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Fwd: Who are these people with Grace Hopper
by christina dunbar-hester 23 Dec '14

23 Dec '14

A query re. photo of Grace Hopper with UNIVAC that some folks on this list might be able to answer? ** Christina Dunbar-Hester Author of *Low Power to the People* <http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/low-power-people>, MIT Press ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 1:21 PM Subject: [Adacamp Alumni] Who are these people with Grace Hopper To: AdaCamp Alumni <Adacamp-alumni(a)lists.adainitiative.org> Perhaps you can help! See this tweet: https://twitter.com/SmithsonianArch/status/547456611988824069 Please post your response to Twitter if you can (and if you can't, then just let me know and I'll post it on your behalf) -Sarah -- Sarah Stierch www.sarahstierch.com

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Members Digest, Vol 54, Issue 18
by Edgar Daylight 23 Dec '14

23 Dec '14

Hi Dave & Gerard, My central question when I interview Turing Award winners is indeed: Did the interviewee actually read the work of Turing? That's what Naur and Knuth talk about at length in my Lonely Scholar booklets. The work of E.F. Moore, 'A simplified universal Turing machine', is discussed in my book `The Dawn of Software Engineering: from Turing to Dijkstra,' as are several other early writings and Dijkstra's (non-)reception of Turing's work. Dave's question about the origins of the Turing Award is addressed in the following two publications: + E.G. Daylight, Towards a Historical Notion of "Turing — the Father of Computer Science, http://www.dijkstrascry.com/TuringPaper + M. Bullynck, E.G. Daylight, L. De Mol, Why Did Computer Science Make a Hero out of Turing? Accepted for publication in the Communications of the ACM. Best wishes, Edgar. On Tuesday, December 23, 2014 6:00 PM, "members-request(a)sigcis.org" <members-request(a)sigcis.org> wrote: Send Members mailing list submissions to members(a)sigcis.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to members-request(a)sigcis.org You can reach the person managing the list at members-owner(a)sigcis.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Members digest..." Today's Topics: 1. NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question (Dave Walden) 2. Re: NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question (Alberts, Gerard) 3. Re: Origin of the Tablet (Elizabeth Petrick) 4. Re: Origin of the Tablet (Evan Koblentz) 5. 12 Days of YouTube (adam spring) 6. Re: NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question (Brian Randell) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 11:39:47 -0500 From: Dave Walden <dave.walden.family(a)gmail.com> To: Dag Spicer <dspicer(a)computerhistory.org>,members <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question Message-ID: <5498495e.c918e00a.54b7.4ef9(a)mx.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hi, With all this emphasis on Turing these days, including the 100th anniversary celebration a couple of years ago and opinions about how fundamental Turing was to how much that came later, I am curious if anyone knows what the ACM people were thinking when they named their award after Turing only a decade or so after his death. Did they already see him as important historically as he is seen today? Did they think he had been a brilliant many whose life ended badly and who thus deserved memorializing? ...? I suppose there may have been some writing in the CACM when the award was named or first awarded, and I can go try to find that. In any case, I am wondering if anyone knows what the committee members (or whomever) who decided on this name for the award were thinking. Dave At 11:54 AM 12/21/2014, Dag Spicer wrote: >http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ > >Best, > >Dag >-- >Dag Spicer >Senior Curator >Computer History Museum >Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing >1401 North Shoreline Boulevard >Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 > >Tel: +1 650 810 1035 >Fax: +1 650 810 1055 > >Twitter: @ComputerHistory > >_______________________________________________ >This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you >can change your subscription options at >http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members -- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 (often don't carry it) email address: dave(a)walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/ ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:07:46 +0000 From: "Alberts, Gerard" <G.Alberts(a)uva.nl> To: Dave Walden <dave.walden.family(a)gmail.com>, Dag Spicer <dspicer(a)computerhistory.org>, members <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question Message-ID: <B7AEF8DE01BF884C9498D6FD489F190242978329(a)MBX04.uva.