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Upcoming workshop on the future of computing, Porto
by Ceruzzi, Paul 23 Apr '18

23 Apr '18

I checked with some SIGCIS folks last week, and they told me it is OK to call attention to the following course/workshop on the Future of Computing, to be held in Porto, Portugal, in late June. You may note that the fees for students are _relatively_ affordable. The deadlines for applying to the course are coming up in May. https://futurecomp.uptec.up.pt/#program. Paul Ceruzzi ceruzzip(a)si.edu<mailto:ceruzzip@si.edu> 202-633-2414

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana \\ Sydney-Anne Holt
by D. Schmudde 22 Apr '18

22 Apr '18

George, Sydney-Anne Holt was a layout designer of the 6502. She can be seen here holding a white 650x: http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/magazines/misc/mos_605x_team_eetimes_august…. Considering the significance of the 6502 to early personal computing hardware, she seems to fit the request. I'm a little late to the submission because I tried to source some contact information but was unable. You might have better luck. /Schmudde On 04/12/2018 04:39 PM, members-request(a)lists.sigcis.org wrote: > Send Members mailing list submissions to > members(a)lists.sigcis.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > members-request(a)lists.sigcis.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > members-owner(a)lists.sigcis.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Members digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in > Montana (Brian Berg) > 2. Re: Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in > Montana (GK) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 16:51:17 -0700 > From: Brian Berg <brianberg(a)gmail.com> > To: SIGCIS Listserver <members(a)sigcis.org> > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & > Robotics Museum in Montana > Message-ID: > <CAE33aVA1LrwseoRL510zsvimg3XNuR2XKDFptoCC0LQCF58-FQ(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Sophie Wilson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson> certainly > should be included. An associate found her in *Digital Design and Computer > Architecture, ARM edition > <https://textbooks.elsevier.com/web/product_details.aspx?isbn=9780128000564>*, > by Harris and Harris. > > > With Steve Furber, she was co-designer of the ARM series processors from > ARM 1 through ARM7 (starting in 1983), and her earlier work experience at > Acorn starting in 1981 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson#Career> > makes excellent reading as well. She currently works at Broadcom. > _________________________ > 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 > IEEE Milestone > <http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones> > Coordinator for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> > IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV > <http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director > IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee > <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 1:22 PM, Chuck House <housec1839(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> Interesting question, George. I am hopeful that you get lots of useful >> input >> >> I am concerned that you could be 'too narrow' in the sense of saying "only >> PC hardware" That would count the IBM PC designers, the Apple II and Mac >> designers, the KayPro and its ilk, the Osborne, and maybe even the Eagle, >> right? >> >> But it would not include the key chip for Apple, the Mostek 6502, or the >> tools including ion implantation at Applied Materials that helped the 6502 >> layout team, right? And it would doubtless exclude workstations, mini's, >> and desktops, not to mention handheld calculators, printers, disc drives, >> etc. Is this what you hoped to elicit by adding "chips"? >> >> Almost all the chips were done at chip companies, except for HP, DEC, and >> IBM. Specifically, they weren't really done at the PC companies. And a PC >> included lots of firmware/software that was integral to the machine very >> often rather than on floppys or externally packaged. Never mind that the >> Mac was said to be 'saved' by Desktop Publsihing, and the whole field by >> the killer Spreadsheet. >> >> My key candidate would be Lynn Conway, for whom I penned the attached IEEE >> article a few years back. She did yeoman work at XeroxPARC re VLSI >> circuit design, unheralded for a long time. But I would also include >> Adele Goldberg, for her 'software' work on Smalltalk, and her encouragement >> of Alan Kay for the DynaBook. She probably wouldn't make your cut if it >> has to be hardware, but if it is to be PC-centric, her work led to the >> GUI's that the Mac employed famously. She in fact strongly opposed letting >> Jobs into PARC. >> >> I would absolutely include Pat Castro of HP, who was the first female >> engineer at Fairchild Semi (who experienced plenty of anti-MeToo acts), and >> later ran HP's IC fab shop, processing Conway's VLSI work for Stanford and >> PARC. She has two key HP Journal articles in June 1981. Beatriz Infante >> and Diane Bracken were noted as key contributors to this effort also. >> Beatriz later was SVP at Oracle, and CEO at Aspect Communications. Jim >> Gibbons at Stanford, and Lynn herself, are clear that without Pat's >> contribution, virtually none of the VLSI work that she and Carver Mead >> described would have been brought to fruition for several more years. >> >> But these seemingly are not what you asked. >> >> So my approach, admittedly adjacent to your request, was to see how and >> where women show up in the HP designer 'archives' -- prior to and including >> PC development. And the answer is sadly LOW. The handheld calculator >> lines and the desktop computer lines had virtually no women designers >> cited; the minicomputer lines had some, mostly doing firmware or software. >> Peripherals? None. I list below what I found in a cursory search this >> morning. See http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.html >> >> There were three women designers on the HP 21-MX series (HPJ October >> 1974), none explicitly hardware designers, but all with hardware 'chops': >> Janelle Bedke for dynamic mapping functions (later she led product design, >> hardware and software, for the HP 2621 Intelligent Terminal; and then >> co-founder, COO and CEO for Software Publishing); Darlene Harrell (21-MX >> test jigs); and Rose Carson, packaging. Bedke describes the HP2621 as the >> HP competitor to the TRS-80 and the Osborne in 1979 in her recent Computer >> History Museum oral interview. >> >> The first by-lined and profiled HP woman engineer was Lynn Tillman, who >> did the microprogramming (then a hardware function in PROMs) for the HP-70 >> and HP-22 handheld calculators. See Nov 75 HPJ >> >> The next issue, December 1975 has three articles citing women designers. >> The first article concerns hybrid chip development, done in part by Ruth >> Buss, Rose Stamps, and Gina Anderson. This work is adjacent to computer >> design per se, but the next two, one by Linda Averett and the other >> co-authored by Adele Gadol, are for HP's first real-time executive >> operating system work, RTE-II, then closely coupled to hardware design even >> though it