April 2018 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by George Keremedjiev 13 Apr '18

13 Apr '18

Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone

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SIGCIS-sponsored panel for SHOT, due April 20
by Andrew Russell 11 Apr '18

11 Apr '18

Dear colleagues - SHOT has informed us that they are extending the submission deadline for the 2018 meeting to April 20 for a particular type of submission, panels that are sponsored by one of the SHOT SIGs. We have one paper that could form the beginnings of a compelling panel: the paper is by Elisabetta Mori from Middlesex University, and the title is “Early Olivetti Computer Design: Sottsass, Maldonado, and the Sign System for ELEA.” Elisabetta suggests the following keywords for other papers that might fit well in a session: design, early systems, sign systems, human-machine interaction, ergonomics, interdisciplinarity. If you have a paper that touches on one of these keywords, and you’re interested in joining a panel submission, please get in touch with Elisabetta or me. (Her address is bettygorf(a)gmail.com <mailto:bettygorf@gmail.com>.) Even if your idea doesn’t touch one of these keywords, odds are good we can find *some* way to connect the papers in a coherent way. Since SHOT has reached out to us asking for this type of submission, I’m optimistic that the chances of it being accepted are quite high. Many thanks, Andy

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[reminder] Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe (Poznan, Poland, Sept. 2018; review of papers begins May 1)
by Chris Leslie 10 Apr '18

10 Apr '18

Please forward to your colleagues and among your networks … Call for Papers Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe IFIP Working Group 9.7 Part of the 24th IFIP World Congress Poznan University of Technology, Poland 19-21 September 2018 Papers are now being accepted for the history of computing workshop at the next IFIP World Computing Congress, which will be held in September 2018. This is not only fifty years after the so-called Garmisch conference coined the phrase software engineering, but also it was at a place that fifty years before barely was thinkable as a conference location because of the Cold War. Both anniversary and location are useful reminders that computing and informatics rely on the international community for innovation. IFIP’s Working Group 9.7, which is dedicated to international histories of computing, is sponsoring a series of papers on 19-21 September to illuminate this important context as part of the IFIP World Congress in Poznań, Poland. Given the World Congress’s location, we are particularly interested in histories that reflect computing and informatics in eastern Europe. Academic historians and lovers of history, computing and informatics professionals, archivists, museum curators, and others are welcome to submit papers for this workshop. A highlight of the workshop will be a remote demonstration of the Bombe created by Alan Turing that is demonstrated to visitors of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom. The Bombe was used to find the initial settings for the Enigma machines each day. To celebrate the work of the three distinguished Polish cryptographers – Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski – and the major contribution they made to the reading of Enigma messages throughout the Second World War, a message enciphered using Enigma coding will be transmitted from Poznań to Bletchley Park and be decoded using the replica Turing Bombe after which a reply will be sent back. As has been the working group's past practice, we request submission of draft papers for consideration. Accepted papers will be revised based on comments from reviewers and be distributed to participants before the workshop to ensure a lively conversation. After the workshop, authors will have the chance to incorporate feedback from the audience before submitting their final papers for consideration in the edited volume of selected papers for the proceedings, which will be published by Springer as a volume in the IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (IFIP-AICT) series. In order to participate, please submit a draft of your paper via the Springer Online Conference Service. The OCS portal for this workshop is available at https://ocs.springer.com/ocs/home/HCEE2018. More information about OCS and the workshop more generally is available on the working group website (http://ifipwg97.org) Review of draft papers will begin May 1 and continue until June 15. Revised versions of accepted papers will be distributed to conference participants on September 1. Enquires in advance of your submission or questions about Springer OCS may be addressed to the chair of the working group, Chris Leslie (chrisleslienyc(a)hotmail.com)

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History of Dark Web?
by Janet Abbate 10 Apr '18

