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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 22 Sep '20

22 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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New biggest hard drive candidate: Librascope Disk File
by thomas.haigh＠gmail.com 21 Sep '20

21 Sep '20

Hello SIGCIS, My new candidate for largest hard drive is the Librascope Disk File, as used at SAIL. According to this letter from Ed Feigenbaum, only two were produced. Stanford acquired one of them for $300K in 1967, but a year later a "massive malfunction" destroyed half of its capacity, leading to a lawsuit settled out of court. In 1976 it was decommissioned, but at least one of the platters was saved and displayed. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/feigenbaum/catalog/ct397kv6234 According to these pictures of the display, http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/1-MD-MemDisk2.ht m it was a "head per track" unit (i.e. more like a flat drum memory than a regular disk) which would solve the problem of large access times moving a head over such a large disk. The overall drive had six platters and weighed 5,200 lbs, to store 1,120,665 32-bit words (ie about 4.27MB) per side. So about 50MB total. An exhibit page at CHM documents what seems to be a platter from the same drive, claiming a 5 foot diameter (i.e. approx.. 60 inches). https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102682858 On the other hand, an ebook about the SAIL DART archive gives a 4 foot diameter (i.e. approx.. 48 inches). https://www.saildart.org/simple/booklet/SAILDART_PREVIEW_2020_0330_good.pdf Both are comfortably larger than the 39 inch diameter for the Bryant drive. And as both platters are still around, someone should be able to make a precise measurement for the record books. Best wishes, Tom

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Candidate World Records -- Biggest Hard Drive, Tape and Portable Computer
by thomas.haigh＠gmail.com 21 Sep '20