was technically software. This was mostly for real-time control >> systems, think satellite space controllers, rather than CPUs for business. >> And a long way from PCs. >> >> Kathy Hahn was first bylined and profiled in HPJ March 1977. for her CS >> work on HPE and RTE-III, the HP 1000 Real-time Executive operating system. >> She was in process of completing her EE Masters, and went on to design much >> hardware for HP computing. Her key role next was the RTE-IV real-time >> operating system for the HP1000 family--this was THE hardware/software >> interface operating system for the world for the next decade. See October >> 1978 HPJ, which also cites Linda Averett and Sheila Kapoor. The key >> article in this issue though was by Julia Cates, who was the project leader >> and key designer of the F-series floating point chip. Chuck Geber in a >> succeeding article cites Julia's key talents as well. >> >> Another 'adjacent' was Carolyn Finch, for her role in designing miniature >> probes for IC testing--April 77 HPJ (this was 'mechanical eng'g' for an >> electrical parametric situation) when HP was 'big' in PC chips, shipping >> 75,000 16-bit micros before Intel sampled its first one. >> >> A number of women were listed for the ill-fated SOS-based HP300, mostly >> for RPG software and software functionality contributions. See HPJ June >> 1979, which includes Wendy Pelkus' article re RPG, Report Program >> Generator, for biz apps; and May Kovelick's article re the HP300 BASIC >> compiler. >> >> Izagma I. Alonso- Velez was the HP 64000 PASCAL compiler designer--again >> software, but dedicated to developing firmware tasks. See Oct 1980 HPJ >> >> Nancy Federman wrote several significant manufacturing tracking system >> components, viz. April 1981. This is in the era when Sandy Kurtzig >> founded ASK Computer doing similar things (Sandy's husband worked at HP). >> Maybe more significantly, Loretta Winston authored an article in the same >> issue about "Customizing Software for computers" that was both prescient >> and exemplary for being the first black female to be published at HP (and >> maybe in the industry). >> >> For HP chip design, a big part was the Electron Beam Lithography program, >> which along with Bell Labs was the leading chip definition system of the >> era. Nancy Kendzierski was one of the two software designers for the >> project columnator; several other women contributed to the software for the >> multiple exposure runs. See May 1981 HPJ. This issue is the month before >> the big June 1981 issue re HP Chip designs. >> >> Karen Meinert was the key main memory designer for HP's biggest mini, the >> HP3000 64. Full-on hardware! Story in HPJ, March 1982 >> >> Kathy Qwinn, at HP Fort Collins, is the first woman cited from HP's >> desktop computer divisions. She led the BASIC compiler development, for >> what at the time was by far the leading desktop computer system in the >> world in unit placements and revenue; story in May 1982 HPJ. See the >> history of these lines in http://www.hp9825.com >> >> Susan Okada led the plasma etching system for the dry lithography work at >> HP Labs that resulted in many microchip developments. HPJ Aug 1982 >> >> In the Sept 1983 HPJ issue, four women are included in HP's first low-cost >> color terminals, the HP 2700 family. Sharon Mead was the project >> manager, along with Catherin Potter and two others; Diane Rodriquez and >> Barbara Stanley wrote the PaintBrush app. >> >> And in December 1983, Janet Accentura co-teamed to lead the Ultrasound >> Imaging system, with Radhu Basu assisting (later to become a key Indian >> developer in the Valley). >> >> Leslie Neft (the A-700( and Marlu Allen (the A-900) were two key hardware >> designers for HP's low-cost 'mini's--the HP 1000 Series A--described by >> program manager Nancy Schoendorf and others in Feb 1984 HPJ. Sara >> Dickinson, not profiled, was a key hardware designer as well. Elizabeth >> Clark co-wrote the RTE operating system. >> >> The August 1984 HPJ issue described HP's ill-fated Touchscreen 150 PC, >> with Carol Mills as product manager (later to be a key industry exec); >> Susan Carrie and Trish Brown on hardware; Becky Smith on firmware; and the >> aforementioned Sharon Mead with Sherry Murphy and Barbara Packard as >> project managers. >> >> Laura Cory, Nancy Schoendorf, Gail Hamilton, Janelle Bedke, Carol Mills -- >> a few designers from HP who went on to significant contributions >> elsewhere. >> >> Cory worked in DSD as a designer, then marketing director, then division >> manager. >> Later, she became a key exec elsewhere http://bigpicture.net/article/ >> cory-named-president-sun-chemicals-digital-unit >> >> Schoendorf also worked at DSD, then CSY, as an HP-UX operating systems >> designer, then moved to Software Publishing with Bedke, then to SUN, and >> then to the VC world. http://mdv.com/nancy-schoendorf/ >> >> Hamilton-- Gail Hamilton managed the development of the 64310 Analyzer and >> earlier contributed to the development of the 8085 and 6502 personality >> modules for the 1611A. These were key tools for the PC designers of the >> day, since the 8085 and 6502 were the mainstay chips for PCs. She later >> was VP for Compaq, Symantec, and on the Arrow Board. >> See HPJ June 1984, and https://www.bloomberg.com/ >> research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=506168&privcapId=313734 >> >> ************* >> >> So, TO YOUR QUESTION >> >> Should any of these be featured in your exhibit as I interpret what you >> seek? >> >> I'd broaden the list slightly, to include Bedke (SPC was the third largest >> PC SW firm by 1984, with the top-selling IBM PC SW besides spreadsheets), >> Conway, Castro, and Goldberg >> >> The rest are names in arcana, hardly significant enough for your >> question. I wish there were many more. >> >> Best regards, >> Chuck House >> InnovaScapes Institute >> CHM Trustee >> ACM History Committee Chair >> >> >> >> ?On 4/9/18, 7:44 AM, "Members on behalf of George Keremedjiev" < >> members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org on behalf of director(a)compustory.com> >> wrote: >> >> Hello to all. My first posting. >> >> Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in >> computing. >> >> Question: >> Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in >> the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? >> For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for >> example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - >> who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware >> components including microchips. >> >> The key term is hardware. >> >> Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the >> above! >> >> Best, >> George >> >> George Keremedjiev >> Director >> American Computer & Robotics Museum >> Bozeman, MT >> www.compustory.com >> >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> _______________________________________________ >> This email is relayed from members at 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 >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> This email is relayed from members at 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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CFP: STORED IN MEMORY: 10th Annual SIGCIS Conference | Due June 30
by Laine Nooney 16 Apr '18

