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"Secret German WW2 code machine found on eBay"
by Brian Randell 30 May '16

30 May '16

Hi: >From BBC News: A historic machine used to swap top secret messages between Hitler and his generals has been found languishing in a shed in Essex. Volunteers from The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park used eBay to track down the keyboard of the Lorenz machine. It was advertised as a telegram machine and was for sale for £9.50. The museum, in Buckinghamshire, is now asking people to search for the motor, another key piece of the equipment. <snip> Full story at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36401663 The headline is misleading, but this article on BBC news about the Lorenz cipher machine that The National Museum of Computing has (on long term loan from the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum) and the teleprinter which was used with it, is otherwise good - and well-illustrated. The Lorenz cipher machine is to be formally unveiled at TNMOC on Feb 3, and the whole sequence, from encipherment of messages using the Lorenz, their interception by the Y service, through to code-breaking at Bletchley Park using the Colossus, and then deciphering messages using Tunny (Bletchley Park’s electro-mechanical equivalent of the Lorenz machine), demonstrated. I plan to be there. (The article mentions the museum’s interest in having a replica of the missing motor built - this seems a minor problem compared to building a replica Colossus! :-) Cheers Brian Randell -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

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history of GPIO pins and standards
by maxigas 29 May '16

29 May '16

dear list, i am looking for information on the history of GPIO pins, especially if they are standardised. i find it hard to search for such books/articles because it is a kind of strange keyword and most scholarly literature i find it of a technical and not historical character. here is a documentation page showing the artefact: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/usage/gpio/ thanks for your assistance, -- maxigas, kiberpunk FA00 8129 13E9 2617 C614 0901 7879 63BC 287E D166 http://relay70.metatron.ai/ In Solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-hub http://custodians.online Share this letter - read it in public - leave it in the printer. Share your writing - digitize a book - upload your files. Don't let our knowledge be crushed. Care for the libraries - care for the metadata - care for the backup. Water the ❀❀❀❀❀ - clean the volcanoes.

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Artefacts conference CFP
by Jonathan Coopersmith 20 May '16

20 May '16

This CFP may be of interest: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about-us/collections-and-research/news-and-… Jonathan Coopersmith Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.845.7151 979.862.4314 (fax) http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/author/42 : latest post on Osama bin Laden and NASA is http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/153671 * FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press) is the co-recipient of the 2016 Business History Conference Hagley Prize for best book in business history.

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SIGCIS 2016 Program: Now Online!
by Gerardo Con Diaz 19 May '16

19 May '16

Dear SIGCIS, We are pleased to announce that we have posted the program for our meeting in Singapore. You may find it here: http://www.sigcis.org/workshop16. As always, our annual meeting promises to be a wonderful event! Best regards, Con Diaz on behalf of the Program Committee -- Gerardo Con Diaz PhD Candidate, Yale University Website: www.condiaz.com

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Shiva Ayyadurai Wants My Emails!
by Thomas Haigh 14 May '16

