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Russian computing history conference
by Petri Paju 15 May '17

15 May '17

Hello all, Here's a short reminder of what's happening in computing and informatics history in Russia: the 4th "international conference "Development of computer technology and its software in Russia and the former Soviet Union: history and prospects (SORUCOM - 2017)", in early October 2017. Call for papers expired April 1 (but perhaps they are flexible). See more at: http://www.sorucom.org/en/ Best, Petri Petri Paju History of Industrialization & Innovation Group, Aalto University, and Department of Cultural History, University of Turku http://utu.academia.edu/PetriPaju

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UW names street after Bletchley Park code-breaker
by Brian Randell 11 May '17

11 May '17

Hi: A press release I’ve just spotted: > WATERLOO — The University of Waterloo is honouring a pre-eminent mathematician and wartime code-breaker, naming the street that runs between its math buildings after William Tutte. > > The British-born Tutte's work at Bletchley Park, Britain's top-secret code-breaking organization, helped changed the course of the Second World War and has been called "the greatest intellectual feat" of the war. > > But Tutte, a brilliant mathematician who helped establish the reputation of the university's mathematics faculty, was sworn to secrecy about his wartime work, which only came to light in the late 1990s, when he was 80. > > After the war, Tutte became a professor at the University of Toronto, then moved to the fledgling University of Waterloo in 1962. As a star in his field, he was able to attract some of the brightest minds to Waterloo and its faculty of mathematics, where he was a professor in the Combinatorics and Optimization Department for more than 30 years. He was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2001. > > "It's only being recognized now that his contributions were probably greater than any other code breaker" at Bletchley Park, said Daniel Younger, a professor emeritus in the university's math department who was Tutte's longtime friend. > > Tutte came to Bletchley Park in 1941. Unlike the better-known decoders of the famous Enigma machine, Tutte did not have a machine to work with. Instead, using only samples of coded messages, he managed to deduce the machine that could produce such messages, how such a machine would work and what it would look like. > > He then went on to describe how to crack the codes the machine produced, developing algorithms so complex that Bletchley engineers built Colossus, widely considered to be the first electronic computer, to execute Tutte's algorithms. > > Cracking the Lorenz code helped changed the course of the war because the Lorenz machine was the one Hitler used to send messages to his top generals in the field. Tutte's work helped turn the Battle of Kursk, powered the D-Day landings and likely shortened the Second World War. > > The naming ceremony takes place Friday as part of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the Faculty of Mathematics, and coincides with what would have been Tutte's 100th birthday this Sunday. > > The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. at the David Centre with a talk by Younger about Tutte's many achievements and his contributions to mathematics, followed by the sign ceremony at noon and a screening at 1 p.m. of the 2011 BBC documentary, "Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes" about Tutte and his Bletchley colleague Tommy Flowers, who developed the Colossus computer. > > For more information on Tutte and his work, go to uwaterloo.ca/combinatorics-and-optimization/about/professor-william-t-tutte > http://www.therecord.com/news-story/7308387-uw-names-street-after-bletchley… Cheers Brian Randell — School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU 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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TechRepublic: The evolution of the laptop computer
by Joly MacFie 11 May '17

11 May '17

Clickbait, but pretty. http://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/the-evolution-of-the-laptop-computer/ -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast -------------------------------------------------------------- -

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“Unprogramming” the ENIAC: Lehmer Child’s Play
by Brian Berg 11 May '17

