September 2020 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

book announcement: Artificial Whiteness
by Yarden Katz 05 Oct '20

05 Oct '20

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Data on Bitnet
by Wernsdorf Kathrin 30 Sep '20

30 Sep '20

Hello everyone, My coauthors and I are currently working on a project measuring the impact of Bitnet on academic patenting. After the adoption of Bitnet by a university between 1981 and 1990, we find a substantial increase in patenting by university-affiliated researchers. We are now wondering why this is the case. Reading about Bitnet, we came across the fact that email lists were an especially popular item. We think it would be fascinating to know the content of these email lists. Do you happen to know whether data on these email lists exists and is available somewhere? Also, do you know whether some archives of listserves or discussion groups exist where users discussed for what they used Bitnet and what challenges they faced? Any thoughts and hints are highly appreciated. Many thanks in advance. Kathrin _________________________________ Kathrin Wernsdorf Doctoral Student and Junior Research Fellow Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Marstallplatz 1 80539 München kathrin.wernsdorf(a)ip.mpg.de<mailto:kathrin.wernsdorf@ip.mpg.de> www.ip.mpg.de<http://www.ip.mpg.de/>

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Historical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Software
by Ulf Hashagen 24 Sep '20

24 Sep '20

Dear colleagues, I became interested in the history of "Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Software" last week, but could not find much historical source material on this topic so far. May I ask for your advice and comments? Best, Ulf -- PD Dr. Ulf Hashagen Leitung / Head Forschungsinstitut für Technik- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte / The Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology Deutsches Museum Museumsinsel 1 80538 München / Munich Germany Tel. +49/(0)89/2179-453 Fax +49/(0)89/2179-239 u.hashagen(a)deutsches-museum.de http://www.deutsches-museum.de/forschung/wissenschaftl-mitarbeiter/pd-dr-ul…

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Konrad Zuse's 1936 patent - German text?
by Brian Randell 24 Sep '20

24 Sep '20

Hi Mark: I have a copy of the original 1936 Zuse patent application that I had translated into English for my Origins book. (It took some finding - some of my Zemanek documents had strayed into the middle of the Zuse documents, and so had obscured them! :-) It is a type-written document, on the letterhead of Zuse’s patent attorney Dr.-Ing. Bruno Wolf, Berlin Charlottenberg 5, Kantstrasse 85, dated 9.4.36 (i.e. 9 April 1936). It is some twenty or so pages in length. However I should warn you that some of the pages are barely legible (though could probably be deciphered by someone who knows German - which I don’t). I could scan this document for you if you wish. (I have about two inches thick of documents about Zuse’s work, including a number of patents and patent applications, some pre-war, immediately some post-war, together with several typescripts from him. My plan is that this material will be added to the archive of my files held in the Special Collections section of Newcastle University Library. This already holds all the extensive correspondence that I was involved in while compiling Origins.) Cheers Brian On 24 Jan 2017, at 10:58, Mark Priestley <m.priestley(a)gmail.com<mailto:m.priestley@gmail.com>> wrote: Dear list, Zuse's 1936 patent "Method for Automatic Execution of Calculations with the Aid of Computers" is reprinted in Brian Randell's "Origins of Digital Computers" collections. Does anyone know if/where I can get hold of the German original? Thanks in advance. Mark _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<http://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, 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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Why there is no sales record for 1
by thomas.haigh＠gmail.com 23 Sep '20