16 Apr '18

Dear SIGCIS Community, The SIGCIS Conference Organizing Committee is pleased to *announce the CFP for our 2018 10th Annual SIGCIS Conference, **STORED IN MEMORY*. Our keynote for the event is Eden Medina, Associate Professor of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington. The SIGCIS Conference will take place *October 14th, 2018 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, *on the Sunday of the SHOT conference. *Abstracts are due June 30.* Below you can find the full CFP for this year's conference. These details can also be found at our conference website: meetings.sigcis.org Please circulate widely, and we hope to see you in St. Louis! -Laine Nooney, Andrew Russell, Gerardo Con Diaz, Stephanie Dick, Kera Allen and Nabeel Siddiqui ------------------------------------------------------------------ *STORED IN MEMORY**The 10th Annual SIGCIS Conference* *St. Louis, Missouri, USA | October 14, 2018* The Special Interest Group in Computing, Information, and Society [SIGCIS] welcomes submissions to their annual conference meetings.sigcis.org *Proposal Due Date: June 30, 2018* *KEYNOTE SPEAKER* *Eden Medina* Associate Professor of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington *THEME* Much of a computer’s work is made possible not by users’ direct actions, but by off-screen manipulations of its memory: storage, allocation, saving, deletion, registration, collection, partitioning, defragmentation, and so on. These processes have been crucial to the computer’s mass popularization during the 20th century and into the 21st—from the first stored program computer, to the rise of the consumer software industry, to the unpredictable and often troubling emergence of the Internet of Things, predictive analytics, and data harvesting. Yet encoding in computer memory is never obvious, given, or inert; choices about how to store and structure data inevitably inform the meaning that can be made with computing machines. In other words, all exercises in memory are also exercises in obfuscation, exclusion, and forgetting. Similarly, historians, theorists, and archivists of information technologies depend on the often imperceptible operations of memory: from the delicacy of human past experiences taken down in oral history, to presences and gaps “captured” in the archive. This problem of what is remembered, and what is forgotten, is the disciplinary condition that renders history as much art as it is science. In honor of the 10th annual SIGCIS conference, STORED IN MEMORY invites scholars, museum and archive professionals, IT practitioners, artists and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum to submit abstracts related to the historical conditions of computing. We are especially interested in (but not limited to) work that relates to the theme of “memory,” broadly and imaginatively construed. Areas of engagement may include: - How have computing technologies transformed people’s engagement with their past, present, or future? - What role does computing play in the formation and development of political systems, governance infrastructures, and institutional memory? - How are people’s histories and identities—race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and so on—recorded and represented through information technologies? - Where do computer encodings fit in the longer history of tools and practices with which communities represent the world? What epistemological realities does computer memory afford? - What place does the history of memory (computer, human, sociopolitical, and so on) have in the history of computing? - How have databases served to memorialize and monumentalize certain formations of knowledge, and what is forgotten in these processes? - How has the historiography of computing and information changed over the years, and where could it take us next? (Retrospectives welcome) - What challenges and methods are emerging in the preservation of computing history through archives, museums, oral histories, and digital-born collections? SIGCIS is especially welcoming of new directions in scholarship. We maintain an inclusive atmosphere for scholarly inquiry, supporting both disciplinary interventions from beyond the traditional history of technology, and with respect to promoting diversity in STEM. We welcome submissions from: the histories of technology, computing, information, and science; science and technology studies; oral history and archival studies; digital humanities; critical studies of big data and machine learning; studies of women, gender, and sexuality; studies of race, ethnicity, and postcoloniality; disability studies and the medical humanities; film, media, and game studies; software and code studies; network and internet histories; music, sound studies, and art history; and all other applicable domains. The annual SIGCIS Conference takes place on the final day of the annual meeting of our parent organization, the Society for the History of Technology [SHOT]. Information about the annual SHOT conference can be found at: https://bit.ly/2E6qgko *SUBMISSION FORMATS* SIGCIS welcomes proposals for individual 15-20 minute papers, 3-4 paper panel proposals, works-in-progress (see below), and non-traditional proposals such as roundtables, software demonstrations, hands-on workshops, etc. *WORKS-IN-PROGRESS* The Works-in-Progress (WiP) session will be a workshop wherein participants discuss their work in small group sessions. We invite works-in-progress—articles, chapters, dissertation prospectuses—of 10,000 words or less (longer works must be selectively edited to meet this length). We especially encourage submissions from graduate students, early career scholars, and scholars who are new to SIGCIS. Authors who submit a WiP will also commit to reading (in advance) two other WiPs, discussing them in a small group setting, and providing written feedback on one of those WiPs. Scholars who would like to participate in this session without submitting their own WiP are welcome; we ask that they commit to reading (in advance) at least two of the WiPs. Submissions for WiP only require a 350-400 word abstract, but applicants should plan to circulate their max-10,000-word WiPs no later than September 30, 2018. Scholars who would like to be a reader of WiPs, please email a brief bio or 1-page CV, along with your areas of interest and expertise, to Gerardo Con Diaz [condiaz(a)ucdavis.edu] *SUBMISSION PROCEDURE * Submissions are due June 30, 2018. Applicants should download, fill out and follow the instructions on the application cover sheet at http://meetings.sigcis.org/call-for-papers.html. All submissions will require: - 350-400 word abstract (full panel proposals should additionally include a 250-300 word panel abstract in addition to 3-4 paper abstracts) - 1-page CV or resume for each presenter Please Note: Individuals who have submitted to the main SHOT program are welcome to submit an additional proposal to our workshop, but should make sure that there is no overlap between the two presentations. However, SIGCIS may choose to give higher priority to submissions from those not already presenting at SHOT. Questions regarding submission procedure should be sent to Kera Allen [ kera.allen(a)gatech.edu] *TRAVEL AWARD* The top financial priority of SIGCIS is the support of travel expenses for graduate students, visiting faculty without institutional travel support, and others who would be unable to attend the meeting without travel assistance. The submission cover sheet includes a space to note whether you fall into one of these categories and would like to be considered for an award. These is no separate application form, though depending on the volume of requests and available resources we may need to contact you for further information before making a decision. Any award offered is contingent on registering for and attending the SIGCIS Conference. Please note that SHOT does not classify the SIGCIS Conference as participation in the SHOT annual meeting, therefore acceptance by SIGCIS does not imply eligibility for the SHOT travel grant program. Details of available awards are at http://www.sigcis.org/travelaward. *SIGCIS CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE* Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/>, New York University (SIGCIS Vice-Chair of Meetings) Andrew Russell <http://www.arussell.org/>, SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SIGCIS Chair) Stephanie Dick <https://hss.sas.upenn.edu/people/stephanie-dick>, University of Pennsylvania Gerardo Con Diaz <https://www.condiaz.com/>, University of California, Davis (SIGCIS Treasurer) Kera Allen <https://hts.gatech.edu/people/person/e2f55e07-937a-571a-a4f8-c32c87fef19d>, Georgia Institute of Technology (Conference Assistant) Nabeel Siddiqui <https://nabsiddiqui.github.io/>, College of William and Mary (Conference Assistant) -- Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/> MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU <http://www.nyu.edu/> Assistant Professor -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0 -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos -Stop email nonsense: http://emailcharter.org