11 May '17

A new story by John Markoff posted as a blog to the Computer History Museum's website. I did not find anything about this in the Thomas Haigh, *et al.* book *ENIAC in Action* book. Brian Berg “Unprogramming” the ENIAC: Lehmer Child’s Play <http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/unprogramming-the-eniac-lehmer-childs-…> At the dawn of the modern computing era teenager Laura Gould and her brother Donald Lehmer were the youngest “un-programmers.” That is because ENIAC, one of the world’s first general-purpose computers, was programmed with an array of switches and cables. When each program had been run, someone had to return the cables to their proper storage box to be available for the next program. Shortly after the installation of the ENIAC their parents, Derrick Henry Lehmer and Emma Trotskaya Lehmer, who were well-known number theorists at the University of California at Berkeley, were invited to use the machine for mathematical research. Designed to aid the war effort and completed in 1945 at the Moore School of the University of Pennsylvania by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was a pioneering electronic digital computer. However, it was not a stored-program computer in the modern sense of the term. Historian David Alan Grier described it as more like an array of electronic adding machines and arithmetic units that were held together by a web of large electrical cables. The machine itself, which was about one thousand times faster than the electro-mechanical calculators of that time, occupied a large room and was evocative of a telephone switchboard of the era, with a plugboard array that could be rewired with cables of different lengths. That’s where Gould and her brother came in. As youngsters they would accompany their parents on cross-country car trips to gather valuable research time on the machine. The ENIAC would be programmed with plugboard-style cables that were operated in the manner of a mechanical telephone switchboard. While traveling with their parents, a babysitter wasn’t always available, and so the two children who were then in their early teens, would accompany their parents for the long programming sessions that often stretched into the evening. After the programs ran, their job was to aid in resetting the computer by laboriously disconnected all of the cables and placing them in boxes according to length. “It was our job to strike when the program was over and put all of the cables in their appropriate boxes sorted by lengths,” she recalled. Neither brother nor sister remember precisely what programs their parents were developing. It is possible that they were exploring different methods for predicting the next prime number, but it is also conceivable that they were involved in some aspect of classified military research. The ENIAC had been commissioned to help the United States Army calculate artillery trajectories. However, Donald Lehmer noted that his father was a pacifist: “He had no interest in doing anything that would kill people. I suspect he was thinking about prime numbers.” [snip]

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Computer History Museum's Len Shustek Receives ACM Award
by Brian Berg 11 May '17

11 May '17

Len Shustek was will receive the ACM Distinguished Service Award <https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/acm-recognizes-visionaries-changed-wor…> : *Leonard Jay Shustek*, recipient of the *ACM Distinguished Service Award* for the establishment and success of the Computer History Museum, the world’s leading institution in exploring the history of computing and its impact on society. Shustek has helped bring to the world the story of how the greatest innovation of our time has come to be. In 1995, after retiring from the network diagnostic company he co-founded, Shustek began teaching computer architecture at Stanford University. He soon realized that students were as interested in computer history as they were in computer architecture. Instead of returning to Stanford, he began a quest that would ultimately lead him to acquire a group of artifacts from The Computer Museum in Boston, with an eye toward forming a new computer history museum in the heart of Silicon Valley. Today, thanks to the leadership, vision and tenacity of Shustek, the Computer History Museum (CHM) is acknowledged as the world’s most important museum chronicling the rise of computing and its impact on society. With a staff of 75 serving 200,000 visitors each year, CHM has realized Shustek’s founding goal of an organization that would be “built to last.” CHM is housed in a complex comprised of a 119,000-square-foot building for exhibits and hands-on labs; a 25,000-square-foot climate-controlled warehouse for papers and artifacts; and a new 50,000-square-foot research center for scholars and archival work. Throughout the museum’s growth and development, Shustek has engaged in a range of activities, from leading the museum in raising $125 million to tracking down vintage code related to operating systems no longer in use. For the general public, signature exhibitions like “Revolution” translate the history of computing into an experience that the average person can not only appreciate, but enjoy. For the computing field, CHM’s role as the world’s major repository of artifacts and historic preservation allows innovators to access the past, in order to move into the future. *The ACM Distinguished Service Award <http://awards.acm.org/distinguished-service> is presented on the basis of value and degree of services to the computing community. The contribution should not be limited to service to the Association, but should include activities in other computer organizations and should emphasize contributions to the computing community at large.* _________________________ 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/> Chair (2012) / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director IEEE SCV History Committee <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair

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Follow-up on access to CHM SIGCIS videos
by Sarah T. Roberts 10 May '17

10 May '17

Hi, all - Does anyone know if the SIGCIS talks have made it to the CHM YouTube channel - or somewhere else - yet? With thanks, Sarah --- S a r a h T. R o b e r t s, P h. D. Assistant Professor University of California, Los Angeles Department of Information Studies Graduate School of Education & Information Studies https://is.gseis.ucla.edu/ Blogging periodically at http://illusionofvolition.com

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SIGCIS CFP | MEASURE, MODEL, MIX: COMPUTER AS INSTRUMENT | Oct 29, 2017
by Laine Nooney 09 May '17