10 Apr '18

I got a query from a journalist about the origins of the Dark Web. I don’t really know what was going on before Sealand and Tor in the early 2000s. Anyone working on this? thanks, Janet Dr. Janet Abbate Professor, Science, Technology and Society Virginia Tech Co-director, VT National Capital Region STS program www.sts.vt.edu/ncr www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055 www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Chuck House 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Interesting question, George. I am hopeful that you get lots of useful input I am concerned that you could be 'too narrow' in the sense of saying "only PC hardware" That certainly could count the IBM PC designers, the Apple II and Mac designers, the KayPro and its ilk, the Osborne, and maybe even the Franklin and the Eagle, right? But it would not include the key chip for Apple, the Mostek 6502, or the tools including ion implantation from Applied Materials that helped the 6502 layout team, right? Is this what you hoped to elicit by adding "chips"? Almost all the chips were done at chip companies, except for HP, DEC, and IBM. Specifically, they weren't really done at the PC companies. And a PC included lots of firmware/software that was integral to the machine very often rather than on floppys or externally packaged. Never mind that the Mac was said to be 'saved' by Desktop Publishing, and the whole field by the killer Spreadsheet. My guess is that you exclude workstations, mini's, and desktops, not to mention handheld calculators, printers, disc drives, etc.—all of which to some of us were allied with, or part and parcel of, the PC revolution. For the specific question about women hardware designers at PC companies, I don’t know of any offhand. But I would definitely include Janelle Bedke, who was a software designer early at HP, then became the hardware and software project manager for the HP 2621 aimed at the TRS-80 and Osborne 1 niche, and then co-founded and became COO and then CEO for Software Publishing, the third or fourth largest PC software company in the world when IBM’s Charlie Chaplin ad urged the IBM Assistant Series (which was SPC’s PFS line). I think SPC was the 2nd IPO in Silicon Valley founded or co-founded by a woman—ASK Computer with Sandy Kurtzig was first, Sandy Lerner with Cisco was third. Janelle’s career began as a hardware microwave engineer at HP in the early 70’s If you include “chips” in general, not just for the PC, my top candidate would be Lynn Conway, for whom I penned an IEEE article a few years back. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6393024/ Conway did yeoman work at XeroxPARC re VLSI circuit design, unheralded for a long time. She is one of our “Fellows” at the Computer History Museum. I would absolutely include Pat Castro of HP, who was the first female engineer at Fairchild Semi (who experienced plenty of anti-MeToo acts), and later ran HP's IC fab shop, processing Conway's VLSI work for Stanford and PARC. She has two key HP Journal articles in June 1981. Jim Gibbons at Stanford, and Lynn herself, are clear that without Pat's contribution, virtually none of the VLSI work that she and Carver Mead described would have been brought to fruition for several more years. If you admit PC software (and Bedke), I would also include Adele Goldberg, for her 'software' work on Smalltalk, and her encouragement of Alan Kay for the DynaBook. She probably wouldn't make your cut if it has to be hardware, but if it is to be PC-centric, her work led to the GUI's that the Mac employed famously. She in fact strongly opposed letting Jobs into PARC, convinced he’d do what he in fact did. Admittedly adjacent to your request, I thought it interesting to see how and where women show up in the HP designer 'archives' -- prior to and including PC development. And the answer is sadly LOW. The handheld calculator lines and the desktop computer lines had virtually no women designers cited; the minicomputer lines had some, mostly doing firmware or software. Peripherals? None. See http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.html There were three women designers on the HP 21-MX series (HPJ October 1974), none explicitly hardware designers, but all with hardware 'chops': Bedke notably. The first by-lined and profiled HP woman engineer was Lynn Tillman, who did the microprogramming (then a hardware function in PROMs) for the HP-70 and HP-22 handheld calculators. See Nov 75 HPJ The next issue, December 1975 has three articles citing women designers. The first article concerns hybrid chip development, done in part by Ruth Buss, Rose Stamps, and Gina Anderson. This work is adjacent to computer design per se, but the next two, one by Linda Averett and the other co-authored by Adele Gadol, are for HP's first real-time executive operating system work, RTE-II, then closely coupled to hardware design even though it was technically software. This was mostly for real-time control systems, think satellite space controllers, rather than CPUs for business. And a long way from PCs. Kathy Hahn was first bylined and profiled in HPJ March 1977. for her CS work on HPE and RTE-III, the HP 1000 Real-time Executive operating system. Next, she did the RTE-IV real-time operating system for the HP1000 family--this was THE hardware/software interface operating system for the world for the next decade. See October 1978 HPJ, which also cites Linda Averett and Sheila Kapoor. The key article in this issue though was by Julia Cates, who was the project leader and key designer of the F-series floating point chip. Another 'adjacent' was Carolyn Finch, for her role in designing miniature probes for IC testing--April 77 HPJ (this was 'mechanical eng'g' for an electrical