Design – Data, Memory and Materiality: Archives, Paper/Digital Databases, Warehouses, Data Centres, Server Farms – Thinking through Digital Infrastructures: Hardware, Code, Meta-Data, Formats, Protocols, Programming Languages, Information Architectures, Algorithms, Apps, Interfaces, Platforms, APIs, etc. – Data-Driven Urbanism: Geographies of Mobile Computing, Locative Apps and Social Media, GIS, and Smart Cities – Openness, Transparency and Access to Data/Information/Knowledge. #RTI #OpenData #DNAProfiling #Copyright #Encryption #Privacy – Platforms as Government: Transnational Networks of Intermediaries and the Flows of Data/Capital – ‘SysAdmin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_administrator>’ like the State: Bio-Politics, Surveillance, User/Citizen, Governance, Policing and Law. #Aadhaar #ITact #CyberSecurity – ‘Beautiful Data <https://www.dukeupress.edu/beautiful-data>’: Design, Aesthetics, Vision and Visualisation *The Sarai Programme invites submission of abstracts for the ‘Lives of Data’ workshop. Besides academic researchers, we strongly encourage media, design and software practitioners to apply for the workshop. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words, and should be sent to dak(a)sarai.net <dak(a)sarai.net> by 15 September, 2016, with the subject heading ‘Proposal for the Lives of Data Workshop.’ Authors of the selected abstracts will be notified by 01 October, 2016.* *The workshop will be held on 06-07 January, 2017 at Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi. The Sarai Programme will cover three days of accommodation for outstation participants. In addition, participants from India will be eligible for travel support.* URL: http://sarai.net/call-for-abstracts-lives-of-data-workshop/ <http://sarai.net/call-for-abstracts-lives-of-data-workshop/>*---* Regards, Sandeep Mertia, Research Associate, Sarai-CSDS, Delhi

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2016 Michael S. Mahoney Prize
by Jason Gallo 21 Jul '16

21 Jul '16

The winners of the 2016 Michael S. Mahoney Prize <http://www.sigcis.org/node/397> are Andrew L. Russell and Valérie Schafer for "In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s," *Technology and Culture* 55, no. 4 (October 2014): 880-907. Prize Citation: This paper expands our understanding of how networks emerged and evolved. It contributed additional evidence of the international nature of ICTs, in this case, within France. The paper is another example of the power of international collaboration among scholars. It provides a meaningful narrative of a key piece of French networking history that has been understudied in a polished essay. The essay is available via Project Muse <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/562835>.

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2016 Computer History Museum Prize
by Jason Gallo 21 Jul '16

21 Jul '16

The winner of the 2016 Computer History Museum Prize <http://www.sigcis.org/node/398> is Dinesh C. Sharma for *The Outsourcer: The Story of India's IT Revolution *(MIT Press, 2015). Prize Citation: Dinesh Sharma has written a highly accessible book on a significant topic - the history of computing in India - that is well-grounded in sources and interviews. The Outsourcer is full of fascinating stories on the beginnings of computing in India. Sharma does an excellent job contextualizing this story within broader Indian history and the history of computing in the West. Trained as a journalist, Sharma has produced a book that is both carefully researched and engaging to the reader. He regales and rewards readers with a great selection of anecdotes. The committee is pleased to award the 2016 Computer History Museum Prize to Dinesh C. Sharma for *The Outsourcer: The Story of India's IT Revolution*. *The Outsourcer* is available from MIT Press <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/outsourcer>.

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Call for papers: Computers & Society
by Rebecca Slayton 16 Jul '16

16 Jul '16

Dear Colleagues, I write in my capacity as the history area editor for Computers & Society, to invite you to submit historical work that you might like to have published there. Computers & Society is the quarterly newsletter of the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (SIGCAS). Both SIGCAS and its newsletter began in 1970, and the digital version is currently being redesigned with a more modern look that aims to reach a broader audience. Publishable materials can include full-length articles (up to 5000 words), short pieces (2000 words), and commentaries (1000 words); graphs and tables count as 200 words. Articles longer than 5000 words will occasionally be accepted and most likely published in parts. You can submit a wide range of materials for publication, including original research, opinion pieces, and book reviews. You keep the copyright for anything published in Computers & Society, and therefore can publish it elsewhere. You can also republish work that has already been published elsewhere. In either case, however, ACM retains the right to publish/distribute the article. Articles published in SIGCAS are reviewed internally prior to publishing, but do not go through the formal peer review process. To be considered for publication in the September 30, 2016 newsletter of Computers & Society, please send submissions to me (rs849(a)cornell.edu<mailto:rs849@cornell.edu> ) by August 15. Computers & Society also accepts articles on a rolling basis, and you are welcome to send materials for consideration in future issues at any time. If you have any questions, please let me know and I'd be happy to discuss by e-mail or phone. Best, Rebecca Rebecca Slayton Assistant Professor, Cornell University Department of Science & Technology Studies Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies Uris 130C | Fax 607-255-6044

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computing pioneer Bob Fano has died
by Dave Walden 16 Jul '16

16 Jul '16

http://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/media/robert-fano-computing-pioneer-and…

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Strachey 100 - celebration - November
by Cliff Jones 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

This November marks 100 years since the birth of Christopher Strachey. We are holding a symposium to celebrate his life and research in Oxford on Saturday 19th November. There will also be an exhibition of material from the Strachey archive on Friday 18th November, followed by a banquet dinner at Hertford College on the evening of Friday 18th November. For more information and to register for attendance, please go to http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/strachey100/. ------------------------------- Christopher Strachey (1916–1975) was a pioneering computer scientist and the founder of the Programming Research Group, now part of the Department of Computer Science at Oxford University. Although Strachey was keenly interested in the practical aspects of computing, it is in the theoretical side that he most indelibly left his mark, notably by creating with Dana Scott the denotational (or as he called it, ‘mathematical’) approach to defining the semantics of programming languages. Strachey also spent time writing complex programs and puzzles for various computers, such as a draughts playing program for the Pilot ACE in 1951. He developed some fundamental concepts of machine-independent operating systems, including an early suggestion for time-sharing, and was a prime mover in the influential CPL programming language. Strachey came from a notable family of intellectuals and artists, perhaps most famous for Christopher’s uncle Lytton, a writer and member of the Bloomsbury group. We will be marking the occasion of 100 years since Christopher Strachey's birth on Saturday 19th November 2016, three days after his birthday, with a symposium of invited speakers. The morning will look back at Strachey’s life and works from a historical and technical perspective, and the afternoon will concern the future of Strachey-inspired theoretical computer science at Oxford University. There will also be a display of related archival material on Friday 18th November for anyone interested, and a banquet dinner at Hertford College on the evening of Friday 18th November. Hope to see many of you there. Best, Cliff Jones

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