09 May '17

The SIGCIS Conference Organizing Committee is delighted to announce the CFP for the 2017 SIGCIS Conference immediately following SHOT (previously known as the SIGCIS Workshop). Details below. This CFP can also be reviewed at meetings.sigcis.org. Please distribute widely! *MEASURE, MODEL, MIX: COMPUTER AS INSTRUMENT* 2017 SIGCIS Conference Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | October 29, 2017 *Proposal Due Date: June 30, 2017 * *KEYNOTE SPEAKER* Joanna Radin <http://history.yale.edu/people/joanna-radin> | Department of History, Yale University *THEME* Computers are instruments of action. They are made to measure, model, and mix; count and aggregate; save and surveil; pick, parse, and select; and in a world of embedded systems, they are even designed to listen, wait, and relay. In many instances, these actions involve the computational transformation of other social and technological processes—from software that compiles the census to the suites of code assisting in the digital manipulation of sound and image. In other cases, computers register and create information at scales and speeds we have only begun to grasp: artificial intelligence, machine learning, and “big data” in all its local forms. And while often leveraged as democratizing, computers have long been known to amplify structural inequality, map over difference, and jettison “noise” that cannot be translated into a specific form of information. Measure, Model, Mix invites scholars and independent researchers across the disciplinary spectrum to explore the historical conditions of computation. How have bureaucratic, scientific, and aesthetic computational instruments eroded, produced, and reproduced biopolitical and epistemological realities, past and present? What are the historical foundations of computing’s contemporary capacity to recognize information? How have cultures, subcultures, political systems and identity groups mobilized computational techniques for their own ends? The annual SIGCIS Conference begins immediately after the regular annual meeting of our parent organization, the Society for the History of Technology [SHOT]. We welcome submissions from: the histories of technology, computing, and science; science and technology studies; studies of women, gender, and sexuality; studies of race, ethnicity, and postcoloniality; film, media, and game studies; software and code studies; network and internet histories; music, sound studies, and art history; and all other applicable domains. *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* We are pleased to announce a new format for the 2017 SIGCIS Works in Progress (WiP) session. This year, participants will not deliver presentations on their WiP, and there will not be an audience. Instead, the session will serve as a workshop wherein participants will discuss the works 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 very 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 certainly 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 October 8, 2017. 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, 2017. 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 300-word panel abstract in addition to 3-4 paper abstracts) - 1-page CV or resume Please Note: Individuals already scheduled to participate on 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 box to check if 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 so 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/>, Georgia Institute of Technology (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 Joy Rankin <http://joyrankin.com/>, Michigan State University Kera Allen <https://hts.gatech.edu/people/person/e2f55e07-937a-571a-a4f8-c32c87fef19d>, Georgia Institute of Technology (Conference Assistant) Nabeel Siddiqui <http://nabeelsiddiqui.net/>, College of William and Mary (Conference Assistant) -- Laine Nooney www.lainenooney.com DM <http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/> @ LMC <http://lmc.gatech.edu/> @ GT <http://www.gatech.edu/> Assistant Professor

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CFP for computing conference in Poznan, Sept. 2018
by Christopher Leslie 08 May '17