14 May '16

Hello SIGCIS, I've got a new post up at http://tomandmaria.com/Tom/emailgrab. The text is pasted below. It documents an attempt by Shiva Ayyadurai to obtain my emails though the Wisconsin open records. In other cases, this tactic has been widely condemned as an attack on academic freedom. Please forward to any other communities you think might be interested. Best wishes, Tom Shiva Ayyadurai Wants My Emails Thomas Haigh. www.tomandmaria.com/tom <http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom> thomas.haigh(a)gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com> Shiva Ayyadurai really, really wants to look through my emails. Remember Shiva Ayyadurai <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai> ? The man who has been engaged for five years on a quixotic but energetic public relations campaign to convince the world that he, and he alone, is the true "inventor of email"? Ayyadurai literally wrote the book on internet publicity <http://www.amazon.com/Internet-Publicity-Guide-Marketing-Cyberspace/dp/1880 559609> . His big problem is that you can't invent something that's already in widespread use. Ayyadurai said that he <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/email-turns-29-infographi_n_941699 .html> "designed and deployed" a prototype in 1980, but historians knew very well that electronic mail had been around since <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/20/opinion/20110620-who-invented -email.html?_r=0> at least 1965 and by the mid-1970s was the main source of traffic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET> on what evolved to become the Internet. I'm a historian of information technology, working in the School of Information Studies of the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee. As chair of SIGCIS <http://www.sigcis.org/> , the group for historians of information technology, I coordinated the response of the historical community to his bizarre claim. This included creating a report (www.sigcis.org/Ayyadurai <http://www.sigcis.org/Ayyadurai> ) documenting what Ayyadurai was saying and comparing it to what we knew about actual email history. He rarely names me or any of the other historians who have worked on documenting the actual history of email, though his campaign has denounced the members of SIGCIS as paid stooges for Raytheon, revisionists, a cabal, and <http://sophisticated%20public%20relations%20agents%20that%20manufacture/> "sophisticated public relations agents that manufacture and package 'histories,' no different than clever propaganda, to perpetuate lies of the pre-eminence of the military-industrial-academic complex." By this theory the entire academic history of computing community is "unconsciously cutting and copying" the work of Gizmodo blogger Sam Biddle, "believing Biddle's sensationalistic article to be the truth." According to Ayyadurai's recent lawsuit <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160511/10135934407/guy-who-didnt-invent- email-sues-gawker-pointing-out-he-didnt-invent-email.shtml> , Biddle's pesky meddling has cost him at least $35 million. As I wrote in <http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACM-SevenLessons.pdf> Communications of the ACM, this is a fascinating case with many lessons to teach about public history, modern journalism, and the myths of invention. Anyway, I guess Ayyadurai has noticed me after all because now he now wants to read my emails. That's not a superuser perk that you get for having invented email. Your emails are perfectly safe from him. He's actually invoking the Wisconsin open records laws. These were originally passed in the Progressive Era <http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/a-brief-history-of -open-records-in-wisconsin/article_dbcad02a-3da7-572c-a38a-ed82bbb2dc57.html > to make sure that corrupt politicians couldn't hide their misdoings. Our current crop of politicians have made efforts to rewrite <http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/robin-vos-keeps-trying-to-gut-open-rec ords-law-b99573434z1-326754041.html> and reinterpret <http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/scott-walker-admin istration-finding-new-way-to-deny-public-records/article_16594fd9-4547-5c89- 9dc1-bc0395417f63.html> them to exclude themselves from scrutiny, but as the state Republican Party has found them a useful tool for harassing academics who have dared to comment on political issues <http://news.wisc.edu/chancellors-message-on-academic-freedom-and-open-recor ds/> they have been left in place for faculty in the University of Wisconsin system. <http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/documents/AyyaduraiRequestRedacted.pdf> His records request (http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/documents/AyyaduraiRequestRedacted.pdf) passed to me for action by UWM's public records custodian, demanded "a complete and thorough search of all filing systems and locations for all records maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee pertaining to Dr. Thomas Haigh." The specific demand was for "all email correspondence - including email attachments - to or from Dr. Haigh containing" words such as Smithsonian, Shiva, and Raytheon. I dutifully searched through my university email account (thaigh(a)uwm.edu <mailto:thaigh@uwm.edu> ) for matching documents and passed them on to our university records custodian for vetting. The resulting stack of paper was quite large, but conspicuously failed to provide the salacious material Ayyadurai was fishing for. It included a student paper misspelling the name of Siva Vaidhyanathan <http://mediastudies.virginia.edu/people/sv2r> , numerous job posting emails mentioning the Smithsonian, the annual merit review filings of my school's faculty, and an entire sample issue of History Research spammed to me by its reportedly predatory publisher <https://scholarlyoa.com/2015/10/15/david-publishing-company-a-massive-spamm er-from-china/> . (Ayyadurai reportedly favors such journals <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/gmos-junk-science-by-henry-i-- miller-and-kavin-senapathy-2015-09> for his own publications, so maybe he should send his work on email history there.) When the emails of another Wisconsin historian, William Cronon, were requested by the state Republican Party, Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28krugman.html> that The hard right - which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party - has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment... After all, if you go through a large number of messages looking for lines that can be made to sound bad, you're bound to find a few. Legally, Republicans may be within their rights: Wisconsin's open records law provides public access to e-mails of government employees, although the law was clearly intended to apply to state officials, not university professors. But there's a clear chilling effect when scholars know that they may face witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn't like. Someone like Mr. Cronon can stand up to the pressure. But less eminent and established researchers won't just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they'll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble. What's at stake here, in other words, is whether we're going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It's up to the rest of us to see that they don't succeed. Anthony Grafton, writing in the New York Review of Books <http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/04/04/academic-freedom-cronon-affair/> , argued that Again and again in recent times, Republican operatives have used fragments snatched out of context from emails-as they have used fragments snatched out of context from recorded conversations <http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/mar/18/embattled-public-radio/> -to smear scientists, scholars and activists of whom they disapprove. Biddie Martin, then chancellor of the University of Wisconsin--Madison issued a statement <http://news.wisc.edu/chancellors-message-on-academic-freedom-and-open-recor ds/> noting that in processing Cronon's emails We are excluding exchanges that fall outside the realm of the faculty member's job responsibilities and that could be considered personal pursuant to Wisconsin Supreme Court case law. We are also excluding what we consider to be the private email exchanges among scholars that fall within the orbit of academic freedom and all that is entailed by it. Academic freedom is the freedom to pursue knowledge and develop lines of argument without fear of reprisal for controversial findings and without the premature disclosure of those ideas. Scholars and scientists pursue knowledge by way of open intellectual exchange. Without a zone of privacy within which to conduct and protect their work, scholars would not be able to produce new knowledge or make life-enhancing discoveries. Lively, even heated and acrimonious debates over policy, campus and otherwise, as well as more narrowly defined disciplinary matters are essential elements of an intellectual environment and such debates are the very definition of the Wisconsin Idea. When faculty members use email or any other medium to develop and share their thoughts with one another, they must be able to assume a right to the privacy of those exchanges, barring violations of state law or university policy. Having every exchange of ideas subject to public exposure puts academic freedom in peril and threatens the processes by which knowledge is created. The consequence for our state will be the loss of the most talented and creative faculty who will choose to leave for universities where collegial exchange and the development of ideas can be undertaken without fear of premature exposure or reprisal for unpopular positions. Martin was soon to flee the state herself for the happier world of Amherst College. I agree with her, and with Krugman and with Grafton: requests of this kind are a crude intimidation tactic from the playbook of climate change deniers, designed to scare faculty members into steering away from public engagement or controversial topics and to force us to defer to the interests of the powerful. They've been embraced by conservative activists as a way of curtailing academic freedoms and smearing researchers with whose work they disagree by launching fishing expeditions for phrases that can be misrepresented or quoted out of context. This practice threatens the ability of any research university to function. The recent elimination of real tenure <http://www.aaup.org/news/tenure-weakened-wisconsin> across the Wisconsin system makes faculty here all the more vulnerable to this kind of pressure. When he was seeking revenge for his firing from an Indian research institution, Ayyadurai campaigned with the slogan "Innovation demands freedom" (innovationdemandsfreedom.com <http://innovationdemandsfreedom.com/> is one of Ayyadurai's many vanity domains). He presents himself as a liberal champion of the underdog, a plucky impoverished dark-skinned immigrant boy <http://vashiva.com/yes-a-darkie-invented-email-get-over-it/> fighting for what's right. His most prominent supporters are Noam Chomsky and his business associate Deepak Chopra. He insists that his public relations campaign to brand himself as the inventor of email "isn't about my wanting glory... It's about refusing to enact the script that's been played out for much too long in the lives of people from my background." So it's a little ironic that Ayyadurai is now resorting to an ugly tactic used to erode the freedom of researchers. It's been a long time since Ayyadurai was a defenseless 14 year old boy. In 2016 Ayyadurai is a wealthy and well connected celebrity regularly featured in tabloid gossip pages, with access to the best lawyers and public relations executives. His own legal complaint <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2829697-Gov-Uscourts-Mad-180248-1-0 .html#document/p17> against Gizmodo describes him as "a world-renowned scientist, inventor, lecturer, philanthropist and entrepreneur" and insists that being recognized as the inventor of email would have added tens of millions of dollars to his net worth. In contrast I am an obscure scholar who has never appeared on television or in the Daily Mail's showbiz section <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2747398/Fran-Drescher-weds-sci entist-partner-Shiva-Ayyadurai.html> . Because I have no financial interest in who did, or didn't, invent email my aim has been to serve the public by protecting the accuracy of the historical record. Now that conservatives have declared open season on faculty all over Wisconsin, we might ask why a self-proclaimed liberal crusader has embraced their tactics by, as Cronon termed it, abusing open records to attack academic freedom <http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/24/open-records-attack-on-a cademic-freedom/> .