23 Sep '20

I don’t believe the ABC was sold or leased to anyone, so it wouldn’t be a good candidate if we think of these as “sales records.” But adding an entry for 1, which is admittedly a power of ten, would mean figuring out how to define “sales” and (far more challenging) how to define “computer.” Professional historians have a de-facto agreement not to declare anything “the first computer” as the answer depends so much on definitions as to require the insertion of multiple adjustives between “first” and “computer.” So I expect to go through life without ever giving a specific answer to the question “What was the first computer,” which is sad as it’s the question we get asked a lot. Early discussion of computer history centered on patent-driven disputes regarding the “first computer,” and even after the ENIAC patent was invalidated the disputes continued for some time in the pages of Annals. Even today, partisan armies continue the fight in the comments sections of Internet sites and the reviews of books on Amazon. The first professional historians to enter the field agreed a de-facto true, in which every early machine received some kind of consolation prize. In _ENIAC in Action_ we quote Mike Williams on this: “If you add enough adjectives to a description you can always claim your own favorite. For example ENIAC is often claimed to be the ‘first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer’ and you certainly have to add all those adjectives before you have a correct statement.” In those terms I am quite bold in saying ENIAC needs only two adjectives. Since determining (in work with Mark Priestley) that Colossus was not programmable (see http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/ColossusProgrammabilityWeb.pdf) I am now comfortable saying that ENIAC was the “first programmable electronic computer.” I’d also call it the “first general purpose electronic computer.” If you happen to think that those are the most important adjectives then you have an answer. But may reasonable people (among them large numbers of Iowans, Germans, and Britons) stress other combinations of characteristics. There are a lot of questions to answer. Is it the method of programming that counts (the so-called “stored program”)? Would a program stored in ROM count, or only in RAM? Does the program have to automate loops and branches (i.e. control operations) as well as sequencing mathematical operations? Does a computer have to be electronic? What counts as electronic anyway, as all machines have some mechanical components? Does it have to work fully or be used for its intended purpose? What if nobody else saw it working? Does the computer have to be built at all, or just designed? What makes something a computer, versus an automatically controlled machine of another kind? You might think that that last question is easy: a computer carries out a computation, unlike a loom, music box, or automaton, but just this week I was corresponding with a computer scientist who believes that a mechanical musical box is carrying out a computation. Thus any claim to define the first computer, or even the first computer sold or installed, requires many caveats and definitions. Too many for me to be able to propose it in good faith for recognition as a world record. In fact the Guinness editor I am working with noted a proliferation of “first whatever” computer-related records in their existing database, each first hedged with so many words as to be of little use to a general reader. Note to list: this message is to explain to Brian and others in his position why historians have agreed not to argue about the “first computer,” not to start a flurry of messages pursuing such arguments. I think we’ve got through 15 years or so of this list without having the “first computer” argument and I’d like to keep that streak going. Tom From: Members <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Brian Berg Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2020 9:04 PM To: SIGCIS Listserver <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Computer sales records Thomas, Your table "begs" for an entry with an installed base of 1. Earlier today I posted re: the ABC computer which was "built at Iowa State University (then called Iowa State College) from 1937 to 1942" - do you want to have that perhaps be the very first entry? Brian Berg On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 5:47 PM Allan Olley <allan.olley(a)utoronto.ca <mailto:allan.olley@utoronto.ca> > wrote: Tom, At the risk of getting lost in the weeds of "what is a computer", there is probably a case to be made that the Card Programmed Calculator