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History of personal computers in Japan
by Brian Randell 02 Apr '19

02 Apr '19

Hi: I’ve just seen this very interesting article: History of personal computers in Japan Ryozo Yamashita International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems • Download citation • https://doi.org/10.1080/17445760.2019.1587435 Abstract We give a survey on the history of computers in Japan that have been produced over the last 50 years. Here, we focus on the topics of personal computers (PCs). We can see PCs produced in Japan have very unique features. They coevolved with some other related machines, e.g. word processing machines, game machines, etc. They also had several localised features such as capability of dealing with Japanese language. At the same time, developers of PCs struggled to find a good solution between localisation and globalisation. In the early stage of the history of PCs, their architectures were all different, and software had to be developed and tuned for each of them. Thus providing a common platform to all PCs on which every software can run was indispensable for globalisation. In this paper, how PCs in Japan have been evolved and how such problems were attacked are discussed based on the author's experiences of developing early PCs. 1. Introduction A computer is a product that cannot be completed only with the computer itself. It is unusable without software. In addition, peripheral devices such as printers and storage devices are necessary. Those software and peripheral devices are provided by third-party manufacturers other than the manufacturer of the computer itself. Because the third-party manufacturers target the best-selling computer to maximise their sales, such a computer gets better and cheaper software and peripheral devices than other computers. By this, it sells much more. This positive feedback mechanism makes the best-selling computer dominates the market. In order to compete with the top selling manufacturer, it becomes effective for the second and subsequent computer manufacturers to provide products that are compatible with those from the top manufacturer. This is because they can use the software and peripherals provided by the third-party manufacturers. For the past 50 years, computer makers with the largest market continued to be U.S. makers, who have been expanding their business based on the big U.S. market. Therefore, Japanese computer makers inevitably decided to adopt the technology of U.S. manufacturers and took a strategy to develop compatible products to survive. However, even in these trends, there were other activities in the manufacturers in Japan. They not only produced U.S. compatible computers but also developed computers that are useful for Japanese users. In particular, by providing excellent Japanese language support, which was not possible by the U.S.-made machines, they had gained a large share in the Japanese market. On the other hand, there was also an activity of creating a world standard computer such as MSX personal computers (see Section 6) for general consumers and selling it all over the world. Such a project was carried out based on the technical strengths of the Japanese consumer electronics industry. In the latter half of the 1970s, the beginning of the market introduction of personal computers, I was involved in this industry. Since then, I had been engaged in introducing U.S. technology into Japan, developing systems for Japanese language support, and creating a standard personal computer for general consumers. Based on these experiences, I will explain how personal computers have penetrated into the Japanese society. Contents of the following sections are as follows. Section 2 gives a brief history of computers in Japan before personal computers. Sections 3–8 explain several important achievements in the history of personal computers and related products. Sections 9 and 10 describe some on-going activities other than personal computers. Section 11 gives concluding remarks of the author. <snip> Full story at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445760.2019.1587435 Cheers Brian Randell — School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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Venture Capital Oral Histories: A New Resource
by Dag Spicer 29 Mar '19

29 Mar '19

NVCA Oral History Collection Unveiled at the Computer History Museum Collection Features 17 Venture Capital Industry Luminaries March 28, 2019 — Mountain View The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and The Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum (CHM) are pleased to announce a new partnership to preserve and make freely accessible the NVCA Oral History Collection, a rich set of transcripts of 17 venture industry luminaries that have been compiled over the past fifteen years by NVCA. Featured in the collection, in order of when their oral histories were documented, are: Paul Wythes, Richard Kramlich, James Swartz, William Draper III, Edward Glassmeyer, Charles Lea, Peter Crisp, Alan Frazier, James Blair, Anthony Evnin, Ambassador Walter Curley, David Morgenthaler, Peter Brooke, Mike Brooks, Henry McCance, Alan Patricof, and Bill Egan. “We are excited that these amazing stories of the journeys of venture capital trailblazers will be preserved and made publicly accessible via the Collection at CHM,” said Bobby Franklin, President and CEO of NVCA. “Anyone who is interested can now learn more about the roots of the venture ecosystem and the impact of some of its earliest leaders have had, many of whom built this incredible industry almost from scratch and have paved the way for where it is today. These stories are a crucial part of the history of entrepreneurship in the United States.” “We are thrilled to partner with the NVCA to preserve these valuable interviews in our unique collection for generations to come,” said Marguerite Gong Hancock, Executive Director of the Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum. “They are a key addition to our VC oral histories and artifacts such as business plans, pitch decks, IPO documents and more that tell the remarkable story about venture capital funders and entrepreneurs who have changed the world. This new collection will become an integral part of our ongoing work to serve research, create content, design exhibits, and develop educational programs that will inspire the next generation of changemakers.” The partnership between NVCA and CHM will not only capture and share the untold stories of pioneering venture capitalists and their partnerships with disruptors and innovators that extend from idea to IPO and beyond, but they will also provide the rich context necessary for an in-depth understanding of venture’s history and impact that will hopefully inspire generations to come. NVCA and CHM will also work together to expand the Collection to include additional oral histories. The NVCA Oral History Collection may be accessed here: https://www.computerhistory.org/exponential/nvca/ Dag — Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 (650) 810-1035 direct (650) 810-1010 main spicer(a)computerhistory.org<mailto:spicer@computerhistory.org>

