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2 PhD positions on microcomputers and social transformation in Europe (University of Lucerne, Switzerland)
by Albert Gleb J. 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Dear list members After having received a Swiss National Science Foundation grant for a research project on the role of microcomputers in the social, cultural and ecenomic transformations in Western and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, I am advertising two fully funded PhD positions in history at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland: Sub-project 1, "Microcomputer Narratives of Transformation": https://www.unilu.ch/en/university/personnel/human-resources-department/vac… Sub-project 2, "The Microcomputer as a Medium of Political Communication": https://www.unilu.ch/en/university/personnel/human-resources-department/vac… Here is a link that combines both adverts, in both German and English: https://www.hsozkult.de/job/id/job-138226 Application deadline is 30 September. Please feel free to share the information and pass it on to interested potential candidates. Thank you! Best wishes, Gleb -- Ass.-Prof. Dr. Gleb J. Albert SNSF Starting Grant Assistant Professor for General and Eastern European Contemporary History Department of History, University of Lucerne Universität Luzern Historisches Seminar Frohburgstrasse 3 Postfach 4466 CH-6002 Luzern Switzerland Room 3.A29 Tel. +41-41-2295527

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Recently Published Books
by STEPHEN KAISLER 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Folks: I have seen several members announce books that they have published, so I decided to announce mine as well. I have published nine (9) books in my Historical Computing Machines Series so far: - Birthing the Computer: From Relays to Vacuum Tubes - Birthing the Computer: From Drums to cores - First Generation Mainframes: The IBM 700 series - Second Generation Mainframes: The IBM 7000 Series - Mainframe Computer Systems: The General Electric Corporation - The Univac Corporation: In From the Beginning - The Burroughs Corporation and Its Innovative Architecture - Control Data Corporation: Early Computer Systems - Control Data Corporation: The Supercomputer Era In process are two volumes on English Computer Systems (sans ICL, a later book) These can be seen at Cambridge Scholars Publishing website: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/pages/physical-sciences and ordered through that website. Steve Kaisler

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AIT publishes comprehensive digital report on Human Computer Interaction
by Tom Abram 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