21 Sep '20

Hello SIGCIS, I have agreed to a fun little consulting job of helping the Guinness World Records people update and improve their computer-related records. Although the Encyclopedia Britannica and other traditional authorities have fallen by the wayside, the records book is still going strong and is perhaps the last published authority standing. Also, somebody once tried to prove me wrong by invoking it. So now I can make sure that doesn't happen again. I'll be dribbling out a couple of additional requests over the next week or so, not to overwhelm the list. I have some fun candidate records, but would like to see if they hold up among this expert body. BTW, If you have an idea for a good record feel free to pitch it to me, but to avoid overwhelming the list better to send it directly. We are trying to avoid firsts, which have traditionally accounted for the majority of the computer-related records. BIGGEST HARD DISK: First up, the biggest hard disk. Not the largest capacity, the BIGGEST. I figure records like that will illustrate better than finding some boring box with a high capacity, and are less likely to be out of date by the time the book is published. Plus where do you draw the line between a drive and an array? Everyone knows RAMAC, which apparently had 24 inch platters. Platters generally shrank over the years, as everything else being equal smaller platters can be spun faster, so I believe later mainstream IBM systems were smaller. But third parties offered higher performance, higher capacity drives. The best candidate appears to be the Bryant Model 2 Disk File from the early 1960s. That had 39 inch platters. The image below is from a brochure online at CHM: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Bryant/Bryant.Model2.1965 .102646212.pdf. According to Wikipedia, "Also in 1961, Bryant Computer Products introduced its 4000 series disk drives. These massive units stood 52 inches (1.3 m) tall, 70 inches (1.8 m) long, and 70 inches (1.8 m) wide, and had up to 26 platters, each 39 inches (0.99 m) in diameter, rotating at up to 1,200 rpm." This Computer History Museum page seems to be hedging bets by calling the Bryant units "among the physically largest drives ever built": <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.compu terhistory.org%2Fstorageengine%2Fhdd-competitors-enter-the-market%2F&data=01 %7C01%7Cdbrock%40computerhistory.org%7Cf8b06045c05145c54c2108d83d4f6a76%7Cb6 a9c12a29ee4c5f8f93f0d7a8e2db2f%7C0&sdata=vDoH7Oha71xW1pQ22YRSIk2D0FXI%2Bblt% 2BCpVisUSJck%3D&reserved=0> https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/hdd-competitors-enter-the-mark et/ I'm fairly sure that the Bryant platters were the largest in a standard commercial product. Can anyone prove differently? Or know of a special-purpose system with even larger platters? BONUS - HEAVIEST TAPE REEL: I am pretty sure that the IBM SSEC had the heaviest tape reel, at 400 pounds, which was a roll of the paper stock cards were cut from. I believe this was run in an endless loop to used as a high speed lookup table. It had to be lifted with a special mechanism. But if anyone knows of a bulkier tape, let me know. The SSEC tape is documented at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec-tape.html. That includes this description from Herb Grosch: "About those tapes: the card plant in Endicott got enormous rolls of card stock from the paper mills. For regular card manufacturing they slit the rolls to three-inch width (card height). For the SSEC they furnished rolls eight inches wide (card length). The resulting rolls weighed 400 pounds, and had to be hoisted onto the SSEC with a thoughtfully-provided chain fall! For the Stallion, we pushed the rolls up a ramp. "The punch stations, slightly modified from standard IBM reproducer components, punched two round sprocket holes at the edges, and 78(!) regular IBM rectangular holes in between. The sprockets drove the tape one line at a time, and drives under separate program control fed the fresh or pre-punched tape under ten 78-brush reading stations. The tapes hanging down could lengthen and shorten, and for program tapes and the table lookup unit we cemented the tape end-to-end into short loops (yes, someone had had to provide the jig). There were three of these monsters at the end of the machine room. Up to 36 of the fixed-length tape loops could be mounted on the separate table-lookup unit, which in later years was also sometimes used for program reading. For the lunar calculation, I used 24 loops to make lookup time as short as possible, and we got programming from the main tape readers." BONUS - LARGEST PORTABLE COMPUTER That appears to be DYSEAC, which makes sense as AFAIK it was the only portable full-scale vacuum tube computer. It apparently weighed 20 tons and took two 40 foot trailers to move. (Weight includes the trailers, but not the tractors to pull them). I asked Evan Koblentz, who wrote a book about portable computers, and he couldn't think of a heavier/larger one. This makes even the Osbourne and IBM PC Portable look extremely light. Read about the DYSEAC here: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/SEAC <http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/SEAC&DYSEAC-3-150.pdf> &DYSEAC-3-150.pdf, including this image: It would be fun if official recognition of these records prompted some enterprising teams to attempt to beat them. Best wishes, Tom

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ACM Facct (formerly known as ACM FAT*) Submissions Now Open!
by Facct Conference 20 Sep '20

20 Sep '20

Dear all, Hope you are keeping safe and well. The submission portal for ACM FAccT is now open! https://facctconference.org/2021/cfp.html ACM FAccT (formerly known as ACM FAT*) welcomes submissions that touch on any of the topics of fairness, accountability and transparency (broadly construed). We welcome scholarship in dialogue with fairness, accountability, and transparency in computational systems, including critical approaches that investigate core assumptions and propose alternative designs, practices, and policies. We especially welcome contributions that consider dimensions beyond individual decisions, including equity and justice in systems, policy, and pedagogy. The conference welcomes submissions on these topics from a broad set of expertise from a wide variety of disciplines, including computer science, statistics, the humanities, and law. As a reminder, here are the major deadlines: Paper pre-registration: 30 September 2020 Paper submission: 7 October 2020 Notifications: 11 December 2020 Conference: early March 2021 All deadlines are at 11:59 PM anywhere on earth (AoE) on the given date. Best wishes, Deb Raji & Abeba Birhane Publicity co-chairs Fairness, Accountability and Transparency conference

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CBI's "Just Code..." Online Symposium--(please register--free, required to attend)
by Jeffrey Yost 17 Sep '20