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Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by George Keremedjiev 13 Apr '18

13 Apr '18

Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone

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SIGCIS-sponsored panel for SHOT, due April 20
by Andrew Russell 11 Apr '18

11 Apr '18

Dear colleagues - SHOT has informed us that they are extending the submission deadline for the 2018 meeting to April 20 for a particular type of submission, panels that are sponsored by one of the SHOT SIGs. We have one paper that could form the beginnings of a compelling panel: the paper is by Elisabetta Mori from Middlesex University, and the title is “Early Olivetti Computer Design: Sottsass, Maldonado, and the Sign System for ELEA.” Elisabetta suggests the following keywords for other papers that might fit well in a session: design, early systems, sign systems, human-machine interaction, ergonomics, interdisciplinarity. If you have a paper that touches on one of these keywords, and you’re interested in joining a panel submission, please get in touch with Elisabetta or me. (Her address is bettygorf(a)gmail.com <mailto:bettygorf@gmail.com>.) Even if your idea doesn’t touch one of these keywords, odds are good we can find *some* way to connect the papers in a coherent way. Since SHOT has reached out to us asking for this type of submission, I’m optimistic that the chances of it being accepted are quite high. Many thanks, Andy

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[reminder] Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe (Poznan, Poland, Sept. 2018; review of papers begins May 1)
by Chris Leslie 10 Apr '18

