- Members - lists.sigcis.org

Mailing List Migration Scheduled
by Gregor Zurowski 16 Jul '26

16 Jul '26

Hi Everyone: As previously announced, we will migrate the existing mailing list to a new service provider and upgrade the mailing list software to a newer version (from Mailman 2 to Mailman 3). The migration is scheduled for: Sunday, July 19, 2026, at 6am UTC (2am EDT). We will take a snapshot of the current mailing list data on Saturday, July 18, the day before. The snapshot will be the source for the migration. To ensure no messages are lost, please don't post over the weekend (starting on Saturday) until we confirm the process is complete. We have also been working on not breaking existing links to messages in the archive. The new provider offered to host a list of redirects on their server, mapping from the old to the new URL scheme. We expect that the majority of links will be preserved this way, but this will be implemented after the migration. Thanks, Gregor

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Job opening//Senior Digital Producer//Computer History Museum
by DCBROCK 09 Jul '26

09 Jul '26

Dear List, The Computer History Museum is hiring a Senior Digital Producer. I hope that this might appeal to someone in SIGCIS, or aligned with it. https://computerhistory.org/jobs/senior-digital-producer/ Here’s part of the job description that I would think would most appear to this community: Develop and produce digital features and storytelling projects that highlight CHM's collections, exhibitions, programs, research, and technology initiatives. Combine text, images, video, collection materials, interactive elements, and other media to create engaging online experiences. Translate complex technology, historical, and institutional content into clear and compelling stories for broad public audiences. As with the other job listings that I’ve been sharing, I’m not directly involved with the hiring for this role, but would be happy to chat with anyone from this list who might be interested. You could reach out to me at dbrock(a)computerhistory.org <mailto:dbrock@computerhistory.org> Best wishes, David

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History
by Dag Spicer 06 Jul '26

06 Jul '26

Bold mine. Dag [lonnieb.jpg] On the Fourth of July, the White House released a 162-page report attacking the Smithsonian for how it tells the story of America: a "radical, activist ideology.” The museum’s secretary, in contrast, gave a measured and sobering response. As reported by The Hill and confirmed by CNN, the White House Domestic Policy Council published the document on the 250th anniversary of this country's founding. It accuses the leadership of the National Museum of American History of treating the American story "as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens." The findings it hangs this on include too little attention to the founders, educational materials on gender, and, in the report's words, a crusade against "whiteness.” Here is the thing the report leaves out. The Smithsonian is not the president's to command. Congress created it in 1846 as a trust, not an executive agency, and by long legal precedent it does not answer to White House directives or executive orders. Trump has been pressuring it for a year anyway, because the federal government funds two-thirds of its budget, and money is the lever he actually has. Lonnie Bunch is the historian who runs it, the first Black American to lead the Smithsonian in its 180-year history. He did not issue a careful non-response. He went on CNN and made the case for exactly the kind of history the report wants gone. "History is really about ambiguity, complexity, nuance, debate," he said. "In many ways, history is as much about today and tomorrow as it is about yesterday. And this is one of those moments to use yesterday to help shape today.” Consider what the report actually is. An administration that spent all week insisting it loves America more than anyone instructing a museum on which parts of America it is allowed to show the public. They called complexity divisive. A museum's job is to tell the whole story. Bunch just told them he intends to keep doing it. +++++++ Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe

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Job opening at the Computer History Museum: Programming Director
by DCBROCK 06 Jul '26

06 Jul '26

Dear All, We have a job opening at the Computer History Museum for our Programming Director: https://computerhistory.org/jobs/director-programming/ I would be thrilled if someone from the SIGCIS community or a related community could take on this role. It is equal parts creative work and project management, and is the lead role for our “CHM Live” series of events. See: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQsxaNhYv8dZMhpT8-934UPMdtho7G2_W&si=1J5… The creative aspect of determining topics and selecting speakers for this series would really benefit from someone with an expertise in the history of computing/STS. I’m not directly in the decision-making for hiring, but if you are interested (or know someone who might be interested) and want to talk about this, reach out to me at dbrock(a)computerhistory.org <mailto:dbrock@computerhistory.org> All the best, David C. Brock Robert and Bette Finnigan Fellow Computer History Museum

