May 2018 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

graduate student research and volunteer opportunities to help with 30th anniversary of IEEE-ACM Supercomputer Conference
by Kevin Walsh 07 May '18

07 May '18

Hello all, We are seeking some graduate students in the history of computing to help both as compensated graduate student researchers and unpaid volunteers at the upcoming ACM/IEEE Supercomputer Conference in Dallas, November 11 - 16. Yes, the funding is modest, but the experience in invaluable. See https://sc18.supercomputing.org/ Specifically https://sc18.supercomputing.org/experience/studentssc/student-volunteers/ The graduate student researchers will be charged to carry out some research and categorize achievements in a review of conference technical program papers from 2012 - 2017. The research will be used to create content for some history displays at SC 18 during the conference from November 11 - 16 in Dallas. The selected graduate students will then apply this sprint orientation on high performance computing to carry out some oral history interviews at the conference, and help in the SC 30th Anniversary Booth, where will will have a Cray 1 on display. Each of the selected students will receive support funds of $2,800 to do the research during the Summer along with the cost of travel and hotel to attend and work at the conference in November The history students will join over 100 other international grad students in computer science for meals and social activities during the conference. All students will be in the same hotel block. Most meals for students are funded by the conference. This includes various conference celebrations for over 10,000 attendees, as well as the full conference technical program and exhibits. Apply as a volunteer and in your application, please indicate you are interested in working with the SC 30th Anniversary Committee as a graduate student in the history of computing. We will separate your applications from all the those students applying only to be volunteers to work at the conference. If interested, follow the directions outlined here - https://sc18.supercomputing.org/experience/studentssc/student-volunteers/ Graduate students in the history of computing that simply want to apply to volunteer (not work during the Summer) can also apply, and if selected you can help at the conference in November as assigned. The deadline to apply is June 15. Feel free to contact me with any questions. Regards, Kevin Walsh University of California, San Diego (858)822-3356 <(858)%20822-3356> kwalsh(a)ucsd.edu

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Public Program: Mac icon designer Susan Kare, May 8 at the Smithsonian's NMAH
by Hintz, Eric 03 May '18

03 May '18

Hi SIGCIS- I hope you'll indulge a bit of self-promotion for an upcoming public program that may be of interest. Susan Kare's icon and GUI design work is featured in the Silicon Valley section of our exhibition, Places of Invention<http://invention.si.edu/places-invention-exhibition-overview>, and the SIGCIS community kindly helped workshop my work-in-progress paper on Kare<http://www.sigcis.org/files/Hintz.pdf> in Albuquerque (2015). Hope to see you on May 8! Best, Eric Hintz --- Innovative Lives: Susan Kare Presented by the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation Graphic designer Susan Kare has been called the "the Betsy Ross of the personal computer," the "Queen of Look and Feel," the "Matisse of computer icons," and the "mother of the Mac trash can." Kare is best known for designing the distinctive icons, typefaces, and other graphic elements that gave the Apple Macintosh its characteristic-and widely emulated-look and feel. Since then, Kare has spent the last three decades designing user interface elements for many of the leading software and Internet firms. If you have clicked on an icon to save a file or tapped your smart phone screen to launch a mobile app, then you have benefited from Kare's designs. Lemelson Center historian Eric S. Hintz will interview Kare about her fascinating career, followed by questions from the audience. Tuesday, May 8, 2018 6:30 p.m. - 8:30p.m. Wallace H. Coulter Performance Plaza, 1 West Smithsonian's National Museum of American History Constitution Avenue between 12th and 14th Streets NW Washington, DC Details: http://invention.si.edu/about/events/innovative-lives-susan-kare Tickets are FREE: register at https://innovativelives2018.eventbrite.com<https://innovativelives2018.eventbrite.com/> ====================== Eric S. Hintz, Ph.D. Historian, Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution MRC 604, P. O. Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 WORK: 202-633-3734 CELL: 610-717-7134 FAX: 202-633-4593 hintze(a)si.edu<mailto:hintze@si.edu> http://invention.si.edu<http://invention.si.edu/>

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Untold Origins of Cloud Computing / RISC History, and Computer Architecture
by Brian Berg 01 May '18