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Dave, let us ask Edgar Daylight what he has to say on this. He and I did work on precisely this question for a while, but our findings did not yet reach the stage of formal publication. Basically the impression is that the Perlis and Carr gang, busy in creating a venue for exchange of software ideas (Communications of the ACM), went on to create a professional identity. Part of such effort, of course, is to name one's heroes. Probably from the US perspective pointing at the Englishman Turing was a safe choice. There is no indication that Turing was in any way the cult figure he is today. Edgar's bold entry question at the time was how many of the Turing awardees would have actually read the work of Turing. An exceptionally early, and to my knowledge the earliest explicit computer science continuation on Turing's 1936 article is by E.F. Moore, 'A simplified universal Turing machine', in Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery; Meeting at Toronto, Ont. Sept 8-10, 1952 (Washington, ACM, 1952), 50-55. Christmas thoughts, Gerard ________________________________________ Van: members-bounces(a)sigcis.org [members-bounces(a)sigcis.org] namens Dave Walden [dave.walden.family(a)gmail.com] Verzonden: maandag 22 december 2014 17:39 Aan: Dag Spicer; members Onderwerp: [SIGCIS-Members] NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game -- a question Hi, With all this emphasis on Turing these days, including the 100th anniversary celebration a couple of years ago and opinions about how fundamental Turing was to how much that came later, I am curious if anyone knows what the ACM people were thinking when they named their award after Turing only a decade or so after his death. Did they already see him as important historically as he is seen today? Did they think he had been a brilliant many whose life ended badly and who thus deserved memorializing? ...? I suppose there may have been some writing in the CACM when the award was named or first awarded, and I can go try to find that. In any case, I am wondering if anyone knows what the committee members (or whomever) who decided on this name for the award were thinking. Dave At 11:54 AM 12/21/2014, Dag Spicer wrote: >http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ > >Best, > >Dag >-- >Dag Spicer >Senior Curator >Computer History Museum >Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing >1401 North Shoreline Boulevard >Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 > >Tel: +1 650 810 1035 >Fax: +1 650 810 1055 > >Twitter: @ComputerHistory > >_______________________________________________ >This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you >can change your subscription options at >http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members -- home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537 home ph=508-888-7655; cell ph = 503-757-3137 (often don't carry it) email address: dave(a)walden-family.com; website: <http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:51:46 -0700 From: Elizabeth Petrick <elizabeth.petrick(a)gmail.com> To: members <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Origin of the Tablet Message-ID: <CALwHdbbZhDTFXEq7RGyQajfX=CnqCEwkcyXpY=zjBBAhAHFEGQ(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" This discussion on early tablet histories is very timely for me. I'm just starting a large project on the history of tablet computer interfaces and I was hoping someone on this list might be able to help me track down some materials. I'm particularly interested in some of these attempts at Apple during the late 1970s and 1980s to build tablets, including two that aren't mentioned in the CHM article: the Pocket Crystal and Magic Slate. Steven Levy has mentioned these projects a little bit in some of his writing, but otherwise I've never seen anything on them. I know that Bill Atkinson was involved with both. Does anyone have any ideas on where I might be able to find materials on these projects? There doesn't appear to be anything at Stanford's Apple archive. Alternatively, is anyone in contact with Atkinson? Thanks everyone! Elizabeth Petrick Assistant Professor Federated Department of History New Jersey Institute of Technology On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 11:45 PM, Chuck House <housec1839(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I would certainly confirm this version about Alan. He used my HP1300A > vector graphics CRT for the Flex machine, which was an electrostatic CRT > built on a 14? TV bottle salvaged from an electromagnetic TV display. We > in the HP Colorado Springs ?scope lab were experimenting with the Plato > plasma display