08 May '17

Dear Colleagues, Please note that there will be several tracks of interest to this group at the IFIP World Congress in Poznan, Poland in September 2018. Full papers on the theme "This Changes Everything" are due in January 2018. The working group I am affiliated with, History of Computing, will sponsor one of the themes: THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING In the history of computing, who were the important people and what were the important devices that deserve recognition as fulcrums that “changed everything”? In the development of computers as well as the study of history more generally, we also know that the more things change, the more they sometimes stay the same. What shifts in the history of computing were portrayed as changing everything but on closer analysis reveal deeper continuities? How do these lessons give us insight into future invention and innovation in computing? All papers along this theme will be considered. However, as we proposed at the New York conference last year, the following three topics might be particularly fruitful given the location: - The bomba and the collaboration between Poland and England in World War 2 - The international history of software engineering, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the NATO meeting in Garmisch, Germany that was the "first" software engineering conference - Work on the history of computing in eastern Europe more generally. A broader CFP. which includes the other tracks from TC9, follows. I hope you will considering being a part of this event and sharing the CFP among your networks. Chris Leslie ----- 13th IFIP TC9 Human Choice and Computers Conference: ”This Changes Everything” In conjunction with the World Computer Congress 17th-21st September 2018 in Poznan, Poland Conference Chairs: David Kreps, Kai Kimppa, Louise Leenen, Charles Ess <http://www.hcc13.net> This Changes Everything. Many of us likely associate this phrase with Steve Jobs’ introduction of the iPhone in 2007. But there are clearly other candidates for the ”This,” e.g., the oncoming bioinformatics redesign of species or the fourth industrial revolution of artificially intelligent robots. But ”This” is also, without question, the greatest challenge of our age: climate change. The conference invites both academics and practitioners in the field of ICTs and Society to take stock of their engagements, review their focus, and assess what and how each and every one of us might be able to contribute to the transformations needed (and already beginning) in local, regional, national and international contexts, towards becoming diverse, environmentally and socially conscious, and thriving communities. We welcome submissions that speak directly and less directly to the conference theme. “This Changes Everything” implicates both climate change and the interrelated global challenges most central to the Working Groups of TC9 and its National Society representatives, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Submissions are also welcome, not just to the General Conference Track on change, but to the other foci of the Track Themes. (For complete track descriptions, please see the extended CFP on the conference website, <http://www.hcc13.net>.) Themes: - Societal implications, effects and impacts of artificial intelligence - Track Chairs: Diane Whitehouse and Christopher Zielinski (WG9.2) - Including critical issues beyond the ICT context in codes of conduct/ethics - Track Chairs: Kai Kimppa and Penny Duquenoy (SIG9.2.2) - Our digital lives - Track Chairs: Petros Chamakiotis and Brad McKenna (WG9.5) - This changed everything - Track Chair: Christopher Leslie (WG9.7) - Gender in ICT - Track Chairs: Sisse Finken, Christina Mörtberg and Johanna Sefyrin (WG9.8) - ICT and sustainability - Track Chairs: Thomas Lennerfors and Per Fors (WG9.9) - Climate risk, cyber-security, and the dark web - Track Chair: Louise Leenen (WG9.10) - Privacy, data protection, and automation - Track Chair: Taro Komukai (Japan National Representative) - ICT and an inclusive society - Track Chairs: Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka (South Africa National Representative) Submissions: Full papers are invited that address the Conference Theme, or any of the above Track Themes. All papers will be subject to double-blind review. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to revise their work in keeping with reviewers’ comments prior to formatting, and inclusion in the Programme and Proceedings. Travel, accommodation and all other details will be posted when available at http://www.hcc13.net/ Submissions will be through Springer OCS Website, with proceedings published in the AICT Springer Book series immediately prior to the conference. Important dates: - Full paper deadline: 15th January 2018 - Reviews and revisions during February, March, and April, 2018. - Final papers: 30th April, 2018. -- Christopher S. Leslie, Ph.D. Co-Director and Lecturer, Science and Technology Studies Faculty Fellow in Residence for Othmer Hall and Clark Street Chair, IFIP History of Computing Working Group 9.7 NYU Tandon School of Engineering 5 MetroTech Center, LC 131 Brooklyn, NY 11201 (646) 997-3130

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Does a counterfactual history of the PC still lead us to the same place?
by Thomas Haigh 28 Apr '17