as the first computer to have more than 100 sales/installations/rentals (and more than 10). A quick check of IBM archives tells me it had 20 installations in 1949 when it was inaugrated and 700 by the mid-50s. However there were at least two versions of the CPC and it is arguably a calculator and not a computer. It was programmable enough that things such as an arrangement to make it handle floating point were widely shared, on the other hand I get the sense some plugging was involved and it and limited programming flexibility. Someone who actually knows the nitty gritty of control for it and cares about a strict definition of what is or isn't a computer would probably be better qualified then me to judge the case. The sales numbers are clear the "computer" part very unclear. -- Yours Truly, Allan Olley, PhD http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/ On Tue, 22 Sep 2020, thomas.haigh(a)gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello SIGCIS, > > > > I’ve been emailing back and forth with Allan and David, and we appear to have > converged on a sense that a 400 lb roll might plausibly been around 4 feet in > diameter and that photos of the SSEC show space for rolls of at least 3 feet in > diameter, maybe as much as 4. So I am inclined to credit the testimony of Grosch as > being at most a small exaggeration. If you look at one of the classic SSEC images at > http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec.html, the tape rolls are the three > large round things at the top of the machine on the back wall. Each punch was > directly above 10 tape readers, and it appears that the tape emerging from the punch > could be threaded through all 10 readers to create a buffer memory with 10 chances to > read each piece of data. > > > > So with that and the hard drive platter taken care of, here is my next batch of > candidate records. I am trying a “power of 10” approach to computer sales (or in the > early days, leasing) records with the first machine to hit each milestone. This has > the advantage that I don’t need to try to figure out exactly with of the many > estimates of CBM 64 and iPhone 6 sales are accurate, just satisfy myself that they > were the first to exceed the threshold. > > > > Installed base in excess of… > > first achieved by… > > during sales years. > > 10 > > IBM 701 > > 1952-1954 > > 100 > > Probably IBM 650 > > 1954-1962 > > 1,000 > > IBM 650 > > 1954-1962 > > 10,000 > > IBM 1401 > > 1959-1971 > > 100,000 > > TRS-80 Model 1 > > 1977-1980 > > 1,000,000 > > CBM VIC 20 > > 1981-1985 > > 10,000,000 > > CBM 64 > > 1982-1994 > > 100,000,000 > > Apple iPhone 6 > > 2014-2018 > > > > Points of possible uncertainty: > > > > 1: was the IBM 650 the first to 100 as well as to 1,000? Seems likely. > > 2: At the time that Commodore claimed the VIC 20 as the first million selling > computer, claims were also made for the ZX81 as the first computer to sell a million. > If anyone wants to make a case for Sinclair I will listen. > > 3: In case any Apple fans are about to speak up, re the idea that the TRS-80 was > first to sell 100K, let me explain my logic preemptively. I am going from a > combination of this advertisement from Computer World 18 Oct, 1979 celebrating > 100,000 sold:https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC <https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC&printsec=frontcover&sourc…> &printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_ > summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false and these plausible seeming estimates of Apple II > sales by model(https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/459/over-its-lifet… > pple-ii-computers-were-sold), which suggest only 65K sales of the original Apple II. > As Radio Shack must have written the copy somewhat prior to the magazine date, say in > mid-September it is had to imagine that the Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979, > sold 35K in its first three months to make up the difference (actually more than 35K > sales would be needed, to cover however many of the original model were sold between > Sept 1979 and its withdrawal in 1981). Apple II sales did not peak until well into > the 1980s, so although the Apple IIe eventually sold millions I believe the VIC 20 > got to the one million milestone first. > > > > Best wishes, > > > > Tom > > >_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org <http://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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Fwd: Interfaces - Cultural Networks: Infrastructural Implications of AT&T’s Picturephone
by Jeffrey Yost 23 Sep '20