at the time also since my boss, John Strathman, was a U of I > grad still very connected. Alan did not see our work, but he did see the U > of I work. He did not start the Dynabook until PARC, more like 1972 as > indicated. > > Sutherland knew of our display in 1966. I had visited his MIT lab after > the IBM Share Design conference in May 1965 in New Orleans, and came away > much impressed after seeing Sketchpad and Project MAC. > > My partner in the US Forestry (summers while we were in college) was at > the U of Utah (Irving McQuarrie). His uncle Don McQuarrie (MD, head of the > local AMA) teamed with Homer Warner at the U to create Beehive Medical > Electronics long before Evans and Sutherland was founded. Beehive became a > key raster graphics terminal for computer interaction in the late 1960?s, > building terminals for HP, Cromemco, and Harris among others, and even for > the Altair later on. Beehive was Alan Kay?s first employer, summers while > he was a U of Utah undergraduate. > > I built the HP1300A as the display for HP?s new minicomputer, the 2116 in > 1966, but marketing and HP Labs insisted that an ASR-33 was ample for user > interface. Packard ordered the HP 1300A canceled in prototype form, hence > the later ?Medal of Defiance? because we built and sold it anyway. We > introduced in spring 1967, selling the first one to Doug Engelbart at SRI. > and I think the one for U of Utah was in the first forty. By 1970, Carl > Machover later estimated only 1,000 interactive computer terminals existed > in the world, a fair number of them that HP box for $2,000. The IBM > vector graphics box introduced eighteen months or so earlier, was more like > $200,000. They did not sell particularly well. > > So Alan was plenty versed in the notion of graphical as well as textual > display on CRTs?recall that the Culler-Fried graphics terminals had been > ?widely? available by the early 1960s (certainly predating the IBM machine > that gets the credit). Success has a thousand creators?Alan has also given > credit (his ?aha? moment) to the day he saw the HP 35 handheld scientific > calculator, since he had loved the HP 9100A and long considered it ?the > first personal computer" > > > On Dec 19, 2014, at 8:32 PM, Brian Dear <brian(a)platohistory.org> wrote: > > > Interesting piece! Didn't know about this U of I student project -- cool! > > > > One minor tidbit in the article got my attention -- dating Alan Kay's > "Dynabook" being from 1968. I would suggest it dates more officially from > 1972, not 1968. In '68-'69 he was working in Utah on his PhD dissertation > about the FLEX machine. In '68 he'd visited the U of I to attend an ARPA > conference of grad students, and while at the U of I he'd seen a demo of > the prototype of the upcoming PLATO plasma display panel (PDP), which, he > once told me, was his "aha" moment, the realization that personal computing > devices of the future could truly be portable as they wouldn't require > lugging around a CRT. But judging from his output in '68-'69, especially > his dissertation, seems to me the Dynabook concept was still a gleam in his > eye and it wouldn't be until he'd arrived at Xerox PARC and settled in that > he'd have time to fully flesh it out, culminating in the famous 1972 > published article. > > > > - Brian > > > > > > Brian Dear > > PLATO History Project > > La Jolla, California > > brian(a)platohistory.org > > www.platohistory.org > > www.friendlyorangeglow.com > > @platohistory > > > > > > > > > > > >> On Dec 18, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Dag Spicer <dspicer(a)computerhistory.org> > wrote: > >> > >> A nice piece today on the CHM Blog by Assistant Curator Alex Lux. > >> > >> Enjoy: > http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/yesterdays-tomorrows-the-origins-of-th… > >> > >> Best, > >> > >> Dag > >> -- > >> Dag Spicer > >> Senior Curator > >> Computer History Museum > >> Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing > >> 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard > >> Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 > >> > >> Tel: +1 650 810 1035 > >> Fax: +1 650 810 1055 > >> > >> Twitter: @ComputerHistory > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change > your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members > > > > _______________________________________________ > > This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change > your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members > > _______________________________________________ > This email is relayed from members(a)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://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription > options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members >

