February 2024 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

ROMchip Presents: Aaron Trammell on The Privilege of Play
by Laine Nooney 01 Feb '24

01 Feb '24

Join us Friday, February 16, as *ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories *hosts games studies scholar Aaron Trammell for a talk about his recent book, *The Privilege of Play: A History of Hobby Games, Race, and Geek Culture.* The event will be at 2PM EST on the *ROMchip* Twitch channel, https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal. REGISTER HERE <https://www.tickettailor.com/events/romchipajournalofgamehistories/1144389> *About the Book* *The Privilege of Play* contends that in order to understand geek identity’s exclusionary tendencies, we need to know the history of the overwhelmingly white communities of tabletop gaming hobbyists that preceded it. It begins by looking at how the privileged networks of model railroad hobbyists in the early twentieth century laid a cultural foundation for the scenes that would grow up around war games, role-playing games, and board games in the decades ahead. These early networks of hobbyists were able to thrive because of how their leisure interests and professional ambitions overlapped. Yet despite the personal and professional strides made by individuals in these networks, the networks themselves remained cloistered and homogeneous—the secret playgrounds of white men. *About the Author*Aaron Trammell is Assistant Professor of Informatics and Core Faculty in Visual Studies at University of California, Irvine and author of *Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology*. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal *Analog Games Studies* and was an honoree of the hobby game industry’s prestigious Diana Jones Award. *About ROMchip* *ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories* is a free, online scholarly journal for game history. *ROMchip *develops, edits, and publishes ad-free, open access game history research for a range of audiences. It supports any discipline of work enlivening the history of games in local and global contexts, and embraces diversity in how game history is studied, documented, collected, preserved, and practiced. *ROM**c**hip* is a donation-based organization fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas <https://www.fracturedatlas.org/>; to donate to ROMchip, please visit our sponsor website <https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/romchip-a-journal-of-game-histories>. -- Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> Assistant Professor | MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> | they/them -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos

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UVa Human Computer Project
by Jonathan Coopersmith 01 Feb '24

01 Feb '24

https://news.virginia.edu/content/news-brief-looking-more-hidden-figures Looks exciting. Stay sane, Jonathan Jonathan Coopersmith Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science Professor Emeritus Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) John Mather "Instrument Maker to the Stars," <https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/departments/instrument-maker-to-the-stars/> *Aerospace America* November 2023 "Technological obsolescence, <https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2023/05/technological-obsolescence>" National Academy of Engineering *Perspectives* May 23, 2023 Preserving space archives: https://www.toboldlypreserve.space/

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New edition of Inside IBM
by James Cortada 01 Feb '24

01 Feb '24

An IBMer a couple of weeks ago asked if my publisher for *Inside IBM *could issue an e-version; that got done this week so it is now available at all the usual online places for $34. Jim Cortada -- James W. Cortada Senior Research Fellow Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota jcortada(a)umn.edu 608-274-6382

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