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Book Announcement: Critical Digital Humanities
by James E. Dobson 28 Mar '19

28 Mar '19

Dear SIGCIS Folks, It was a real pleasure meeting everyone in St. Louis! I thought I'd share an announcement for my latest book, Critical Digital Humanities: The Search for a Methodology. It was just published by the University of Illinois Press as part of the "Topics in the Digital Humanities Series." https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/48xfp2zp9780252042270.html If you want to purchase it, you can use the offer code S19UIP on IUP's website to get 30% off the paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats. The final chapter of the book gives what I'm calling the "intellectual history" of an algorithm, k-nearest neighbor. The abstract for this chapter, which would be the one of most interest to this community, reads as such: This chapter turns to a lower level of computation to produce a cultural critique and historicization of one of the most important algorithms used in digital humanities and other big data applications in the present moment, the k-Nearest Neighbor or k-NN algorithm. The chapter reconstructs the partial genealogy, the intellectual history, of this important algorithm that was key to sense making in the mid-twentieth century and has found continued life in the twenty-first century. In both its formalized description, its exposition in the papers introducing and refining the rule and its implementation in algorithmic form, and in its actual use, the k-nearest neighbor algorithm draws on dominant mid-twentieth century ideologies and tropes, including partitioning, segregation, suburbanization, and democratization. In the process of situating the k-NN algorithm within the larger field containing other residual and emergent statistical methods, the author seeks to produce an intervention within the developing critical theory of algorithmic governmentality. My present book project continues this line of inquiry by focusing on computer vision algorithms and has been greatly influenced by the SHOT/SIGCIS community and many discussions had at the last conference. Best, Jed -- James E. Dobson, Ph.D. Dartmouth College 420 Moore Hall http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jed

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Bob, not Bud, Bemer
by David C. Brock 27 Mar '19

27 Mar '19

Dear All, In announcing the new finding aids for collections at the Computer History Museum, my good friend Burt Grad alerted me to my typo in Robert W. Bemer’s nickname. Is is Bob, not Bud. Sorry for the confusion, David +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb(a)dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock

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New finding aids available for archival collections at the Computer History Museum
by David C. Brock 26 Mar '19

26 Mar '19

Dear SIGCIS, I would like to let you know that three new finding aids are available for archival collections held by the Computer History Museum: The Guides to the Robert (Bud) Bemer papers, the Adam Osborne collection, and the Mike Markkula collection. They can be found online here: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102724781 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738362 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102708204 The Museum would like to thank the National Archives’ National Historical Publications & Records Commission for providing the funds that made processing of this collection possible through its Access to Historical Records grant. See https://www.archives.gov/nhprc In addition the grant will afford us the ability to create finding aids for nine additional collections, and also to scan and make publicly available about 10% of these holdings. All of this work is underway, and the scanning for the Bemer collection is complete and available through the Museum’s online catalog. See https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/ If you’d like to work with any of these materials, start here: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/requests/ Happy hunting! Best wishes, David +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb(a)dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock

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George Comstock: 1924-2019 / June 13: Challenger Shuttle Data Recovery
by Brian Berg 26 Mar '19

26 Mar '19

George was a real renaissance man. His technology achievements are a ways down in this obituary, which is quite a life story: https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2019/03/25/george-comstock-silicon-valley-… ===== Sign up now for our June 13 "Challenger Shuttle disaster: Recovery of data from damaged tapes" event in Silicon Valley - see www.SiliconValleyHistory.com _________________________ 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 and History Chair for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ieee.org/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.californiaconsultants.org/> Board Director IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee <http://www.siliconvalleyhistory.com/> Chair

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Finn Prize
by Ceruzzi, Paul 26 Mar '19