>From Punch Cards to Brain Computer Interfaces: 75 Years of Human Computer Interaction and its Impact on Society (https://archivesit.org.uk/75-years-of-human-computer-interaction/) was commissioned by Archives of IT (AIT) to develop the story of HCI by leveraging the charity’s unique knowledge base, reviewing our archive of interviews produced since 2015 and conducting six new interviews between late 2022 and early 2023. Together they now tell a more comprehensive, up-to-date and personal account of this life-changing aspect of social and industrial history. Dr Elisabetta Mori has led the project with a particular emphasis on the UK’s distinctive contribution to the subject. In her report she takes the reader on a journey through HCI’s evolution from the early years of computing from 1948 – when the subject was dominated by the first mainframes – to today’s world where we take for granted Graphical User Interfaces and an ever-growing number of interactive technologies. AIT’s Director, Tom Abram, said: “Reading about the past made those of us who have been working closely with Dr Mori think about the future. We have been struck, once again, by how the lessons of history are so often relevant going forward: HCI has a key part to play in building a future that’s more democratic, based on the total human experience and caters for all genders, backgrounds, and abilities – but only if we do it right.” AIT is very grateful to the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists for funding this work in line with its aim of providing leadership for the IT industry. The report is free to use, downloadable, has links to the AIT website of the personal histories of the people interviewed and is split into decades to make it easier to navigate. HCI through the decades • 1940s-1960s Mainframe Computers: Bulky Installations Operated by Specialists. These included British tea shop company Lyons who pioneered the use of computers in business with its LEO Computers. • 1970s-1980s The Computer Becomes Personal – from minicomputers to microprocessors and the Graphical User Interface. • 1970s-1980s Mapping Early HCI Communities in Britain including the Man-Machine Interaction Group at the National Physical Laboratory and the Human Sciences and Advanced Technology Research Group. • 1980s-1990s The Alvey Programme and the Establishment of a HCI Community in the UK. The Alvey Programme helped to raise the level of UK user interface design and improve the use of advanced speech recognition and image synthesis techniques. • 1990s-2000s The World Wide Web: A New Paradigm of Information Sharing. The focus shifts and the browser is born as interfaces suddenly need to accommodate not only expert users, but also individuals with varying abilities. • 2000s-onwards The Computer Becomes Ubiquitous and smartphones popularise capacitive touchscreens and multi-touch gestures with the iPhone in particular allowing users to navigate the home screen with their finger, which was a revelation at the time. Resources include New interviews • Linda Macaulay (interviewed by AIT in November 2022), now Professor Emirita of Information Design at the University of Manchester, was working in the computer department at Huddersfield Polytechnic in the early 1990s where she could pursue her interests in researching HCI and gives an insight on how it featured in the initial impact of the internet. • Professor Alan Newell OBE, Emeritus Professor at Dundee University, who has spent more than 40 years conducting research in Human Computer Interaction, primarily into supporting elderly and disabled people, talks about the digital divide in his interview with AIT in January 2023. • Looking at the impact of British research in the field of HCI, Dianne Murray (interviewed by AIT in February 2023), a Usability and Interface Design Consultant and one of the earliest researchers in HCI in the UK at the National Physical Laboratory since the early 1980s, says there are various specialties that HCI has managed to help foster. • Ernest Edmonds, who, (interviewed by AIT in March 2023) as part of the HCI project, gave a talk at the British Computer Society in 1970, which he says was an important aspect in the journey toward human computer interaction, and talks about forming an alliance with Brian Shackel and his Human Sciences and Advanced Technology (HUSAT) research group. • Professor Alan Dix, Director of the Computational Foundry at Swansea University specialising in HCI (interviewed by AIT in March 2023), points out the deep interaction we have with computation, which has resulted in this major shift in the pervasiveness of computers in society. • Professor Harold Thimbleby, interviewed in January 2023, See Change Digital Health Fellow at Swansea University, founded the University College London Interaction Centre in 2001 and talks about technology such as the iPhone being a success because its user interface was an immediate hit with the general public. He says HCI is both psychology and computer science. YouTube Playlist Watch our playlist of 25 clips taken from some of the pioneers and personalities featured in the report. --- For more information or any questions please contact: Adrian Murphy Email: pr(a)archivesit.org.uk Mobile: 07446154904

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New Book: Digital Independence. India's Way Into the Computer Age – an International History
by Michael Homberg 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Dear SIGCIS, please excuse the "self-promotion": I am excited to announce the publication of my new book: "Digital Independence. India's Way Into the Computer Age – an International History" ("Digitale Unabhängigkeit. Indiens Weg ins Computerzeitalter – eine Internationale Geschichte"). It has been published this week by Wallstein, and is largely based upon my habilitation thesis which I finished at the University of Potsdam, Germany, in 2021. The book is in German language only, but an English translation is already planned. I've shared the translated German blurb below. Many thanks for all the inspirations I received from the SIGCIS community, and I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Best regards from Berlin, Michael *** Digitale Unabhängigkeit. Indiens Weg ins Computerzeitalter – eine Internationale Geschichte, Göttingen: Wallstein 2022 (Geschichte der Gegenwart, Bd. 32). URL: https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835352674-digitale-unabhaengigkeit.html. Blurb: The first electronic computers arrived in India in the 1950s. Today, Indian programmers embody our globalized world. This book examines the long and chequered history of India's journey into the digital age. It shows how the emergence of digital expertise in India was the result of both national efforts and international cooperations. From early on, the computer thus became a symbol of Indian nation-building at the end of the colonial era, a tool of technocratic planning in the high modern age, and an instrument of power politics, cultural controversies and economic interests. The book interweaves a national history perspective on the Indian republic, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, with an analysis of the country's global relations, analyzing the different speeds and intensities of the computerization of the living and working worlds in the Global North and the Global South. Thus, it reconstructs the highly international networks of computer specialists, technicians, managers and politicians, development experts and activists in India. Since the early days of the Indian republic, industrialized nations such as the USA and the USSR, but also the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain promoted the expansion of computer technology and education in India. This study explores the roots of these international technical assistance programs in the Cold War era and the development of its global geopolitics of expertise, the growing desire in the Indian computer industry for “digital independence” in the global IT market since the 1970s and the triumph of elite programmers in Silicon Valley in the early 21st century. It analyzes the preconditions, dynamics, and consequences of global exchange processes in India after 1947, and thus “decenters” the primarily Western perspective of computer history and its master narratives. Drawing on broad (archival) research in India, the USA, and Europe, the study's sources include governmental records, university archival collections, academic literary estates, parliamentary minutes, and contemporary media. _______________________________ PD Dr. Michael Homberg Senior Scientist/Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF) e.V. Am Neuen Markt 1 14467 Potsdam