10 Apr '18

Please forward to your colleagues and among your networks … Call for Papers Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe IFIP Working Group 9.7 Part of the 24th IFIP World Congress Poznan University of Technology, Poland 19-21 September 2018 Papers are now being accepted for the history of computing workshop at the next IFIP World Computing Congress, which will be held in September 2018. This is not only fifty years after the so-called Garmisch conference coined the phrase software engineering, but also it was at a place that fifty years before barely was thinkable as a conference location because of the Cold War. Both anniversary and location are useful reminders that computing and informatics rely on the international community for innovation. IFIP’s Working Group 9.7, which is dedicated to international histories of computing, is sponsoring a series of papers on 19-21 September to illuminate this important context as part of the IFIP World Congress in Poznań, Poland. Given the World Congress’s location, we are particularly interested in histories that reflect computing and informatics in eastern Europe. Academic historians and lovers of history, computing and informatics professionals, archivists, museum curators, and others are welcome to submit papers for this workshop. A highlight of the workshop will be a remote demonstration of the Bombe created by Alan Turing that is demonstrated to visitors of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom. The Bombe was used to find the initial settings for the Enigma machines each day. To celebrate the work of the three distinguished Polish cryptographers – Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski – and the major contribution they made to the reading of Enigma messages throughout the Second World War, a message enciphered using Enigma coding will be transmitted from Poznań to Bletchley Park and be decoded using the replica Turing Bombe after which a reply will be sent back. As has been the working group's past practice, we request submission of draft papers for consideration. Accepted papers will be revised based on comments from reviewers and be distributed to participants before the workshop to ensure a lively conversation. After the workshop, authors will have the chance to incorporate feedback from the audience before submitting their final papers for consideration in the edited volume of selected papers for the proceedings, which will be published by Springer as a volume in the IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (IFIP-AICT) series. In order to participate, please submit a draft of your paper via the Springer Online Conference Service. The OCS portal for this workshop is available at https://ocs.springer.com/ocs/home/HCEE2018. More information about OCS and the workshop more generally is available on the working group website (http://ifipwg97.org) Review of draft papers will begin May 1 and continue until June 15. Revised versions of accepted papers will be distributed to conference participants on September 1. Enquires in advance of your submission or questions about Springer OCS may be addressed to the chair of the working group, Chris Leslie (chrisleslienyc(a)hotmail.com)

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History of Dark Web?
by Janet Abbate 10 Apr '18