26 Mar '19

I am re-posting this, as the deadline (April 15) is approaching. I hope you don't mind. See the announcement, below. For a list of past winners, go to the SHOT main web site. The Bernard S. Finn IEEE History Prize (formerly the IEEE Life Members' Prize in Electrical History) is supported by the IEEE Life Members' Fund and administered by the Society for the History of Technology. The prize is awarded annually to the best paper in the history of electrotechnology-power, electronics, telecommunications, and computer science-published during the preceding year. Any article published in a learned periodical is eligible if it treats the art or engineering aspects of electrotechnology and its practitioners. The article must be written in English, although the journal or periodical in which it appears may be a foreign language publication. The prize consists of a cash award of $1,000 and a certificate. In addition, IEEE will provide a travel subsidy ($750 domestic, $1,000 international) to allow the winner to attend SHOT's annual meeting, and SHOT will waive the basic registration and awards-banquet fees for the winner. To nominate an article, please send a copy of the paper to each member of the prize committee. The deadline for 2019 nominations is April 15, 2019. For more information, please contact the committee chair or Jan Korsten, SHOT Secretary, SHOT.Secretariaat(a)tue.nl<mailto:SHOT.Secretariaat@tue.nl>. 2019 Bernard S. Finn IEEE History Prize Committee Paul Ceruzzi, Chair (2018-2020) Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum PO Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 ceruzzip(a)si.edu<mailto:ceruzzip@si.edu> Paul Israel (2019-2021) Rutgers University Department of History Rutgers University 44 Road 3 Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8049 pisrael(a)taep.rutgers.edu<mailto:pisrael@taep.rutgers.edu> Eden Medina (2017-2019) Department of History and School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering Indiana University Informatics West 225 901 E. 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47408 edenm(a)indiana.edu<mailto:edenm@indiana.edu>

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Springer History of Computing Series--joining editorial leadership, seeking authors, upcoming volumes, and new competitive pricing
by Jeffrey Yost 25 Mar '19

25 Mar '19

Dear Colleagues, In January 2019 I signed on to be co-Series Editor of the Springer History of Computing Book Series, joining my distinguished colleague University of Amsterdam's Gerard Alberts. This series, edited in its early years by Martin Campbell-Kelly, now has published 15 volumes, and reflective of our specialty, it has accelerated its publishing in recent years. Over the past half decade we have published (or are publishing/have in press) monographs and edited volumes from William Aspray (multiple books), Thomas Haigh, Gerard Alberts, Ruth Oldenziel, Valerie Schafer, Benjamin Thierry, Aristotle Tympas, among others. And the series has published monographs/volumes on topics/themes such as the history of women in ICT, underrepresentation of gender and race in IT, the early digital, computation in the pre-computing era, Visa's payment system, the science of operations/programming, and the IT cultural history/demoscenes in Europe. We are working with a number of additional standout IT historians for books that will soon be under contract. I joined Gerard as co-Series Editor (after being on the board for many years) to help further boost our recent strong momentum in adding titles from North American authors, and while I will be recruiting particularly from this region, and Gerard from Europe, we will both be aggressively seeking important new works from all over the world. We seek book manuscripts on all types of history of IT and are especially interested in the social (gender, race, labor, etc.), cultural/intellectual, political, business/industrial, environmental, and technical history (and historiography) of computers, software, and networking, as well as in expanding our field's literature on new geographies (moving beyond our core on the U.S. and Europe, to publish on IT history in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa). We continue to welcome quality edited volumes (in addition to our focus on single/co-authored books) and have two coming out this year. Ready for pre-orders and shipping in a few months, Thomas Haigh, ed. *The Early Digital*, has chapters from Ron Kline, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzi, Ksenia Tatarchenko, and other top scholars. And out later this year is William Aspray's edited volume from the Flatiron Lectures on Computing, Information, and Society, which has chapters by thought leaders Jennifer Light, JoAnne Yates, Ron Kline, and Greg Downey, among others. I am also thrilled to announce that in 2018 Springer revised its pricing model (and the series has re-priced back to 2016) to now price hardcover books in the $35 to $45 (32 to 42 Euro) range, highly competitive with other leading academic presses. Springer's reputation as a top academic publisher and strong global presence (with headquarters in Berlin and major offices in NYC, Paris, Milan, London, Tokyo, Delhi, etc. and a publication catalogue of over 300,000 books since 1842) helps to further the visibility and esteem of your scholarship. We strive for highly efficient peer-review and relatively short in press/wait times for publishing completed and accepted manuscripts. If you have a manuscript or an idea for one (most books in the series are in the 70,000 to 120,000 word range), I look forward to hearing from you. You can contact either myself or Gerard. Springer History of Computing Series URL https://www.springer.com/series/8442?detailsPage=titles [Separate from this series, but also of potential interest, Gerard and I also are co-editing SpringerBriefs in History of Computing, a series of short books. These are 20,000 to 50,000 word works for softcover books roughly 50 to 110 printed pages. If you have a ms or idea for one for a work that might otherwise be a multi-part article (which some journals discourage and often result in challenges with review), a longish historiographical essay, a shorter biography ms on a main historical actor from a longer study, or any other type of scholarly IT history work in this size range, I encourage you to think of submitting for consideration to SpringerBriefs in the History of Computing. We are capable of moving the process especially rapidly with SpringerBriefs, an expedited review process, and after review/editing out in several months. You can contact either of us regarding this series as well.] Best, Jeff 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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CfP: "Computing Capitalisms" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Special Issue
by Kennedy, Devin 22 Mar '19