23 Sep '20

Dear Colleagues, About 4 months ago, I sent a message on CBI's launch of *Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture *with the publication of its first essay, and encouraged people to join the CBI list, many have, some are on it from before. If you are not/have not, we just published our 5th essay article (continuous publication) and you can find a link below. As we publish one essay about every 3.5 to 4 weeks, or about 12 to 14 a year, we are not sending notices to SIGCIS each time, but encourage you to sign up/subscribe (free of course), see below. I, however, did want to send a reminder now with this fascinating and insightful new article by Ph.D. student in Communication Univ. of Colorado's Malinda Dietrich. Dietrich contextualizes the AT&T picturephone of a half century ago with special attention to business, cultural, and infrastructural change over time with video calls. It, like the essay published several weeks ago by CBI Senior Research Fellow Jim Cortada on IBM's century-plus of mobile work (terrific to see and read of the Motorola "Brick" the IBM sales force and field engineers used), are especially timely in tying history to our work worlds from home, and frequent Zoom meetings. We encourage you to not only read *Interfaces*, but to publish in it--to submit a manuscript (about 2,000 to 3,000 words) to our interdisciplinary short essay journal. Essay submissions must have some meaningful focus on IT's past (recent or distant). We especially encourage work from those in sociology, anthropology, communication, history, media studies, information studies/sciences, archives, curation, computer science, policy studies, economics, social informatics, geography, and other fields. Please contact myself (yostx003(a)umn.edu) or Amanda Wick (abwick(a)umn.edu) *Interfaces*' co-editors, with an essay manuscript, questions, or just to bounce an idea off one of us. Best, Jeff *"Injustice wears the same harsh face wherever it shows itself."*-Ralph Ellison Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D. Director, Charles Babbage Institute Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine 222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 Interfaces: Essays and Reviews in Computing and Culture from the Charles Babbage Institute View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/1d9f3ead12f6/cbi-bits-and-bytes-9382540?e=7e9b315345> <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Interfaces* Essays and Reviews in Computing & Culture *Interfaces publishes short essay articles and essay reviews connecting the history of computing/IT studies with contemporary social, cultural, political, economic, or environmental issues. It seeks to be an interface between disciplines, and between academics and broader audiences. * Editors: Jeffrey R. Yost <yostx003(a)umn.edu> and Amanda Wick <abwick(a)umn.edu> *2020* *Cultural Networks: Infrastructural Implications of AT&T’s Picturephone* Malinda Dietrich, University of Colorado, Boulder More than half a century ago, Bell Laboratories, the research branch of AT&T, unveiled its “Picturephone”, an early iteration of today’s video calls. While technically it worked, it completed the job it was supposed to, its design, the cost of use and the lack of interest in the Picturephone kept it from taking off. More so, it was doomed to fail because of whom AT&T thought it should be targeted to. This edition of *Interfaces* discusses the use of the Picturephone during the second half of the 20th century as both an historical artifact and an opportunity for us to speak through cultural relations to infrastructure. *Read more.* <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> *Just Code Symposium* With our symposium Just Code <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> being only one month away, remember to sign up soon. Deadline to register is *Monday, October 19. * *Register today!* <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> Enjoying *Interfaces*? Join our email list for future articles and news updates from CBI. Subscribe <cbi@umn.edu?subject=I%20would%20like%20to%20receive%20Interfaces%20from%20CBI.> [image: Twitter] <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> [image: Facebook] <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> [image: Website] <https://umn.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac86934aa6cefdac2c4dcaa2e&id=…> [image: Email] <cbi(a)umn.edu> *CBI is a partnership of the History of Science, Technology, Medicine Program in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering and the University Libraries.* *Copyright © 2020 Charles Babbage Institute, All rights reserved.* *Our mailing address is:* Charles Babbage Institute 222 21st Ave S Ste 211 Charles Babbage Institute University Of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455-4400

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Bush's rapid selector--photo documentation?
by Bernard Geoghegan 23 Sep '20

23 Sep '20

Dear Colleagues, I hope you are all well in these challenging times. I’m writing with a brief research question: Does anyone know of where I might find visual documentation of Vannevar Bush’s 1930s “rapid selector,” which I don’t think got much beyond prototype stage? A 1949 article by John C. Green, “The Rapid Selector—An Automatic Library,” depicts a version improved and updated by others (that article states “After the war a number of interested persons again took up the problem of the Rapid Selector. Among them were Ralph Shaw, Librarian of the Department of Agriculture, and a group of persons who had originally worked with Dr. Bush, and were now independently organized as Engineering Research Associates, with headquarters in St. Paul). However, I’m wondering if anyone has come across photos, diagrams, etc., from its incarnation at MIT in the 1930s. Thanks for any feedback, stay safe. Bernard -- Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Digital Media Chair of the UG Assessment Board, Digital Culture www.bernardg.com Department of Digital Humanities King's College London The Strand Building Room S3.08 WC2R 2LS Office: +44 (0)20 7848 4750Dear Colleagues, I hope you are all well in these challenging times. I’m writing with a brief research question: Does anyone know of any visual documentation of Vannevar Bush’s 1930s “rapid selector,” which I don’t think ever got much beyond prototype stage? A 1949 article by John C. Green, “The Rapid Selector—An Automatic Library,” depicts an apparently improved and updated version. However, I’m wondering if anyone has come across photos, diagrams, etc., from its incarnation at MIT in the 1930s. Thanks for any feedback, stay well.