parametric situation) when HP was 'big' in PC chips, shipping 75,000 16-bit micros before Intel sampled its first one. A number of women were listed for the ill-fated SOS-based HP300, mostly for RPG software and software functionality contributions. See HPJ June 1979, which includes Wendy Pelkus' article re RPG, Report Program Generator, for biz apps; and May Kovelick's article re the HP300 BASIC compiler. Izagma Alonso- Velez was the HP 64000 PASCAL compiler designer--again software, but dedicated to developing firmware tasks. See Oct 1980 HPJ Nancy Federman wrote several significant manufacturing tracking system components, viz. April 1981. This is in the era when Sandy Kurtzig founded ASK Computer doing similar things (Sandy's husband worked at HP). Maybe more significantly, Loretta Winston authored an article in the same issue about "Customizing Software for computers" that was both prescient and exemplary for being the first black female to be published at HP (and maybe in the industry). For HP chip design, a big part was the Electron Beam Lithography program, which along with Bell Labs was the leading chip definition system of the era. Nancy Kendzierski was one of the two software designers for the project columnator; several other women contributed to the software for the multiple exposure runs. See May 1981 HPJ. This issue is the month before the big June 1981 issue re HP Chip designs which featured Castro. Karen Meinert was the key main memory designer for HP's biggest mini, the HP3000 64. Full-on hardware! Story in HPJ, March 1982 Kathy Qwinn, at HP Fort Collins, is the first woman cited from HP's desktop computer divisions. She led the BASIC compiler development, for what at the time was by far the leading desktop computer system in the world in unit placements and revenue; story in May 1982 HPJ. See the history of these lines in http://www.hp9825.com Susan Okada led the plasma etching system for the dry lithography work at HP Labs that resulted in many microchip developments. HPJ Aug 1982 In the Sept 1983 HPJ issue, four women are included in HP's first low-cost color terminals, the HP 2700 family. Sharon Mead was the project manager, along with Catherin Potter and two others; Diane Rodriquez and Barbara Stanley wrote the PaintBrush app. And in December 1983, Janet Accentura co-teamed to lead the Ultrasound Imaging system, with Radhu Basu assisting (later a key Indian developer in the Valley). Leslie Neft (the A-700( and Marlu Allen (the A-900) were two key hardware designers for HP's low-cost 'mini's--the HP 1000 Series A--described by program manager Nancy Schoendorf and others in Feb 1984 HPJ. Sara Dickinson, not profiled, was a key hardware designer as well. Elizabeth Clark co-wrote the RTE operating system. The August 1984 HPJ issue described HP's ill-fated Touchscreen 150 PC, with Carol Mills as product manager (later to be a key industry exec); Susan Carrie and Trish Brown on hardware; Becky Smith on firmware; and the aforementioned Sharon Mead with Sherry Murphy and Barbara Packard as project managers. Laura Cory, Nancy Schoendorf, Gail Hamilton, Janelle Bedke, Carol Mills are a few designers from HP who went on to significant contributions elsewhere. Cory worked in DSD as a designer, then marketing director, then division manager. Later, she became a key exec elsewhere http://bigpicture.net/article/cory-named-president-sun-chemicals-digital-un… Schoendorf also worked at DSD, then CSY, as an HP-UX operating systems designer, then moved to Software Publishing with Bedke, then to SUN, and then to the VC world. http://mdv.com/nancy-schoendorf/ Hamilton-- Gail Hamilton managed the development of the 64310 Analyzer and earlier contributed to the development of the 8085 and 6502 personality modules for the 1611A. These were key tools for the PC designers of the day, since the 8085 and 6502 were the mainstay chips for PCs. She later was VP for Compaq, Symantec, and on the Arrow Board. See HPJ June 1984, and https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=506168… The significance of the HP64310 was that it was the tool that established RISC architecture performance vastly outstripped CISC, and now is the mainstay of all PC chips. ************* So, TO YOUR QUESTION Should any of these be featured in your exhibit as I interpret what you seek? Bedke, Conway, Castro, Goldberg, and Hamilton The rest are names in arcana, hardly significant enough for your question. I wish there were many more. Best regards, Chuck House InnovaScapes Institute CHM Trustee ACM History Committee Chair On 4/9/18, 7:44 AM, "Members on behalf of George Keremedjiev" <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org on behalf of director(a)compustory.com> wrote: Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Brian Randell 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Hi Len: Yes, Lynn Conway is the obvious candidate. The Mead and Conway book truly revolutionised VLSI design. I should declare an interest - I worked with Lynn for about a year, but this was in the mid-60s when she did pioneering work on high performance computer architecture, long before she joined Xerox Parc and did her work on VLSI design. Cheers Brian On 9 Apr 2018, at 18:24, Len Shustek <len(a)shustek.com<mailto:len@shustek.com>> wrote: George, I should have thought of the obvious candidate when we chatted over coffee yesterday: Lynn Conway, who made significant contributions to methods for IC design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/lynn-conway/ Len At 07:44 AM 4/9/2018, George Keremedjiev wrote: Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org — School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Mike Humphries 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