10 Apr '18

I got a query from a journalist about the origins of the Dark Web. I don’t really know what was going on before Sealand and Tor in the early 2000s. Anyone working on this? thanks, Janet Dr. Janet Abbate Professor, Science, Technology and Society Virginia Tech Co-director, VT National Capital Region STS program www.sts.vt.edu/ncr www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055 www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Chuck House 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Interesting question, George. I am hopeful that you get lots of useful input I am concerned that you could be 'too narrow' in the sense of saying "only PC hardware" That certainly could count the IBM PC designers, the Apple II and Mac designers, the KayPro and its ilk, the Osborne, and maybe even the Franklin and the Eagle, right? But it would not include the key chip for Apple, the Mostek 6502, or the tools including ion implantation from Applied Materials that helped the 6502 layout team, right? Is this what you hoped to elicit by adding "chips"? Almost all the chips were done at chip companies, except for HP, DEC, and IBM. Specifically, they weren't really done at the PC companies. And a PC included lots of firmware/software that was integral to the machine very often rather than on floppys or externally packaged. Never mind that the Mac was said to be 'saved' by Desktop Publishing, and the whole field by the killer Spreadsheet. My guess is that you exclude workstations, mini's, and desktops, not to mention handheld calculators, printers, disc drives, etc.—all of which to some of us were allied with, or part and parcel of, the PC revolution. For the specific question about women hardware designers at PC companies, I don’t know of any offhand. But I would definitely include Janelle Bedke, who was a software designer early at HP, then became the hardware and software project manager for the HP 2621 aimed at the TRS-80 and Osborne 1 niche, and then co-founded and became COO and then CEO for Software Publishing, the third or fourth largest PC software company in the world when IBM’s Charlie Chaplin ad urged the IBM Assistant Series (which was SPC’s PFS line). I think SPC was the 2nd IPO in Silicon Valley founded or co-founded by a woman—ASK Computer with Sandy Kurtzig was first, Sandy Lerner with Cisco was third. Janelle’s career began as a hardware microwave engineer at HP in the early 70’s If you include “chips” in general, not just for the PC, my top candidate would be Lynn Conway, for whom I penned an IEEE article a few years back. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6393024/ Conway did yeoman work at XeroxPARC re VLSI circuit design, unheralded for a long time. She is one of our “Fellows” at the Computer History Museum. I would absolutely include Pat Castro of HP, who was the first female engineer at Fairchild Semi (who experienced plenty of anti-MeToo acts), and later ran HP's IC fab shop, processing Conway's VLSI work for Stanford and PARC. She has two key HP Journal articles in June 1981. Jim Gibbons at Stanford, and Lynn herself, are clear that without Pat's contribution, virtually none of the VLSI work that she and Carver Mead described would have been brought to fruition for several more years. If you admit PC software (and Bedke), I would also include Adele Goldberg, for her 'software' work on Smalltalk, and her encouragement of Alan Kay for the DynaBook. She probably wouldn't make your cut if it has to be hardware, but if it is to be PC-centric, her work led to the GUI's that the Mac employed famously. She in fact strongly opposed letting Jobs into PARC, convinced he’d do what he in fact did. Admittedly adjacent to your request, I thought it interesting to see how and where women show up in the HP designer 'archives' -- prior to and including PC development. And the answer is sadly LOW. The handheld calculator lines and the desktop computer lines had virtually no women designers cited; the minicomputer lines had some, mostly doing firmware or software. Peripherals? None. See http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.html There were three women designers on the HP 21-MX series (HPJ October 1974), none explicitly hardware designers, but all with hardware 'chops': Bedke notably. The first by-lined and profiled HP woman engineer was Lynn Tillman, who did the microprogramming (then a hardware function in PROMs) for the HP-70 and HP-22 handheld calculators. See Nov 75 HPJ The next issue, December 1975 has three articles citing women designers. The first article concerns hybrid chip development, done in part by Ruth Buss, Rose Stamps, and Gina Anderson. This work is adjacent to computer design per se, but the next two, one by Linda Averett and the other co-authored by Adele Gadol, are for HP's first real-time executive operating system work, RTE-II, then closely coupled to hardware design even though it was technically software. This was mostly for real-time control systems, think satellite space controllers, rather than CPUs for business. And a long way from PCs. Kathy Hahn was first bylined and profiled in HPJ March 1977. for her CS work on HPE and RTE-III, the HP 1000 Real-time Executive operating system. Next, she did the RTE-IV real-time operating system for the HP1000 family--this