28 Apr '17

Replying more generally on the question of counterfactuals. Thanks to Andy, Evan, and others who replied on this. I will have a look at the papers they mention. In one of my more obscure publications, "Technology's Other Storytellers: Science Fiction as History of Technology," I made the argument that SF writers and historians of technology are both in the business of producing historical narratives in which technology plays a role in changing the course of historical development. The difference is that historians tell a story of what "actually" happened and usually stop their narratives before the time the book is finished, whereas SF writers trace a different chain of events and often follow that chain after the time the book is finished (though by the time the book is read the point of departure from our actual history is inevitably in the past - making SF a form of historical fiction). http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/TechnologysOtherStorytellersDRAFT.pdf I go on to argue that the counterfactual alternative, while usually implicit in the history of technology, is essential to making the historical writing analytical rather than just (as those from outside the field sometimes see it) a list of things that happened arranged end to end. Historical causes are always overdetermined, and there are always too many details to put in a narrative. By picking details and highlighting causes the historian is suggesting that, had those details been different or those particular causes lacking, events would have moved in a different direction. It would be fascinating to see more discussion of counterfactual history of computing. At the risk of being branded a technological determinist, my sense is that there was a lot less flexibility with respect to end points than with respect to the paths to get to them. Particular combinations of technology and business model make sense, and the question is more which firms and platforms can discover the winning model first and execute it best. For example, by the early 1980s the vision of a universal network that would allow email, home shopping, telecommunting, etc. was well established. Over the next decade efforts like OSI, viewdata services, AOL and other online services, smart set top boxes, etc. were funded to try to deliver on it. The contingent part is that it was the Internet/Web combo that blossomed to fill that need, meaning that features such as micropayments for online publishers were missing and email wasn't authenticated to a sender but, on the positive side, the network was open to different services and users. Those details all had profound influences on how online practices and businesses developed, e.g. the destruction of the newspaper industry. With respect to the evolution of personal computing, it's hard for me to imagine the big picture going particularly differently post-1980 if one assumes progress in hardware continuing at roughly the same pace. In the first half of the 1980s GUIs and advanced operating systems overtaxed available hardware, meaning that only expensive but still sluggish workstations could support them. These could only be supported by niche high value applications like engineering, and publishing where the graphical capabilities were crucial. So as some responses suggested, it was probably inevitable that the mass market platform of the mid-1980s would be a simple and efficient text-based OS that didn't impose too much overhead between applications and hardware. Hansen mentioned the Apple II GS - perhaps the real counterfactual is if Apple had introduced this in 1983 instead of Lisa, not crippled its performance, and then evolved it through multiple generations of compatible hardware. By the late 1980s hardware was getting cheaper and faster, GUIs were imposing less of a performance penalty, and mass market machines could hold enough RAM to make multitasking practical. The direction of the future was clear, but the path there over the next decade wasn't. Remember that NT ran on Mips, Alpha, and PowerPC as well as Intel. OS/2 ran windows 3.X apps and also supported multiple platforms. Apple, IBM and others were supporting a common hardware platform, and were supposed to produce Taligent as a common OS. Apple allowed clones, then banned them. There were efforts to standardize Unix. Linux made a push for the desktop. MacOS faltered badly in the late 1990s. Windows 9X was startlingly successful bridging users from the DOS-based 16 bit Windows 3.X to the industrial grade Windows NT underpinnings of Windows 2000 and XP. Intel fell way behind RISC performance but rallied with the later Pentiums. So if you go back and read the play by plays in the industry literature it was a time of incredible uncertainty and rapid change in which all kinds of grand plans and alliance fell apart with amazing speed and key products shipped years late. The other question, as mentioned earlier on the list, was open vs. closed business models for PC producers. Versus 1990 PC makers Apple had its own custom floppy drives, hardware, different processors, OS, keyboard connectors, etc. and users had only one place to by Macs. PC purchases could choose from thousands of suppliers, who were just buying components from thousands of Asian producers and screwing them into a case. In an era of rapid change the PC ecosystem drove down costs and encouraged rapid innovation in components such as graphics cards. This almost drove Apple out of business, and after Jobs returned caused it to retreat to a niche of high priced, good looking premium products. On the other hand, let's step back to look at where things settled down. Apple gave up on having a hardware platform of its own, bit by bit, finishing up with the processor shift to Intel in 2006. On the PC side, Intel integrated everything that was on half a dozen expansion cards into a couple of chips, meaning that PCs are pretty much standard. The shift to laptops and all in one designs means that PCs and Macs are both basically closed internally but can be expanded externally. Both platforms have stable, 64-bit operating systems with equivalent features. Both OSes are, technologically, a complete departure from 1980s PC systems - Windows being NT which is based on Culter's minicomputer projects, OSX being (as discussed by Hansen et al) NeXT Step which in turn is BSD Unix. So the two models have converged in the same place - I liked the BMW vs Ford remark attributed to Jobs in an earlier post, but while BMW is more profitable than Ford (particularly on a per-vehicle basis) either can sell you a fast, comfortable vehicle that will functionally do everything you need. The difference are design, branding, and social cachet. Here's what I mean about the convergence of end points: if the 1990s had gone completely differently and Linux had wiped out Windows on the desktop, or everyone was running OS/2 on Alpha, or Taligent on PowerPC had swept all before it, by about 2005 there probably wouldn't be very much difference. People would still have rock sold, modern operating systems running on cheap fast hardware that was shrinking into laptops or all in one systems. So I can definitely sell a narrative where a different platform dominates early-2000s personal computing. I just tend to feel that it would be running on commodity hardware, be integrated into stylish compact boxes, and do basically what Windows XP and OS X do. I suppose there are some significant differences, for example whether Microsoft makes money on each PC, but that matters more to Microsoft than to users. I can see plenty of paths not taken, but they all seem to lead to the same place. Is this a failure of my imagination? Tom

