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"In 1946, Bartik headed up a team that modified the ENIAC into the first stored-program electronic computer."
by Thomas Haigh 13 Nov '13

13 Nov '13

There is an interesting sentence in the publisher's blub for Bartik's book: "In 1946, Bartik headed up a team that modified the ENIAC into the first stored-program electronic computer." Nothing in any way controversial there... [Pause] .... except for 1) Post-conversion ENIAC did acquire the new control method introduced in the 1945 "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC." Having looked at this conversion very closely, in association with my work on the topic with Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope, I'm probably more sympathetic to the general direction of the claim than most of you. However, that's also convinced me that "stored program computer" has been given too many different implicit definitions for that to be a prudent, or even meaningful, claim to make without at least attaching some kind of adjective to modify "stored program." (ENIAC essentially held instructions and data in an addressable manually erasable ROM while storing variables in a separate set of registers. It had other modern features including conditional branches and used indirect addressing so that the address acted on by an instruction could be modified at runtime). 2) The work took place in 1947 and 1948 rather than 1946. 3) Bartik played a role as a subcontractor but was not, by any stretch of the imagination, leading the effort. Those of you interested in learning more on this topic will enjoy our series of three forthcoming articles in Annals and our book in progress "ENIAC in Action: von Neumann, the Bomb, and the Programming Revolution." Meanwhile, I am curious to see how well the book itself aligns with the mass of archival sources on ENIAC. It will, in any event, provide some grist for one of our book chapters, "Remembering ENIAC." Tom -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces(a)sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Evan Koblentz Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 4:19 PM To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Bartik autobiography available / Colossus name? SIGCIS'ers, Jean Bartik's autobiography is now available at http://tsup.truman.edu/item.asp?itemid=480. There is also an e-book version at Amazon. (I recently learned that Kindle books can be read through a browser or through an iOS/Android app -- you don't need a Kindle device.) Also: Does anyone know how the British Colossus computer got its name, other than the general assumption "because it was big"...? I emailed TNMOC about this. They wrote back and said they don't know and that nobody ever asked. _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members(a)sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT 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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query update: de/classification at govt archives re sci/tech
by Sharon Traweek 13 Nov '13

13 Nov '13

Hi My sincerely thanks to all who have responded to my query Monday concerning research on the history of de/classification processes pursued by historians, archivists, etc. [See below.] I have been aware of and impressed by the scholars who are conducting research on cold war science and engineering fields/projects and in so doing have worked to open previously re/classified government documents on their topics of interest. I also have been aware of and impressed by the archivists, historians, lawyers, engineers, and scientists who have persisted in opening previously classified government documents. I teach about their work and the relevant organizations. I have been looking for historical surveys, reviews, and analyses of these research processes during the last twenty years, at least, in the US, as well as other countries, such as China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Korea, Soviet Union, Sweden, UK, etc, where sci/tech research & development would have been strongly shaped by the cold war. I was taught long ago that for 50 years [early 40s to early 90s] about 50% of the S&T workforce with 50% of national R&D funding worked on clandestine projects in the US and the former Soviet Union. I try to teach students how historians have been investigating that half of our topic and its relationship with the other half. I use various examples from the work of historians and archivists; I would like to include surveys, reviews, and analyses of these process. Sincerely, Sharon Traweek, UCLA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 16:39:52 -0800 (PST) From: Sharon Traweek <traweek(a)history.ucla.edu> To: members(a)sigcis.org Subject: de/classification of US government archives re sci/technology Hi, I would appreciate references to any scholarly studies focused specifically on the opening of US cold war government archives of classified [secret] research in the sciences and engineering fields. I have searched for a review article on this topic, including the changing US government strategies for de/classification, but have not found one. That is, I am looking for research on the history of the de/classification process at US government archives 1945 to the present and public access to such materials concerning science and technology. I am aware of passages on this topic distributed in various histories of particular cold war sciences and technologies and in some histories and legal studies of the US Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the relevant Presidential Executive Orders [12958/13292/13526] on this topic issued since 1995. Cordially, Sharon Traweek, UCLA