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12 Days of YouTube
by adam spring 22 Dec '14

22 Dec '14

Dear all, Please find my latest post, 12 Days Of YouTube, now up: http://remotely-interested.com/12-days-of-youtube/ It features several links, including one related to Walter Isaacson'c book The Innovators, that might be of interest to the group. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Adam -- Adam P. Spring Skype: adampspring

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Origin of the Tablet
by Dag Spicer 22 Dec '14

22 Dec '14

A nice piece today on the CHM Blog by Assistant Curator Alex Lux. Enjoy: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/yesterdays-tomorrows-the-origins-of-th… Best, Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 Fax: +1 650 810 1055 Twitter: @ComputerHistory

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NY Review of Books: The Imitation Game (The Movie)
by Dag Spicer 21 Dec '14

21 Dec '14

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ Best, Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 Fax: +1 650 810 1055 Twitter: @ComputerHistory

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Polanyi's Paradox
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 20 Dec '14

20 Dec '14

Might be of interest Season’s greetings Bernardo (Bangor University - Wales) Polanyi's Paradox and the Shape of Employment Growth Date: 2014-09 By: David Autor URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20485&r=his In 1966, the philosopher Michael Polanyi observed, "We can know more than we can tell... The skill of a driver cannot be replaced by a thorough schooling in the theory of the motorcar; the knowledge I have of my own body differs altogether from the knowledge of its physiology." Polanyi's observation largely predates the computer era, but the paradox he identified--that our tacit knowledge of how the world works often exceeds our explicit understanding--foretells much of the history of computerization over the past five decades. This paper offers a conceptual and empirical overview of this evolution. I begin by sketching the historical thinking about machine displacement of human labor, and then consider the contemporary incarnation of this displacement--labor market polarization, meaning the simultaneous growth of high-education, high-wage and low-education, low-wages jobs--a manifestation of Polanyi's paradox. I discuss both the explanatory power of the polarization phenomenon and some key puzzles that confront it. I then reflect on how recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics should shape our thinking about the likely trajectory of occupational change and employment growth. A key observation of the paper is that journalists and expert commentators overstate the extent of machine substitution for human labor and ignore the strong complementarities. The challenges to substituting machines for workers in tasks requiring adaptability, common sense, and creativity remain immense. Contemporary computer science seeks to overcome Polanyi's paradox by building machines that learn from human examples, thus inferring the rules that we tacitly apply but do not explicitly understand. JEL: J23 J24 J31 O3

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water computing
by Paul Fishwick 18 Dec '14

18 Dec '14

This is a project we just finished (incarnation #1 of a 2 column water computer). Historical references to select water computers from the past. This design was engineered to be both analog and digital. http://creative-automata.com/2014/12/18/hybrid-water-computer/ Paul Fishwick, PhD Chair, ACM SIGSIM Distinguished University Chair of Arts & Technology and Professor of Computer Science Director, Creative Automata Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas Arts & Technology 800 West Campbell Road, AT10 Richardson, TX 75080-3021 Home: utdallas.edu/atec/fishwick Blog: creative-automata.com

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Fwd: [Air-L] CFP: Digital Material/ism
by Andrew Russell 14 Dec '14