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Tommy Flowers (1905-1998) - Blue Plaque
by Brian Randell 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Hi: English Heritage is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. London’s blue plaques scheme, run by English Heritage, celebrates the links between notable figures of the past and the buildings in which they lived and worked. Founded in 1866, it has inspired many similar schemes in the UK and around the world. Last Wednesday, I attended a delightful ceremony at which a plaque was placed on the wall of the former Post Office Dollis Hill Research Station commemorating Tommy Flowers, the designer of the Colossus – see https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/tommy-flowers/ Cheers Brian Randell — School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = https://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brianrandell.html

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CfA Spend a Research Sabbatical at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS)
by Esther Laufer 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Are you researching the social, political, economic, media-related or cultural effects of the digital transformation? You want more freedom to pursue your project and are interested in interdisciplinary exchange? A fellowship at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) releases you from your regular work obligations and opens up new perspectives. As a fellow, you can spend either six or three months in Bochum, Germany. During this period, we will finance your sabbatical leave from work through compensation (e.g. for a substitute). Alternatively, we will pay grants of up to 2.000 € per month. You can invite guests for collaboration and will receive financial support for research expenses. Individual offices and meeting rooms with modern facilities offer optimal working conditions. In addition, we will provide comfortable apartments free of charge. Become a member of the vibrant interdisciplinary research community at CAIS. Apply until 31 October 2023 for fellowships starting from October 2024. The funding program is open to excellent scholars and practitioners, to all career stages, disciplines and areas of investigation, as well as to pure research and to projects that are more applied in orientation. Find out more at https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/fellowships/ We also fund working groups and still have some open slots from mid-June to the end of August 2024. Check out our flexible funding program for groups here: https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/working-groups/ https://www.cais-research.de/en/cais-college/working-groups/ Further questions? Please contact esther.laufer(a)cais-research.de mailto:esther.laufer@cais-research.de.

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Obit. of Dennis Austin
by Ceruzzi, Paul 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Today's Washington Post, Metro Section, p. B7, Obit. of Dennis Austin, the "Principal Developer" of PowerPoint software. It did not call him the "inventor," thank goodness, as there has been some discussion among us of who may have invented it. I won't go there. But it is a pretty fair treatment of him and the impact of the software. For my futile rant against PowerPoint go here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40060905 Paul Ceruzzi

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CAL Timesharing System (1968-1971)
by Paul McJones 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

The Computer History Museum recently acquired a set of original records (memos, manuals, source code, etc., with a full digital copy) for the CAL Timesharing System: Records of the CAL Timesharing System, Acquisition 2022.0154, Computer History Museum. https://CalTSS.computerhistory.org CAL TSS was developed by a half-dozen programmers over about three years. It was operated for about two years on one system, serving a user community in the dozens. Funding ran out just as full functionality was achieved. The archives at the Computer History Museum as well as fairly extensive administrative records from the Office of the Chancellor at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library make the project a possible topic for future studies in timesharing system development circa 1970. This paper summarizes the project history and serves as an introduction to the records at CHM: Paul McJones and David Redell. History of the CAL Timesharing System. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 45, no. 3, Jul-Sep 2023. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2023.3282262 Abstract: The CAL Timesharing System (CAL TSS) was developed at the University of California at Berkeley between 1968 and 1971 to provide interactive computing for research and instruction. It ran on a mainframe computer, the Control Data Corporation 6400, and was one of the earliest systems to use capabilities for protection. Using our memories, archival records, and files preserved by McJones that are part of a donation to the Computer History Museum, we discuss the origin of the project, development of the software, and the brief experience using the system before it was shut down in May 1972. I worked on the system as an undergraduate (as did Dave as a graduate student) at Berkeley; I collected the records and donated them to CHM. Paul McJones paul(a)mcjones.org