I’m asking around to some sources I may have. I’ll get back if there are any good results...Mike Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 9, 2018, at 10:24 AM, Len Shustek <len(a)shustek.com> wrote: > > George, > > I should have thought of the obvious candidate when we chatted over coffee yesterday: > Lynn Conway, who made significant contributions to methods for IC design > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway > http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/lynn-conway/ > > Len > > > At 07:44 AM 4/9/2018, George Keremedjiev wrote: >> Hello to all. My first posting. >> >> Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. >> >> Question: >> Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. >> >> The key term is hardware. >> >> Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! >> >> Best, >> George >> >> George Keremedjiev >> Director >> American Computer & Robotics Museum >> Bozeman, MT >> www.compustory.com >> >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> _______________________________________________ >> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org > > _______________________________________________ > This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

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SHOT T&C editor search
by Thomas Misa 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Dear colleagues, Would you please circulate this CFP for the Editor-in-Chief of SHOT’s flagship journal Technology and Culture. https://www.historyoftechnology.org/call-for-proposals-editor-in-chief-for-… <https://www.historyoftechnology.org/call-for-proposals-editor-in-chief-for-…> Nominations for possible candidates are sought by the search commitee (pls contact any of the “voting members” listed on the web page above, including (it happens) yours truly. Best regards, Tom ============================ Call for Proposals: Editor-in-Chief for Technology and Culture The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) is seeking candidates to be the next editor-in-chief of its flagship journal Technology and Culture. The editor’s primary responsibility is to sustain and enhance the journal’s preeminence in the history of technology. The editor is responsible for creating and supervising an effective editorial team, ensuring responsive relations with the officers and membership of SHOT and the journal’s publisher, managing the journal’s relationship with the host institution, coordinating the electronic publication of Technology’s Stories, and conducting appropriate outreach. SHOT is conducting an open search for the new editor-in-chief. Candidates should possess wide knowledge of the history of technology, a distinguished record of scholarly contributions, and willingness to actively cultivate diverse perspectives in this interdisciplinary field. Successfully running a scholarly journal is a complex task involving intellectual, editorial, institutional, and managerial responsibilities. Candidates should discuss their experience for this position. As an international society, SHOT welcomes proposals from outside North America. Candidates must submit detailed plans for hosting the journal’s editorial offices at a new home institution. The editorial office has typically consisted of the editor-in-chief, managing editor, a part-time editorial assistant, and book review editor. These functions might be structured in various ways. SHOT has the financial capacity to provide partial but not full support of the editorial offices, so the editor-in-chief will need to mobilize additional resources. The relationship between the editor’s home institution and SHOT will be formalized through a signed contract. The successful candidate will gradually assume responsibilities beginning early in 2020 so as to take full responsibility for production of the journal beginning with the January 2021 issue. During the transition year 2020, the incoming editor will work closely on journal production and manuscript peer review with the present editor-in-chief, Suzanne Moon. The publication queue of completed peer-reviewed manuscripts is roughly one full year of quarterly issues. The initial term of service is five years. Complete proposals are due 15 December 2018. The committee welcomes and encourages early conversations with potential candidates as well as nominations of potential candidates. A detailed document describing the editorial duties will be posted on the SHOT website. Proposals—electronic copies of all documents (pdf required)—should be sent via email to the search committee chair. Each proposal must include: Statement of editorial vision and intellectual agenda (roughly 750 words) Summary CVs (maximum 3 single-spaced pages for editor-in-chief; 1 page for other members of editorial team) Detailed plan for new editorial team, including specific discussions of office space, computing facilities, financial resources, and book-review editorship (minimum 1000 words) Evidence of committed support from host institution (signed letters of support from department chair, supervisor, dean, and/or other institutional officers) with willingness, if chosen, to proceed to formal contract with SHOT Successful proposals will address these significant issues in scholarly publishing: Challenges to traditional scholarly publishing of “open access” models; Evolving relationships with the journal’s publisher; Expanding audiences for the journal; Connections to SHOT’s website and social-media initiatives; Relation of journal and SHOT to interdisciplinary and humanities scholarship. Finalist candidates may be asked for additional materials and should respond promptly. [See website for further particulars including search committee members]