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The history of the Research Machines 380Z
by Tony Smith 13 Nov '13

13 Nov '13

Ladies and gentlemen, Those of you with an interest in the story of British microcomputer technology may like to take a look at my history of one of the earliest and most important education micros of the 1970s and early 1980s: the Research Machines 380Z. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/13/archaeologic_the_research_machines_… Tony Smith Features Editor The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk

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Presidential Records on ICTs
by John Paul Laprise 12 Nov '13

12 Nov '13

Hi everyone, Sharon Traweek's recent post on the SIGCIS listserv about declassification and US government records has prompted me to make a general announcement. I've mentioned this to some of you in conference conversations or you probably are aware of this if you've run across my work but I'd like to make a general announcement for all: For the past eleven years (six years as a grad student and going on five years as a faculty member), I have been pursuing ongoing research on White House information technology policy. To that end, I have been filing regular and persistent requests at Presidential Libraries (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (present)) for documents related to a very wide range of ICT keywords. The keyword list is a living list informed by research. In some cases, these records are available but not yet opened and my filing has the effect of fast tracking their availability. In some cases I've filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests and subsequent appeals to open closed record sets. With classified documents I've filed mandatory review requests and subsequent appeals to declassify records. This takes time and persistence. The end result is that in excess of 200k pages of documents are opened that were not previously available on request. This work continues as the Bush Library comes online and I have made the initial requests to open records there. The long and short of this is that there is a very rich documentary record open and available to interested scholars. Best regards, John Laprise, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Communication in Residence Northwestern University in Qatar Northwestern University -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces(a)sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Sharon Traweek Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 3:40 AM To: members(a)sigcis.org Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] de/classification of US government archives re sci/technology Hi, I would appreciate references to any scholarly studies focused specifically on the opening of US cold war government archives of classified [secret] research in the sciences and engineering fields. I have searched for a review article on this topic, including the changing US government strategies for de/classification, but have not found one. That is, I am looking for research on the history of the de/classification process at US government archives 1945 to the present and public access to such materials concerning science and technology. I am aware of passages on this topic distributed in various histories of particular cold war sciences and technologies and in some histories and legal studies of the US Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the relevant Presidential Executive Orders [12958/13292/13526] on this topic issued since 1995. Cordially, Sharon Traweek, UCLA _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members(a)sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT 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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First usage of the word "subroutine"?
by Thomas Haigh 11 Nov '13

11 Nov '13

Hello everyone, I'm wondering if anyone has pinned down the origin of the word "subroutine." OED currently has as the first two example usages: c1946 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. Von Neumann Coll. Wks. (1961) V. 25 Both..machines are controlled by instructions punched into several tapes and they can be ordered to switch from one to the other as desired. They are usually referred to as 'master routine' and 'sub-routine' tapes. [The ellipsis hide reference to the Harvard Mark 1 and to the Bell Labs relay machines]. 1948 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. Von Neumann Coll. Wks. (1963) V. 217 We call the coded sequence of a problem a routine, and one which is formed for the purpose of possible substitution into other routines a subroutine. In my work on ENIAC with Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope we have located an earlier (1945) usage in the "AMP Report" authored by members of the ENIAC team. "It is possible to have the main routine divided into sub-routines, in which case one stepper is used to feed another stepper, thus allowing the proper sub-routine to be chosen in the course of a regular routine." J. P. Eckert, J. W. Mauchly, H. H. Goldstine, and J. G. Brainerd, Description of the ENIAC and Comments on Electronic Digital Machines. AMP Report 171.2R. Distributed by the Applied Mathematics Panel, National Defense Research Committee, November 30. Philadelphia, PA: Moore School of Electrical Engineering, 1945. I'm also aware that the term has been applied in later usage to useful blocks of code saved and copied into programs as needed on the Harvard Mark 1, e.g. in K. W. Beyer, Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009 pages 95-106. That fits in the general sense with the 1946 von Neumann quote, although the Harvard Mark 1 did not in 1945 have the ability to switch to a second tape and was instead confined to running like a player piano over a single series of instructions. I did not spot any quotation of the actual word "subroutine" from 1945 or 1946 sources in Beyer's book. His citations in that section all come from much later oral histories and reminiscences, not from 1940s documents. (Also Beyer seems unaware of the refinement of the idea by von Neumann and his colleagues in the 1948 installment of the "Planning and Coding" report, instead considering only the transfer of ideas to the EDSAC team in the UK). So, my questions are: 1) Does anyone have a documented usage prior to November 1945 of the word "subroutine" or the hyphenated "sub-routine"? 2) Are there primary sources that will tell us whether the use of "routine" to describe a program was standard terminology at Harvard, at Bell Labs, or at both? I'd expect the coinage of "subroutine" to come naturally at a site in which programs were called "routines" and less so elsewhere. Best wishes, Tom