was THE hardware/software interface operating system for the world for the next decade. See October 1978 HPJ, which also cites Linda Averett and Sheila Kapoor. The key article in this issue though was by Julia Cates, who was the project leader and key designer of the F-series floating point chip. Another 'adjacent' was Carolyn Finch, for her role in designing miniature probes for IC testing--April 77 HPJ (this was 'mechanical eng'g' for an electrical parametric situation) when HP was 'big' in PC chips, shipping 75,000 16-bit micros before Intel sampled its first one. A number of women were listed for the ill-fated SOS-based HP300, mostly for RPG software and software functionality contributions. See HPJ June 1979, which includes Wendy Pelkus' article re RPG, Report Program Generator, for biz apps; and May Kovelick's article re the HP300 BASIC compiler. Izagma Alonso- Velez was the HP 64000 PASCAL compiler designer--again software, but dedicated to developing firmware tasks. See Oct 1980 HPJ Nancy Federman wrote several significant manufacturing tracking system components, viz. April 1981. This is in the era when Sandy Kurtzig founded ASK Computer doing similar things (Sandy's husband worked at HP). Maybe more significantly, Loretta Winston authored an article in the same issue about "Customizing Software for computers" that was both prescient and exemplary for being the first black female to be published at HP (and maybe in the industry). For HP chip design, a big part was the Electron Beam Lithography program, which along with Bell Labs was the leading chip definition system of the era. Nancy Kendzierski was one of the two software designers for the project columnator; several other women contributed to the software for the multiple exposure runs. See May 1981 HPJ. This issue is the month before the big June 1981 issue re HP Chip designs which featured Castro. Karen Meinert was the key main memory designer for HP's biggest mini, the HP3000 64. Full-on hardware! Story in HPJ, March 1982 Kathy Qwinn, at HP Fort Collins, is the first woman cited from HP's desktop computer divisions. She led the BASIC compiler development, for what at the time was by far the leading desktop computer system in the world in unit placements and revenue; story in May 1982 HPJ. See the history of these lines in http://www.hp9825.com Susan Okada led the plasma etching system for the dry lithography work at HP Labs that resulted in many microchip developments. HPJ Aug 1982 In the Sept 1983 HPJ issue, four women are included in HP's first low-cost color terminals, the HP 2700 family. Sharon Mead was the project manager, along with Catherin Potter and two others; Diane Rodriquez and Barbara Stanley wrote the PaintBrush app. And in December 1983, Janet Accentura co-teamed to lead the Ultrasound Imaging system, with Radhu Basu assisting (later a key Indian developer in the Valley). Leslie Neft (the A-700( and Marlu Allen (the A-900) were two key hardware designers for HP's low-cost 'mini's--the HP 1000 Series A--described by program manager Nancy Schoendorf and others in Feb 1984 HPJ. Sara Dickinson, not profiled, was a key hardware designer as well. Elizabeth Clark co-wrote the RTE operating system. The August 1984 HPJ issue described HP's ill-fated Touchscreen 150 PC, with Carol Mills as product manager (later to be a key industry exec); Susan Carrie and Trish Brown on hardware; Becky Smith on firmware; and the aforementioned Sharon Mead with Sherry Murphy and Barbara Packard as project managers. Laura Cory, Nancy Schoendorf, Gail Hamilton, Janelle Bedke, Carol Mills are a few designers from HP who went on to significant contributions elsewhere. Cory worked in DSD as a designer, then marketing director, then division manager. Later, she became a key exec elsewhere http://bigpicture.net/article/cory-named-president-sun-chemicals-digital-un… Schoendorf also worked at DSD, then CSY, as an HP-UX operating systems designer, then moved to Software Publishing with Bedke, then to SUN, and then to the VC world. http://mdv.com/nancy-schoendorf/ Hamilton-- Gail Hamilton managed the development of the 64310 Analyzer and earlier contributed to the development of the 8085 and 6502 personality modules for the 1611A. These were key tools for the PC designers of the day, since the 8085 and 6502 were the mainstay chips for PCs. She later was VP for Compaq, Symantec, and on the Arrow Board. See HPJ June 1984, and https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=506168… The significance of the HP64310 was that it was the tool that established RISC architecture performance vastly outstripped CISC, and now is the mainstay of all PC chips. ************* So, TO YOUR QUESTION Should any of these be featured in your exhibit as I interpret what you seek? Bedke, Conway, Castro, Goldberg, and Hamilton The rest are names in arcana, hardly significant enough for your question. I wish there were many more. Best regards, Chuck House InnovaScapes Institute CHM Trustee ACM History Committee Chair On 4/9/18, 7:44 AM, "Members on behalf of George Keremedjiev" <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org on behalf of director(a)compustory.com> wrote: Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Brian Randell 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