01 May '18

Hi, I have organized two talks in Silicon Valley with historical significance: On Tue, May 8, *The Untold Origins of Cloud Computing <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/the-untold-origins-of-cloud-computi…>* event will discuss the early time-sharing history of Tymshare, and will also include some discussion of how the ARPANET became today's Internet. These topics are included in a new book by the speaker. At a dinner meeting on Wed, June 13, David Patterson (recent Turing Award winner) will give an important talk titled *A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture* <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/annual-cnsv-dinner-meeting-a-new-go…>, which will include some important history of RISC. Full details below - advance registration required. _________________________ Brian A. Berg / bberg(a)StanfordAlumni.org Berg Software Design 14500 Big Basin Way, Suite F, Saratoga, CA 95070 USA Voice: 408.741.5010 / Cell: 408.568.2505 Consulting: Flash Memory/USB/Storage/Patents visit the Storage Cornucopia: www.bswd.com FMS Technical Chair: www.FlashMemorySummit.com <http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/> IEEE Milestone <http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones> Coordinator for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.californiaconsultants.org/> Board Director IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee <http://www.siliconvalleyhistory.com/> Chair * <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/intellectual-property-protecting-yo…>Tue, May 8, 7-9pm: <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/the-untold-origins-of-cloud-computi…>* <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/the-untold-origins-of-cloud-computi…> *The Untold Origins of Cloud Computing <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/the-untold-origins-of-cloud-computi…>* The Cloud has become ubiquitous. Long before today’s Cloud, though, another name was used when accessing someone else’s computer: time sharing. Born in the Cold War in the aftermath of the first Russian Atomic bomb, time-shared computers and networking appeared in the 1960s, became widespread in the 1970s and matured in the 1980s. Tymshare was an early time-sharing pioneer, deploying Tymnet as the first independent Cloud-based services network in early 1972 by way of a database running on an IBM 360 at the National Library of Medicine. From that humble beginning, Tymnet grew into a world-wide business-focused public data network, connecting remote terminal users to distant computer users for a wide range of computer applications. As the business model shifted from connecting a user to a computer to connecting together computers, though, Tymnet’s failure to adapt made it fall victim to the Internet. Based on his book The Tym Before … The Untold Origins of Cloud Computing <https://www.amazon.com/Tym-Before-Untold-Origins-Computing/dp/1973430185/>, *Nathan Gregory* will tell the story not only of Tymnet and Tymshare, but also of the development of the ARPANET into today’s Internet. Copies of the book will be available for sale, and there will be an author signing. *Nathan Gregory* held a variety of positions at Tymnet for over 12 years. He left Tymnet ahead of its MCI acquisition and went to MFS Datanet, where he helped build the ATM backbone that ultimately carried the Internet traffic of the new Commercial Internet. He then co-founded Northpoint Communications. Nathan now serves as CTO and Chief Scientist for a unique Internet Security company named Reprivata. He also writes about science fiction and genealogy, and published Securing the Network: F. Scott Yeager and the Rise of the Commercial Internet <https://www.amazon.com/Securing-Network-Yeager-Commercial-Internet/dp/15201…> in 2016. More info, including family tales and fiction short stories that are free to read, may be found here <http://www.chromosomequest.com/>. * <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/intellectual-property-protecting-yo…>Wed, June 13, 6-9pm: <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/annual-cnsv-dinner-meeting-a-new-go…>* <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/annual-cnsv-dinner-meeting-a-new-go…> *IEEE-CNSV Dinner Meeting: A New Golden Age for Computer Architecture <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/annual-cnsv-dinner-meeting-a-new-go…>* 6pm: event opens at China Stix, 2110 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA <https://www.google.com/maps/place/2110%20El%20Camino%20Real,%20Santa%20Clar…> (near Target store) 6:45: Chinese Banquet Dinner with one beer, wine or drink of your choice 7:30ish: Presentation PayPal pre-registration <https://californiaconsultants.org/event/annual-cnsv-dinner-meeting-a-new-go…> at $37 required In the 1980s, Mead and Conway democratized chip design, and high-level language programming surpassed assembly language programming. Together, these made instruction set advances viable. Innovations like RISC, superscalar and speculation ushered in a Golden Age of computer architecture, and performance increased annually by 60%. The ending of Dennard Scaling and Moore’s Law crippled this path, and microprocessor performance improved by only 3% in 2017! In addition to the poor performance gains of modern microprocessors, Spectre recently demonstrated timing attacks that leak information at high rates. This talk will address how the freeing of architects from the chains of proprietary instruction sets will provide opportunities in high-level, domain-specific languages and architectures, and how the demands for improved security will usher in a new Golden Age. Aided by an open-source ecosystem, agily developed prototypes will demonstrate advances and thereby accelerate commercial adoption. This should again allow rapid improvement as in the last Golden Age, but this time in cost, energy, and security as well as performance. What an exciting time to be a computer architect! *Dr. David Patterson* is a Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, a distinguished engineer at Google Brain, and Vice Chair of the Board of the RISC-V Foundation. His most successful research projects have been Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC), Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID), and Network of Workstations (NOW). These projects helped lead to multi-billion dollar industries, seven books, and about 40 honors, including election to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. David also shares the ACM Turing award, the IEEE von Neumann Medal, and the NEC C&C prize with John Hennessy, past president of Stanford University and co-author of two of his books. He received his A.B., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA.

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Fwd: News: The Bombe arrives at TNMOC
by Brian Randell 01 May '18

01 May '18

Hi: Begin forwarded message: The Bombe arrives at TNMOC 1 May 2018 After more than ten hours of tense work, the Turing-Welchman Bombe arrived safely at The National Museum of Computing on Bletchley Park. With air lifts, wheel changes and extremely tight squeezes, the reconstruction of the extraordinary Enigma code-breaking machine edged its way into its new gallery that will soon be open to the public. The move was made possible thanks to the generous contributions of more than 500 individuals and organisations who donated more than £50,000 in a four-week Crowdfunder appeal ending in March to keep the Bombe on the Bletchley Park Estate. See the full story and photos here: http://www.tnmoc.org/Bombe-arrival Cheers Brian Randell — 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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