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ENIAC ebook not here yet, but Japanese translation is coming. Also free posters still available.
by Thomas Haigh 12 May '16

12 May '16

I know that the ebook option was listed for April publication, and that the delay was because the index was going to be incorporated. (The index had to be left out of the hardback edition because the indexer hired by MIT Press reportedly "absconded" without delivering the contracted work). I did approve an index earlier this year, prepared by a replacement indexer, but haven't heard of the ebook edition appearing. I'll follow up with MIT Press and make sure that it hasn't been forgotten about. What I'm actually hoping for is a Kindle edition, as the MIT Press ebooks are reportedly rather idiosyncratic. I can confirm that a Japanese translation will be appearing soon from Kyoritsu Shuppan. Thanks to Haruyuki Kawabe from Nihon Unisys, Ltd and his colleagues for taking the initiative to arrange this -- by the time I heard about it the translation was almost finished. If anyone is interested in translating other languages let me know and I can put you in contact with the appropriate people at MIT Press. While I'm here let me share a write-up of my ENIAC 70th Anniversary talk at Penn earlier this year. It's in The Pennsylvania Gazette, the alumni mag, and also online: http://thepenngazette.com/a-peoples-history-of-eniac/. I gave a similar talk at Maryland, which posted a video and transcript: http://eniacinaction.com/watch-us/. And CHM Chairman Len Shustek had some nice things to say about it during the annual fellowship gala event: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/2016-chm-fellow-awards/. Finally, I still have some ENIAC Monte Carlo posters left, with free shipping. Preview at http://eniacinaction.com/the-book/eniac-monte-carlo-poster/. Just send me an email if you want one. Best wishes, Tom -----Original Message----- From: Members [mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Guy Fedorkow Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 7:52 PM To: members(a)lists.sigcis.org Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] ENIAC ebook I'm sure I saw the ENIAC in Action book posted on the MIT site in ebook format in addition to the print format that I have already. But although the price is still listed, the ebook delivery option seems to have vanished again. Does anyone (ahem, Tom) know what happened and if the ebook format will return? Thanks, /guy fedorkow _______________________________________________ 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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Shiva and Ray Tomlinson in Boston Magazine (Shiva sues Gawker)
by Dave Walden 12 May '16

12 May '16

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/05/11/cambridge-man-gawker-ema…

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THATCamp Pedagogy workshop June 21st (right before SHOT Singapore)
by Andrew Russell 05 May '16

05 May '16

Friends - especially those of you traveling to Singapore for SHOT and SIGCIS - please see the message below from Ellan Spero <efs8(a)mit.edu<mailto:efs8@mit.edu>> ———— Hello Everyone, I hope to see many of you in June in Singapore and wanted to let you know that the registration page for the THATCamp <http://shot2016.thatcamp.org/> (The Humanities and Technology Camp) "unconference" on pedagogy is up and functional. We have started to collect session proposals and are looking forward to a chance to collaborate and create together informally before the official conference begins. Please note that since this is an unconference, no one will be giving papers here, but rather facilitating discussion and collaboration. Don't be shy if you don't consider yourself an "expert" - enthusiasm and willingness to work with others is what counts. The workshop is free (and there will be food) and hosted at Singapore University of Technology and Design<http://sutd.edu.sg/>. There will be a shuttle from the main conference venues, and getting there on your own via public transit or taxi is also easy. To register go here: http://shot2016.thatcamp.org/register/ Once you have an account you can add a session idea as a comment on the front page. Don't hesitate to contact me with any ideas or questions, best, Ellan (efs8(a)mit.edu<mailto:efs8@mit.edu>) -- E.F. Spero MIT-SUTD Postdoctoral Fellow http://history.mit.edu/people/ellan-f-spero<http://academics.sutd.edu.sg/researchers/ellan-spero/http://history.mit.edu…> http://academics.sutd.edu.sg/researchers/ellan-spero/<http://academics.sutd.edu.sg/researchers/ellan-spero/http://history.mit.edu…>

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] on Grace Hopper
by Jordi Fornes 03 May '16

03 May '16

Hi all, Thank you so very much for all this helpful information! I will definitely keep you updated, and send you the finished bibliography once I'm done! Best regards. -- Jordi

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Grace Hopper
by Ensmenger, Nathan 02 May '16

02 May '16

Jordi — I agree with Rudi’s endorsement of the Kurt Beyer biography of Grace Hopper, which is excellent. Beyer provides a welcome corrective to the generally hagiographic treatment of Hopper in the popular literature, while still making clear her absolutely fundamental accomplishments. He deals sensitively but thoroughly with her drinking problem, for example. For a much more critical take on Hopper, however, you might take a look at Jean Jenning Bartik’s memoir *Pioneer Programmer.* Bartik was definitely not a fan… Obviously you would need to have your students read Bartik’s account as largely a primary source, with all the attendant qualifications that come with that, but it might be a nice complement to the Beyer. -Nathan --- Nathan Ensmenger Associate Professor of Informatics School of Informatics and Computing Indiana University, Bloomington homes.soic.indiana.edu/nensmeng/ > Dear SICIS colleagues, > > I'm preparing a bibliography about Grace Hopper. Do you know any primary or secondary source you consider essential? > > Thanks! > > -- > Jordi Fornés > jfornes(a)ac.upc.edu - +34 934 054 064 > Computer Architecture Department > Room D6-102 Campus Nord > UPC - Barcelona > http://personals.ac.upc.edu/jfornes

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