14 Dec '14

Dear SIGCIS list - I expect this journal and call for papers will be of interest to many on this list - mainly as a potential venue for manuscript submission, but also as an opportunity to reflect upon the journal’s aims and inspiration, and how they related to the history of computing and information (I noticed that the word “history” appears only once in the CFP). Cheers, Andy > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Richterich Annika (LK)" <a.richterich(a)maastrichtuniversity.nl> > To: "air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org" <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> > Date: December 14, 2014 at 6:10:45 PM EST > Subject: [Air-L] CFP: Digital Material/ism > > Call for Papers − Digital Material/ism: How Materiality shapes Digital Culture and Social Interaction > > > First Issue of 'Digital Culture & Society' > http://www.transcript-verlag.de/content/t/digital_culture_and_society_cfp_m… > > Abstract deadline: February 1, 2015 > > > The idea of a society, in which everyday smart objects are equipped with digital logic and sensor technologies, is currently taking shape. Devices connected as learning machines to the 'Internet of Things' necessitate further research on issues related to digital media and their materiality. In this context, media, culture and social theories, dealing with the materiality of digital technology, have gained increasing relevance. > > Investigations of digital material have given rise to a wide range of (new) research questions, approaches, and issues. From the early 2000s onwards, we can identify two major strands of research that developed: (1) from the technological and material conditions of hardware and software towards (2) the social/political/economic/legal infrastructures and power relations of proprietary networks and platforms. The eventual establishment of research fields such as software studies, critical code studies, media archaeology and the notion of the post-digital − represented by scholars such as David Berry, Wendy Chun, Alexander Galloway, Mark Hansen, Katherine Hayles, Friedrich Kittler, Lev Manovich, William Mitchell, Anna Munster, Adrian Mackenzie, Jussi Parikka, Eugene Thacker, and others, − can also be understood as indicators of an institutionalisation of ‘media-materialistic’ research. For the first issue “Digital Material/ism”, the newly founded Digital Culture & Society journal calls for further methodological and theoretical reflection on issues of digital materiality and digital materialism. > > Approaches may be rooted in (digital) media and cultural studies, as well as social sciences. Interdisciplinary contributions, for example, those from science and technology studies, are likewise welcome. > > Paper proposals may relate to, but are not limited to, the following topics: > - the internet of things, smart objects and ambient intelligence > - augmented environments > - wearables (and augmented reality) > - hardware studies and Open Hardware > - hacker, Maker and DIY Culture > - post-digital media research > - media ecologies and e-waste > - agency of assemblages > > We invite submissions, which may react to, and expand on to the following questions of “Digital Material/ism”: > > 1. Field Research and Case Studies: > We invite papers on socio-technological developments related to digital media materiality. Articles may examine usage and production, as well as spaces and contexts of smart objects; e.g. wearable computing devices, or beacons. Contributions may be based on (empirical) case studies. They may likewise address discourses of truth and evidence related to digital media materialism; e.g. in a metaphorical sense (see Boomen 2014) or as governmental alignment, such as “forensic materialism” as suggested by Kirschenbaum (2008). How do materialistic positions tacitly use metaphors of clinical or administrative control to assure the relevance and societal benefits of their devices? How is the notion of ‘smart/ness’ used in order to promote new forms of technological interactions with, and surveillance of the physical environment? > > 2. Methodological reflection: > We invite contributions that address methodological issues of approaches focused on digital media materiality. What are the methodological implications of such technological developments? What ethical challenges do researchers face; e.g. related to the data enabled by new digital media technology and their material features? > > 3. Conceptual/theoretical reflection: > We invite papers that address key notions in the discussion of digital materiality, and question epistemological assumptions. 'Materiality' is a crucial term, which only entered the discussion of digital media studies in the 2000s. Historically, how was the notion of materiality developed with regard to digital media? Moreover, in which philosophical traditions do the key representatives of 'Digital Materialism' place themselves? In what ways do they assume canonical models when examining the ‘transcendental,’ ‘empirical,’ or ‘historical-material’ conditions of data networks? Following Matthew Kirschenbaum’s (2008) conception of “formal materiality” as “the imposition of multiple relational computational states on a data set or digital object” (Ibid, p. 12), we are interested in the practical relevance of the materiality of recording, storing and processing (alongside the technical modelling of storage, digital objects, discrete data and metadata-guided processing operations). Thereby, we subsequently consider the results of Matthew Fuller’s (2003; 2008) work, “Software as a historical knowledge base”: it has its own history and does not only follow technological norms and standards, but also yields social, institutional and cultural settings. > > Deadlines and contact information: > Initial abstracts (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note (max. 100 words) are due on: February 1, 2015 > Authors will be notified by February 16, 2015, whether they are invited to submit a full paper. > Full papers are due on: May 1, 2015 > > Please send the abstracts and full papers to: > Ramón Reichert – ramon.reichert(a)univie.ac.at > Annika Richterich − a.richterich(a)maastrichtuniversity.nl > > References: > Boomen, M. van den (2014) Transcoding the Digital: How Metaphors Matter in New Media. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. > Fuller, M. (2008) Software Studies. A Lexicon. Cambridge: MIT Press. > Kirschenbaum, M. (2008) Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination, Cambridge: MIT Press. > Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, Harvard: Harvard University Press. > Montfort, N. (2003) Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, Cambridge: The MIT Press, pp. 85-93. > > > Further information on the Digital Culture & Society journal and the current call for papers can be found on: > http://www.transcript-verlag.de/content/t/digital_culture_and_society_cfp_m… > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/