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Annals of the History of Computing 45:3, July-Sept 2023
by hemmendd＠union.edu 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

I'm very pleased to announce publication of the Annals issue, Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence in Europe, edited by Helen Piel and Rudolf Seising. The table of contents follows. David Hemmendinger, EIC Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence in Europe, Helen Piel, Rudolf Seising (guest editors' introduction) Literature and Artificial Intelligence, Hans-Christian von Herrmann Early AI in Britain: Turing et al., B. Jack Copeland The Representation of Knowledge and the Relevance of Biological Models at the Symposium on the Mechanization of Thought Processes, 1958, Matthew Cobb The "KI-Rundbrief," Its Editors, and Its Community: A Perspective on West German AI, 1975-1987, Dinah Pfau, Helen Piel, Florian Muller, Jakob Tschandl, Rudolf Seising Socialist AI? Societal Use, Economic Implementation, and the Tensions of Applied Computer Science in Late Socialist GDR, Martin Schmitt Anecdote: History of the CAL Timesharing System, Paul McJones, David Redell Review of Proxies: The Cultural Work of Standing In, by Dylan Mulvin, Gili Vidan Review of Code: From Information Theory to French Theory, by Bernard Dionysius Geoghegany, Sam H. Franz

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SIGCIS 2023: Online Edition 2.0 is this Thursday-Saturday, September 21-23
by Babintseva, Ekaterina 30 Dec '24

30 Dec '24

Dear SIGCIS Members, Please join us this week for SIGCIS 2023: Online Edition 2.0<http://meetings.sigcis.org/>! This year the SIGCIS conference will take place September 21-23, 2023 over Zoom. We have a dynamic program featuring leading scholars of computing history, capped by a keynote on Friday with Tung-Hui Hu, Associate Professor of English at the University of Michigan and author of Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection (2022) and A Prehistory of the Cloud (2015). The schedule is online here.<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vBU9cDw8p5LZHax-YI-ZMAZRGTMLpnYGGP9pDI-…> The cost of registration<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sigcis-2023-online-edition-20-registration-699…> is on a suggested donation/pay-what-you-can basis and does not require membership and registration for our parent conference (SHOT) in November. We offer suggested rates for academic and non-academic participants, and trust you to select the conference fee rate that makes sense for your context, especially for scholars with limited means and limited access to research or reimbursement funds. Please pay what you can to support SIGCIS. SUGGESTED CONFERENCE RATES: Senior Faculty or Working Professional: $60 Junior Faculty: $40 VAPs, Post-Docs, or Other Contingent Roles: $20 Precariously Employed Individuals, Adjuncts, Graduate Students: $0-$5** **Please Note: Eventbrite does not permit $0 donations. If you would like to register without having to pay, please email the SIGCIS Meetings Organizing Committee at sigcis2023(a)morganya.org<mailto:sigcis2023@morganya.org> and we would be happy to register you for no cost. The SIGCIS Conference is the leading annual international meeting for researchers of computing and information history. The Conference is organized by members of the Special Interest Group for Computing, Information, and Society, part of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). See https://meetings.sigcis.org<https://meetings.sigcis.org/> for more information. We hope to see you there! Sincerely, The SIGCIS Meetings Organizing Committee: Morgan Ames (SIGCIS Co-Vice-Chair of Meetings), Laine Nooney (SIGCIS Co-Vice-Chair of Meetings), Katya Babintseva, Stephanie Dick, Xiaochang Li, Colette Perold, Gili Vidan Ekaterina Babintseva [bahb-int-seva]<https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/ekaterina-babintseva.html> www.ekaterina-babintseva.com<https://www.ekaterina-babintseva.com/> Assistant Professor in the History of Technology Purdue University Department of History, University Hall 120 672 Oval Drive West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 ebabints(a)purdue.edu<mailto:ebabints@purdue.edu>

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