17 Sep '20

Dear Colleagues, If you haven't registered yet, please register now for "Just Code." (Free, but registration is required, and *registration will close prior to the event*-if you registered for the postponed public symposium originally planned for May in MPLS, you are registered for this online symposium and needn't register again). The Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) for Computing, Information, and Culture's online symposium “Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Global Political Economy of IT" (Oct. 23-24; register) <https://justcode.cbi.umn.edu/home> examines how code—construed broadly from AI, software, and systems to bodies of law, policy, and practice—structures and reinforces power relations. Just Code will explore the ways that individuals and institutions use algorithms and computer systems to establish, legitimize, and reinforce widespread social, material, commercial, and cultural inequalities and power imbalances. Just Code's talented and diverse scholars (schedule is both below and on the event website) will illuminate themes of IT and race, gender, labor, politics, and education across time, place, and culture. From AI and biometrics in policing, labor control and contention in China, surveillance capitalism, and environmental racism to postcolonial IT control and resistance in India, IT and counterinsurgency in Brazil, code work in Mexico, and IT and disability, "Just Code" will highlight and contextualize systems, structures, policies, and practices extending social, economic, and environmental inequality and injustice in global society. Best, Jeff and Con [image: CBI Just Code jpeg 2 top half B.jpg] *Just Code Symposium Schedule* *Friday, Oct 23**rd** (All times CST)* 9:30 to 9:40 am *Opening Remark and Acknowledging Sponsors/Co-Sponsors* Jeffrey Yost 9:40 to 11:20 am *Keynote Session I: Racial Inequality and Culture* Chair: Jeffrey Yost, Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) and History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Minnesota Mar Hicks, Lewis College of Human Sciences, Illinois Institute of Technology. “Computers as Colonizers: British Computing Companies and Indian Technological Resistance, 1955-1975.” Stephanie A. Dick, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania. “NYSIIS, and the Introduction of Modern Digital Computing to Domestic Policing.” 11:30 am to 12:45 pm *Reinvention and Resistance* Chair: Honghong Tinn, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Minnesota Colette Perold, Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University. “Modern Computing and Counterinsurgency in 1960s Brazil.” Hector Beltran, Department of Anthropology, MIT. “Code Work: Thinking with the System in México.” Shreeharsh Kelkar, Interdisciplinary Studies, University of California, Berkeley. “Reinventing Expertise in the Age of Platforms: Technology Reformers and the Platformization of Institutions.” 12:45 pm to 1:30 pm - Lunch Break 1:30 to 2:20 pm *Labor and Politics* Chair: Stephanie Dick, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania Devika Narayan, Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota. “Between the Cloud and a Hard Place: Asset-Light Computing and the New World of Off-Shore Labor.” Corinna Schlombs, Department of History, Rochester Institute of Technology. “US Labor Unions, Automation, and Technical Unemployment: Fighting for Whose Justice?” Gerardo Con Diaz, Science and Technology Studies, University of California, Davis, "Prometheus's Patents: Owning Medical Algorithms in the 21st Century.” 2:25 to 3:40 pm *Education, Work, and Culture* Chair: Sally Kohlstedt, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Minnesota Kate Miltner, Centre for Research in Digital Education, University of Edinburgh. “Everyone Can Code? (Re)producing Inequalities at an American Coding Academy.” Elizabeth Semler, HSTM, UMN. “Employee Handbooks, Company Calendars, and In/Equality at Midwest Computing Companies.” Jeffrey R. Yost, Charles Babbage Institute and HSTM, University of Minnesota. “Reassessing the Iconic and Unbundling the Ironic: IBM System Engineering, Gender, and Antitrust." 3:50 to 5:15 pm *Keynote Session II: Government and Corporate Surveillance in Comparative Economic Contexts* Chair: Gerardo Con Diaz, University of California, Davis and Jeffrey R. Yost, CBI and HSTM, University of Minnesota Ya-Wen Lei, Department of Sociology, Harvard University. “Delivering Discontent: Platform Architecture, Labor Control, and Contention in China.” Josh Lauer, College of Liberal Arts, University of New Hampshire & Professor Ken Lipartito, Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Florida International University. “Infrastructures of Extraction: Surveillance Technologies in the Modern Economy.” *Saturday, Oct. 24**th **(All times CST)* Brief Day Two Welcome, Jeffrey Yost 9:30 to 11:00 am *Keynote Session III: Social and Environmental Control Through Computers* Chair: Gerardo Con Diaz, University of California, Davis Jennifer Alexander, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Minnesota. “The Mask of Sanity: Manipulation and Psychopathology at the Human-Computer Interface.” Theo Dryer, AI Now Institute at New York University, AI Now Institute at New York University. “Streams of Data, Streams of Water: Encoding Water Policy and Environmental Racism.” 11:10 am to 12:30 pm *Law, Environment, and Policy* Chair: Elizabeth Petrick, Department of History, Rice University Shun-Ling Chen, Institute Jurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica. “The Politics of Openness in the Age of the Cloud and AI.” Hamid Ekbia, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University. “Algorithmic Collusion: Legal Challenges and Social Risks.” 12:40 to 1:30 - Lunch Break 1:30 to 2:45 pm *Interfaces and Infrastructures* Chair: Corinna Schlombs, Department of History, Rochester Institute of Technology Elizabeth Petrick, Department of History, Rice University. “Spanning Space and Time Barriers: Computerized Conferencing, Disability, and Citizenship.” Chigusa Kita, Department of Informatics, Kyoto University. “Character Codes and Local Writing Cultures.” Andoni Ibarra, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU & Dr. Raúl Tabarés Gutiérrez, Investigator, TECNALIA Research & Innovation. “Conversational Interfaces: Epistemic Opacity and the Disruptive Construction of Digital Power.” *"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 612 624 5050 Phone 612 625 8054 Fax