22 Mar '19

Dear All: Below and attached, please find a call for papers for a special issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing co-edited by Gerardo Con Diaz and myself. Abstracts are due on April 30. Thank you, Devin Kennedy Computing Capitalisms: History, Business, and Information Technology Call for Papers: Special Issue The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing invites submissions for a special issue titled “Computing Capitalisms.” Edited by Gerardo Con Diaz (University of California, Davis) and Devin Kennedy (Harvard University), this special issue will showcase new questions and methods in the business history of computing, broadly conceived. The history of computing has described the firms, industries, and businesses that made and were remade by computing practices and technologies. Classic works in the business history of computing examined how firms invest in and foster new technologies; explored the long-term relationships between technology, strategy, and structure in computing and telecommunications; and framed business as a key intermediary between technical developments and markets. Recent scholarship has opened promising new directions in the historical study of business and computing including: the labor dimensions of programming, manufacturing, and content moderation; race and gender in the economic and social valuation of computing work; the material and environmental dependencies of computer industries; computer modeling in manufacturing and economic planning; evolving business models in computer hardware, software, and services industries; the economic effects of digitalization and automation in finance, banking, and consumer credit; and the intersection of governments and private industry through intellectual property law, data privacy regulation, trade policy, and state investments in infrastructure and computing businesses. This special issue aims to highlight new directions in the business history of computing through the theme of computing capitalisms. In engaging capitalisms, we are suggesting a broad view of business history that considers the political, legal, labor, environmental, material, and social conditions that surround business and are shaped by it, while adding historical perspective to ongoing discussions of contemporary “data” “platform” or “surveillance” capitalism. We invite papers that draw on the history of computing and allied fields, including STS, labor history, the history of capitalism, management studies, gender and race studies, media and game studies, and critical data and algorithm studies. We interpret the history of computing broadly and invite papers on any historical period and with any geographical focus, and especially encourage those that consider computing’s global dimensions. Some topics of interest include historical consideration of: · Business models in computing businesses, including data vending · Labor, including workers’ movements · Race and gender in computing industries · National and international regulation of computing and data businesses · Material and environmental dimensions of device manufacturing and computer services · Management practices and bureaucracy · Computer science developments and digital technology business · The use of computing in regulation and economic planning · Institutions for technological and business development (‘incubators,’ consulting firms, University spin-offs) · Logistics systems and supply chain management · Financial developments and computing (venture capital, ICOs) · Computing in finance, banking, and consumer credit Submission Instructions If you are interested, please submit an abstract (250 words) and a short CV to condiaz(a)ucdavis.edu<mailto:condiaz@ucdavis.edu> and dkennedy(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:dkennedy@fas.harvard.edu> by April 30, 2019. Accepted papers will be due for peer review in October 2019. You may also contact the editors with any questions, or to discuss potential topics.

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Call for Nominations: Computer History Museum Prize, 2019
by Andrew Russell 21 Mar '19

21 Mar '19

Dear colleagues - Please help SIGCIS share this announcement widely (email lists, social media, etc). The Computer History Museum Prize is awarded to the author of an outstanding book in the history of computing broadly conceived, published during the prior three years. The prize of $1,000 is awarded by SIGCIS, the Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society. SIGCIS is part of the Society for the History of Technology. In 2012 the prize was endowed in perpetuity through a generous bequest from the estate of Paul Baran, a legendary computer innovator and entrepreneur best known for his work to develop and promote the packet switching approach on which modern networks are built. Baran was a longtime supporter of work on the history of information technology and named the prize to celebrate the contributions of the Computer History Museum to that field. 2019 Call for Submission Books published in 2016-2018 are eligible for the 2019 award. Books in translation are eligible for three years following the date of their publication in English. Publishers, authors, and other interested members of the computer history community are invited to nominate books. Please note that books nominated in previous years may be nominated again, provided they have been published in the timeframes specified above. Send one copy of the nominated title to each of the committee members listed at https://www.sigcis.org/chmprize <https://www.sigcis.org/chmprize>, with a postmark no later than April 30, 2019. For more information, please contact the Committee Chair, Prof. Rebecca Slayton. Current information about the prize, including the most recent call and a list of previous winners, always may be found at http://www.sigcis.org/chmprize <http://www.sigcis.org/chmprize>. Many thanks, Andy Russell SIGCIS Chair

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