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Some responses re Lisa/Mac
by Thomas Haigh 27 Apr '17

27 Apr '17

What an interesting set of replies. Good job SIGCIS! I'll respond to many of these points, but group them into a single message to avoid spamming you. (People who like clean inboxes: remember there is a digest mode available!). First off, this whole question would probably amount to one or two paragraphs in the project I'm working on. Like many aspects of personal computer history, it seems like there ought to be a rich secondary literature to draw on by now, but instead we're still reliant on classic journalistic accounts like Mortiz, Cringely, and Levy. Paul is right: of course I meant Macintosh II, not Apple II. Even the most contrarian historian would have to admit that the Apple II was good for Apple, at least initially. Jobs as industrial designer/emulator of Land. Interest points. As Mahoney liked to say, including his article on the importance of historical metaphor to the rhetoric of software engineering, nothing is unprecedented. But the actor's choice of precedent has very important implications for their actions. Industrial design is important here, and perhaps he'd rather have a box that captures his ideas and doesn't sell than a clunky one that does sell. OTOH, he was a patron and abuser of industrial designers rather than a designer in his own right. Some of the responses remind me that there were many other 68000 based machines in the mid-1980s, beyond the Mac and Lisa. Early Sun and Apollo workstations created a viable niche for graphics workstations. They, IIRC, had similar specs to the Lisa and were if anything more expensive - but targeted technical computing niches. This also points out the importance of expectations and business models. Lisa is called a failure because it only sold 100,000 units in two years, as Apple was expected to sell large volumes for mainstream business use. If a workstation startup had sold 100,000 units it would have been seen as hugely successful. For example, in 3Q 1985 Apollo, then the leading workstation firm, had revenues of about $55 million. That would be about 5,500 Lisas at the $10K launch price. So I suspect that in 1983, $10K is what it a powerful 32-bit networked graphics workstation had to sell for, and the problem was that Apple (and Xerox with the Star) were targeting the markets that couldn't yet support that price tag. Also, in the case of Apple at least, it didn't have the culture or sales machine to effectively target the market it chose. Some companies made comparable hardware more cheaply - most notably Atari in the "power without the price" days of the Atari ST (launched 1985, as Mac-like hardware was getting cheaper to build). This was cheaper than the Mac, added color graphics, and even had the hard drive port that the Mac was missing. It didn't sell at all well in the US, except to musicians who liked the midi ports, but was fairly popular in Britain, particularly with enthusiasts. I had one, and as Morten pointed out Apple was just too expensive for personal users in Europe. In Germany it was widely used by small businesses. The biggest problem was probably the cheap and dirty operating system - a Mac knockoff called GEM with a version of CPM underneath. This points to the importance and difficulty of OS development. The workstations tended to use UNIX-derived systems, which reduced the burden of development. In terms of hardware, the Lisa was as I understand basically a Mac with a bigger screen, networking, and a hard drive. It's the focus of the OS on personal interaction that makes them more profoundly different. Also, as Hansen mentions, the success of Apple in gaining third party application support, including PageMaker, which Cringely used to define the concept of a "killer app" (i.e. something you'd buy a Mac Plus, a hard drive, and a LaserWriter just to run). Although that particular combo must have cost as much as a Lisa, and surely a successful Lisa would have been at least as well placed to win adoption for desktop publishing. It is, however, an example of an application that couldn't run effectively on a DOS PC. Another 68000 machine, the Amiga, found success in video production. That leads us to the importance, as Kimon suggested, of taking the "fan" side of Apple seriously, in as much as something in the design and personality of the Mac did inspire a loyal following. That's borne out by Justin's memory of the students loving the underpowered little Macs. So maybe Jobs deserves credit for that - hard to separate out the perversity and the brilliance of the original Mac. In the big picture it's clear that all these 68000 based GUI machines of the mid-1980s were looking for viable niches, in part because straight forward spreadsheet and word-processing still ran faster and more cheaply on IBM compatibles. The GUI added a lot of overhead. So maybe it's inevitable that the mainstream standard of the 1980s would be something like the PC. OTOH, people in the industry at the time expected GUIs and multitasking OSes to become mainstream sooner or later. If Apple could have successfully established the Lisa as a high end business platform and moved it down-market later that would probably have given it a better shot at taking on the dominance of the PC in the late 1980s than its actual course of establishing the Mac as with enthusiasts and education markets and trying to move it upwards into the business mainstream. Best wishes, Tom

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