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Internet Histories, Volume 4, Issue 3, September 2020 is now available online
by Asger Harlung 14 Sep '20

14 Sep '20

To whom it may concern, The Editorial Staff of Internet Histories is pleased to announce that; Internet Histories, Volume 4, Issue 3, September 2020 is now available online. The issues is Internet Histories' Early Career Researcher Award issue. It may be accessed at this URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rint20/4/3 This new issue contains the following articles: Editorial Internet histories early career researcher award Niels Brügger, Gerard Goggin, Ian Milligan & Valérie Schafer Articles The efficacy of civil society in global internet governance Sherly Haristya Laying the foundation for a commercialized internet: international internet governance in the 1990s Meghan Grosse Outlining the history of cyberactivism in Brazil Raul Nunes Tracing Weibo (2009–2019): The commercial dissolution of public communication and changing politics Lianrui Jia & Xiaofei Han Bodies that matter, bodies that don’t: selective disembodiment in the early Wired magazine (1993–1997) Elisabetta Ferrari Book Review A review essay: examining the fraught racial, gendered and class-based origins of the early internet and its antecedents Will Mari Kind regards on behalf of the editors, Asger Harlung Editorial Assistant, Internet Histories

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Welcoming Melanie Swalwell, new SIGCIS Co-Chair
by Andrew Russell 10 Sep '20

10 Sep '20

Dear SIGCIS: I’m writing to share some exciting news, which is that Melanie Swalwell has agreed to join me as SIGCIS Co-Chair, effective September 1, 2020. Melanie is Professor of Digital Media Heritage <https://www.swinburne.edu.au/research/our-research/access-our-research/find…> at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Many of you will have met Melanie at SIGCIS, or know her work in the histories of digital games and digital preservation. You should expect to hear from Melanie about the reorganization of the SIGCIS Officers, and opportunities for volunteer positions to help SIGCIS continue to grow and change. And you’ll also hear from Laine Nooney about SIGCIS’s plans for virtual meetings in these months when we can’t meet in person - and in anticipation of the rescheduled joint HSS-SHOT meeting in New Orleans in October 2021. Take care, Andy Co-Chair, SIGCIS — — — — — — — — — — — Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D. Dean, College of Arts & Sciences SUNY Polytechnic Institute Donovan Hall - 2123B 100 Seymour Road Utica, NY 13502 t. 315-792-7317 w. https://sunypoly.edu/ e. arussell(a)arussell.org

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