Hi Len: Yes, Lynn Conway is the obvious candidate. The Mead and Conway book truly revolutionised VLSI design. I should declare an interest - I worked with Lynn for about a year, but this was in the mid-60s when she did pioneering work on high performance computer architecture, long before she joined Xerox Parc and did her work on VLSI design. Cheers Brian On 9 Apr 2018, at 18:24, Len Shustek <len(a)shustek.com<mailto:len@shustek.com>> wrote: George, I should have thought of the obvious candidate when we chatted over coffee yesterday: Lynn Conway, who made significant contributions to methods for IC design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/lynn-conway/ Len At 07:44 AM 4/9/2018, George Keremedjiev wrote: Hello to all. My first posting. Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. Question: Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. The key term is hardware. Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! Best, George George Keremedjiev Director American Computer & Robotics Museum Bozeman, MT www.compustory.com Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at 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 _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at 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 EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Question From The American Computer & Robotics Museum in Montana
by Mike Humphries 09 Apr '18

09 Apr '18

I’m asking around to some sources I may have. I’ll get back if there are any good results...Mike Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 9, 2018, at 10:24 AM, Len Shustek <len(a)shustek.com> wrote: > > George, > > I should have thought of the obvious candidate when we chatted over coffee yesterday: > Lynn Conway, who made significant contributions to methods for IC design > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway > http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/lynn-conway/ > > Len > > > At 07:44 AM 4/9/2018, George Keremedjiev wrote: >> Hello to all. My first posting. >> >> Our museum is opening on June 1st a major exhibit on women in computing. >> >> Question: >> Does anyone know of any personal computer hardware women engineers in the 1975-1985 era (+/-) who we should consider including in the exhibit? For example, women members of the Homebrew Club and/or employees at, for example - Apple, HP, Atari, Commodore, Tandy, Intel, TI, IBM, Xerox, etc. - who were hardware engineers and involved in the design of computer hardware components including microchips. >> >> The key term is hardware. >> >> Thank you in advance for your consideration and possible help with the above! >> >> Best, >> George >> >> George Keremedjiev >> Director >> American Computer & Robotics Museum >> Bozeman, MT >> www.compustory.com >> >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> _______________________________________________ >> This email is relayed from members at 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 > > _______________________________________________ > This email is relayed from members at 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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