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Book Announcement: Lebhafte Artefakte. Heinz von Foerster und die Maschinen des Biological Computer Laboratory
by Jan Müggenburg 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

I am very happy to announce that Konstanz University Press (an imprint of Wallstein Verlag) has published my book „Lebhafte Artefakte. Heinz von Foerster und die Maschinen des Biological Computer Laboratory“ <http://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835391031-jan-klaus-mueggenburg-lebhafte…>. The book is in German, but an English translation is already in planning (for more information on the book, please find an English abstract below). I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone from sigcis who has helped me with their contribution over the years! With best regards from Lüneburg Jan Müggenburg Dr. Jan Müggenburg Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media http://www.leuphana.de/jan-mueggenburg.html <http://www.leuphana.de/jan-mueggenburg.html> ***** Lively Artifacts. Heinz von Foerster and the Machines of the Biological Computer Laboratory The title »Lively Artifacts« sounds paradox, since we are still used to reserve the concept of »life« to objects from nature. However, my work on the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) shows how during the 1960s it became possible to stage the »liveliness« of machines as an effect of institutional and research political contexts. In this way, the director of the laboratory, the Austrian physicist Heinz von Foerster, pioneered a research program that is unparalleled in the history of science of the 20th century. While in the early stages of cybernetics the ›computer‹ only served as a metaphor and model, research with actual machines was conducted at the BCL. This book portrays this development en detail, but contextualizes it with an eye on culture, philosophy, and politics. The BCL was housed at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign from 1958 to 1976. Its research focus was the construction of »biological computers« that were supposed to be modeled after examples from nature. This resulted in »artificial sensory organs«, »neuronal networks«, and »self-organizing automata«; remarkable prefigurations of contemporary robots and computer programs from the realm of artificial intelligence. The book at hand presents an integral examination of the research conducted at Foerster’s laboratory. For this purpose, large parts of the literary remains of the BCL at the University of Illinois Archives were exploited. In addition to this, further archival material was consulted; especially from the Heinz von Foerster Archive, which is located at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte at the University of Vienna. Not least, oral history interviews were conducted, complementing the existing oral history of the laboratory where necessary. Methodologically, this work combines the approach of Historical Epistemology from the area of the history of science and the approaches of Media Archeology from the area of media studies. By means of these approaches, this book not only researches the historical conditions under which the BCL-machines would be recognized as »biological computers« but also their function as scientific media of the production of knowledge. Hereby, this work first arrives at the conclusion that the perception of the BCL-machines as »biological computers« was mainly dependent upon their institutional and research political contexts. Secondly, the impression of »liveliness« as the result of subjective interpretations is being critically examined. The »lively artifacts« of the BCL were constructed, in order to be received, observed, and interpreted in a particular way; they were supposed to appear »lively« in the eye of the beholder. In this spectator-dependency of the BCL-machines, this book recognizes one motive for the further development of Foerster’s laboratory of the late 1960s: from cybernetics to a »second-order cybernetics«. Dr. Jan Müggenburg Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Leuphana Universität Lüneburg Institut für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler Medien Universitätsallee 1, C5.320 21335 Lüneburg Fon: 04131 6771647 E-Mail: <>mueggenburg(a)leuphana.de <mailto:mueggenburg@leuphana.de> http://www.leuphana.de/jan-mueggenburg.html <http://www.leuphana.de/jan-mueggenburg.html>

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Call for Papers workshop (in German): Computerised Diagnostics, Therapy und Care
by Sesing, Rudolf 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Dear members of SIGSIS, attached is a Call for Papers to our planned workshop in November 2018: Wer (oder was) versorgt uns(ere) Patienten? Computerisierung von Diagnostik, Therapie und Pflege The workshop will be in German language. Best regards, Rudolf Seising

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