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Internet Histories, Volume 10, Issue 1-2, March - June 2026 is now online
by Asger Harlung 02 Jul '26

02 Jul '26

To whom it may concern, The Editorial Staff of Internet Histories is pleased to announce, that Internet Histories, Volume 10, Issue 1-2, March - June 2026 is now online. Five articles are open access. The full issue may be accessed at this URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rint20/10/1-2 A list of the content is included below. If you have an interesting piece on web or Internet history, please submit @InternetHistor http://www.tandfonline.com/rint20, or email Mg Ed Jane Winters jane.winters(a)sas.ac.uk With kind regards on behalf of the editorial team, Asger Harlung, Editorial Assistant, Internet Histories - - - - - - - - - - List of contents in Vol. 10(1-2): Editorial Introduction: histories and legacies of digital infrastructures in Eastern and Central Europe: from Soviet cybernetics to regional internet histories Miglė Bareikytė, Svitlana Matviyenko & Taras Nazaruk Articles: De-centring the history of the internet in the Soviet Union: computers, networks and the infrastructural politics of digitality in Lithuania - Open Access Eglė Rindzevičiūtė No digital networks without computers. The shortcomings of the Soviet computer industry - Open Access Felix Herrmann Database politics: informational infrastructure and network utopias in Soviet and post-Soviet Estonia Aro Velmet Networked isolation: Albania’s computer network history during the cold war and the transition Erik Da Silva Exporting obsolescence: Canada’s Nortel Networks in Eastern and Central Europe Kayla Hilstob The Great Game. How video games servers map Ukraine in wartime Françoise Daucé Constructing the (in)security: sociotechnical imaginaries of cybersecurity in Ukraine before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion - Open Access Mykola Makhortykh Assemblages of occupation: the politics of internet resource transfers in wartime Ukraine Vu Thuy Anh Phan Hybrid frontiers: resilient investigative data and media practices and tactical avoidance in the Baltics Miglė Bareikytė & Johanna Hiebl Interview: UaNetHistory project: documenting the first decades of Ukraine’s internet. An interview with Olexa Baliura and Maryna Malchenyuk Bohdan Shumylovych, Taras Nazaruk, Oleksa Baliura & Maryna Malchenyuk

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EDSAC commemorated
by Dag Spicer 26 Jun '26

26 Jun '26

<https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/edsac-cambridge-computer-blue-plaque> [edsac-at-cambridge-pic-1878x1030.jpg] Blue Plaque for EDSAC: Cambridge University's pioneering computer<https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/edsac-cambridge-computer-blue-plaque> cam.ac.uk<https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/edsac-cambridge-computer-blue-plaque> Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe

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Mailing List Migration
by Gregor Zurowski 25 Jun '26

25 Jun '26

Hi Everyone: The provider hosting this mailing list is about to terminate their service in the next couple of weeks. We plan to re-host the list with a new provider in the coming days. During this process, the mailing list software will be upgraded to a newer version. The complete mail archive will be migrated, but it will be accessible through a new user interface. As a result, links to the current archive at [1] will break. For example, if you cited or otherwise linked to an archived message like the one below, the link will no longer work and result in a "not found" page: http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/2026-June/009106.html The new archive will use a different URL scheme for links. These will look like this (please note that the following is just an example and isn't functional): https://lists.sigcis.org/archives/list/members@lists.sigcis.org/thread/FVEK… Hopefully, this will not cause any problems for any of you. We are currently finalizing the exact migration date with the new provider and will announce it on this list soon. Any messages sent during the migration may end up in the old system and therefore won't be included in the new archive. To prevent this, don't send any message on the announced day until the migration is complete, which we will inform you about in a separate email. Thanks, Gregor [1] http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/

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Hybrid event tomorrow from Computer History Museum
by DCBROCK 22 Jun '26

22 Jun '26

Tomorrow eventing will be a hybrid event from the Computer History Museum, featuring Avery Dame-Griff and his book “The Two Revolutions,” a winner of SIGCIS’s Computer History Museum prize. Please check it out, and share if you can. https://computerhistory.org/events/out-online/ Out Online computerhistory.org +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb(a)dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Pronouns: he, him, his