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Babbage's Language of Thought
by Brian Randell 12 Dec '14

12 Dec '14

Hi: This comes from the Plan 28 Blog: > Babbage's Language of Thought > This is a guest post by Adrian Johnstone, Professor of Computing at Royal Holloway, University of London. > > Babbage has been called the 'great-uncle' of modern computing, a claim that rests simultaneously on his demonstrable understanding of most of the architectural principles underlying the modern computer, and the almost universal ignorance of Babbage's work before 1970. > > There has been an explosion of interest both in Babbage's devices and the impact they might have had in some parallel history, as well as in Babbage himself as a man of great originality who had essentially no influence at all on subsequent technological development. > > In all this, one fundamental question has been largely ignored: how is it that one individual working alone could have synthesised a workable computer design over quite a short period, designing an object whose complexity of behaviour so far exceeded that of contemporary machines that it would not be matched for over one hundred years? > > I believe that the answer lies in the techniques Babbage developed to reason about complex systems. The Leverhulme Trust have recently made a major award to myself and my collaborator Prof Elizabeth Scott which we will use to document, formalise and implement simulators for Babbage's Notation. The team also includes Plan 28’s Dr Doron Swade, who is the foremost authority on Babbage, and Dr Piers Plummer who has an extensive background in chip design, computer architecture, mechanical CAD and programming language compiler design. The work will be based in Royal Holloway's Centre for Software Language Engineering. <snip> Full article at http://blog.plan28.org/2014/11/babbages-language-of-thought.html 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/staff/profile/brian.randell

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Query re. readings on global history of computing
by Paul N. Edwards 12 Dec '14

12 Dec '14

Dear colleagues, I’m putting together an upper-level undergrad course on “Computers and the Internet: A Global History,” and I would really appreciate suggestions for my course reading list. I’m intrigued by the opportunity created by recent scholarship to look at regions of the world usually left out of the traditional US-UK story. I am looking for well-written, short (or readily excerptable) work that will appeal to an audience of juniors and seniors, some from History and some from the iSchool. I’m particularly looking for refs on Africa, Asia, and South America. I’m interested in video as well as writing, and accessible primary source collections too. Period is from Babbage to the present. Here’s most of what’s on my reading list so far (not including US-UK oriented material) Campbell-Kelly, Aspray, and Ensmenger, Computer Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries Cortada, Digital Flood Edwards and Hecht, “History and the Technopolitics of Identity: The Case of Apartheid South Africa” Jenkin, "Talking to Vula: The Story of the Secret Underground Communications Network of Operation Vula." Shapard, “Islands in the (Data)Stream: Language, Character Codes, and Electronic Isolation in Japan” Takhteyev, Coding Places: Software Practice in a South American City (Brazil) Gerovitch, “‘Mathematical Machines’ of the Cold War: Soviet Computing, American Cybernetics and Ideological Disputes in the Early 1950s.” Gerovitch. “Internyet: Why the Soviet Union Did Not Build a Nationwide Computer Network.” De Lacy, Justine. 1989. "The Sexy Computer.” (on Minitel) McHenry and Goodman, “MIS in Soviet Industrial Enterprises: The Limits of Reform from Above” (1986, CACM) Flamm, “Government and Computers in Japan and Europe,” from Targeting the Computer Best, Paul ___________________________ Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010) Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing) University of Michigan School of Information 4437 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

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