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Computer sales records
by thomas.haigh＠gmail.com 23 Sep '20

23 Sep '20

Hello SIGCIS, I've been emailing back and forth with Allan and David, and we appear to have converged on a sense that a 400 lb roll might plausibly been around 4 feet in diameter and that photos of the SSEC show space for rolls of at least 3 feet in diameter, maybe as much as 4. So I am inclined to credit the testimony of Grosch as being at most a small exaggeration. If you look at one of the classic SSEC images at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec.html, the tape rolls are the three large round things at the top of the machine on the back wall. Each punch was directly above 10 tape readers, and it appears that the tape emerging from the punch could be threaded through all 10 readers to create a buffer memory with 10 chances to read each piece of data. So with that and the hard drive platter taken care of, here is my next batch of candidate records. I am trying a "power of 10" approach to computer sales (or in the early days, leasing) records with the first machine to hit each milestone. This has the advantage that I don't need to try to figure out exactly with of the many estimates of CBM 64 and iPhone 6 sales are accurate, just satisfy myself that they were the first to exceed the threshold. Installed base in excess of. first achieved by. during sales years. 10 IBM 701 1952-1954 100 Probably IBM 650 1954-1962 1,000 IBM 650 1954-1962 10,000 IBM 1401 1959-1971 100,000 TRS-80 Model 1 1977-1980 1,000,000 CBM VIC 20 1981-1985 10,000,000 CBM 64 1982-1994 100,000,000 Apple iPhone 6 2014-2018 Points of possible uncertainty: 1: was the IBM 650 the first to 100 as well as to 1,000? Seems likely. 2: At the time that Commodore claimed the VIC 20 as the first million selling computer, claims were also made for the ZX81 as the first computer to sell a million. If anyone wants to make a case for Sinclair I will listen. 3: In case any Apple fans are about to speak up, re the idea that the TRS-80 was first to sell 100K, let me explain my logic preemptively. I am going from a combination of this advertisement from Computer World 18 Oct, 1979 celebrating 100,000 sold: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC <https://books.google.com.au/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC&printsec=frontcover&sourc e=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false> &printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false and these plausible seeming estimates of Apple II sales by model (https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/459/over-its-lifetime-ho w-many-apple-ii-computers-were-sold), which suggest only 65K sales of the original Apple II. As Radio Shack must have written the copy somewhat prior to the magazine date, say in mid-September it is had to imagine that the Apple II Plus, introduced in June 1979, sold 35K in its first three months to make up the difference (actually more than 35K sales would be needed, to cover however many of the original model were sold between Sept 1979 and its withdrawal in 1981). Apple II sales did not peak until well into the 1980s, so although the Apple IIe eventually sold millions I believe the VIC 20 got to the one million milestone first. Best wishes, Tom

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Iowa is “the birthplace of the computer”
by Brian Berg 22 Sep '20

22 Sep '20

The story of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, or the ABC, has been told in the past. It was cited by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on the second night of the 2020 Republican National Convention last month. See this story *Is Iowa the birthplace of the computer? <https://www.thegazette.com/factchecker/computer-invented-in-iowa-state-univ…>* in The Gazette, published in eastern Iowa. Brian Berg

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Open Courseware
by Dave Walden 21 Sep '20

21 Sep '20

Occasionally youtube suggests to me an MIT Course 6 (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) free online course (owc.mit.edu) It seems I could take most of the classes for a Course 6 major for free. Other universities also offer the equivalent of MIT's open courseware. My next thought was to search MIT open courseware for classes in the history of computing, and I found some: https://ocw.mit.edu/search/ocwsearch.htm?q=history%20of%20computing Again I didn't look beyond MIT. But the above leads me to wonder about single lectures or full courses available on the Internet for people to learn about the history of computing. Do you have recommendations? (I have found online reports of STS student research projects that are pretty well done.) And next I wonder about online lectures or courses that will begin to instruct the reader/viewer in becoming a historian-of-computing researcher. Do these exist? Best regards, Dave

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