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JULY 14 @ 7PM on Twitch: ROMchip Presents: Peter McDonald on The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play
by Laine Nooney 22 Jun '26

22 Jun '26

Join us Tuesday July 14, as *ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories *hosts games scholar Peter McDonald for a talk about his new book *The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play*. The event will be at 7PM ET on the *ROMchip *Twitch channel, *https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal <https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal>*. *About the Book* Games and gamified activities have become ubiquitous in many adults’ lives, and play is widely valued for fostering creativity, community, growth, and empathy. But how did we come to our current understanding of what it means to play? The Impossible Reversal charts the transformation of notions of playfulness beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, when a legion of artists, academics, and engineers developed new ways of theorizing, structuring, and designing ludic activity. This talk will be titled "The Birth of Game Design from the Spirit of Management," focusing on one chapter from The Impossible Reversal, about the American Management Association's Top Management Decision Simulation from 1957. *About the Speaker* Peter McDonald (he/they) is an Associate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin—Madison who works on the history and interpretation of play. Peter is the author of two monographs, Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer (2024, MIT Press) and The Impossible Reversal: A History of How We Play (2026, Minnesota Press). *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. ROMchip is a donation-based organization fiscally sponsored by The Hack Foundation (d.b.a. Hack Club), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN: 81-2908499). *Stay in Touch***Read the Journal <https://romchip.org/> | Discord <https://discord.gg/pP5wbCDg> | Bluesky <https://bsky.app/profile/romchip.bsky.social> | YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/@ROMchipJournal> | Twitch <https://www.twitch.tv/romchipjournal> | DONATE <https://donate.romchip.org/> Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> Associate Professor | MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> | they/them Managing Editor | ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories <https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal> | Join our Newsletter <http://eepurl.com/crCul1> -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://calendar.app.google/V9ZuMRWEKnnUBdQ56 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos

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So.Hist-info seminar 15/06/2026 - Amelie Mittlemeier - Programming languages and Communities of Programming
by Camille Paloque-Bergès 12 Jun '26

12 Jun '26

Dear colleagues, The So.Hist-Info seminar, coordinated by Mathilde Fichen, Camille Paloque-Bergès, and Adrien Tournier at the HT2S laboratory, and Léandre Bécard at COSTECH (UTC), invites you on *Monday, June 15, 2026, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.* at the *Cnam, 2 rue Conté (Paris FR) Room 30.-1.18*, for its *sixth and final session of the 2025-2026 season*. We will welcome *Amelie Mittlmeier* (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) for a presentation in English entitled: *Programming Languages and Communities of Programming* The speaker will discuss the importance of software in the historical formation and structuring of computing communities. To attend the seminar, please register here <https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformat…>. A videoconference link will be sent to you upon registration. *Abstract:* The emergence of so-called high-level programming languages at the end of the 1950s not only marked a technological shift from earlier automatic coding systems but also gave rise to distinct communities of computing. Languages such as FORTRAN and ALGOL were not merely technical tools; they became focal points around which practitioners organized themselves, forming user groups and professional identities. In this sense, programming languages did not simply serve pre-existing communities – they actively contributed to their formation. As these communities developed, so too did debates about the relative merits of different programming languages. However, these discussions were marked by the absence of clearly defined and widely accepted criteria for evaluating programming languages. They reflected deeper disagreements about the nature of programming itself – whether it should be understood as a scientific discipline, an engineering practice, or even an artistic endeavor. This lecture asks why the question of the “best” programming language became such a relevant and persistent concern among experts - and why it lost its relevance at the end of the 1960s. It examines the debates between different language communities and analyzes how these controversies shaped both technological development and the emerging research field of programming. By situating these discussions in their historical context, the talk highlights how competition and disagreement contributed to deepening experts’ understanding of programming and thus to the formation of the field. *https://sohistinfo.github.io/ <https://sohistinfo.github.io/>* -- Institutional email address : camille.paloque_berges(a)cnam.fr *Laboratory for the History of Techno-Sciences (HT2S), Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France

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