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my "take" on Obamacare
by Ceruzzi, Paul 08 Nov '13

08 Nov '13

I published this brief note on Obamacare as an on-line op-ed for the HIastory News Network. <http://hnn.us/article/153810>. As the late Mike Mahoney used to say, the study of software could benefit from the study of history, but few who practice software engineering are aware of even the fact that there was such a report in 1968.

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Op-Ed on Obamacare
by Ceruzzi, Paul 08 Nov '13

08 Nov '13

Thanks to everyone for their kind words about the op-ed piece. Some of you mentioned that a word "problems" was somehow dropped from the quote form the 1968 NATO conference report. Sorry. Too bad the Times & Washington Post cannot be persuaded to think again about their headlines and op-ed pieces on Obamacare (I sent it to the Post but they turned it down). Maybe one of us could send a note to the Times? If not to the op-ed page, then to John Markoff or Steve Lohr? I really like Andrew's last note. I did not have the space to mention it, but the person NASA sent to Draper Labs to look at the Apollo software was John Norton. He later worked on a TRW contract, programming a complex networking of PDP-10 computers for the Bonneville Power Administration. Among the young programmers that he mentored was Bill Gates, who I think was still in high school at the time. Gates later cited Norton as a big influence on his career. At Draper Labs, John's comments on the Apollo code were known as "Nortran." I remember him showing me a voluminous print-out of such comments, and he made sure that I understood that "we did all this on an electric typewriter, there were no word processors back then!" To everyone's credit, the MIT programmers came around & produced code that fit in to the AGC, and that had very few "anomalies." Paul E. Ceruzzi

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ACM History Committee ---> 2014 Program for Research in ACM History --> deadline 15 January 2014
by Thomas J. Misa 07 Nov '13

07 Nov '13

Hi all, An update on ACM's History Committee activities: 1. We will once again have a research fellowship competition for 2014 (see announcement below). To keep the fellowship program amply funded, ACM HC needs lots of great proposals rolling in . . . so please think about an ACM-related research topic! ACM HC has supported straight-up research projects as well as oral history interviews; dissertation chapters, conference presentations, parts of books . . . . The key for funding is making a meaningful connection to ACM. See list of previous projects <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellows.php> 2. This spring, 21-22 May 2014, ACM HC will sponsor a two-day *archiving* centered workshop at CBI. For further details, please see the call for projects <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_hc_2014.php>. This workshop is aimed at archive projects being <created> by ACM members and also archivists working with ACM related materials --- /not/ at historians who are <using> archives. Please send research-oriented projects to the "research" program instead. 3. In spring/early summer of 2015, ACM HC intends to hold a research-oriented workshop (which had been tentatively scheduled for this spring). Each of the 2013 fellowship winners -- Amy Bix, Irina Nikivincze (Saint Petersburg), Joseph November, and Andrew Russell -- will, in due time, receive an invitation to this 2015 research workshop, as will the winners of the 2014 fellowships. Thanks, Tom Misa ================================== ACM History Committee 2014 Program for Research in ACM History The Association for Computing Machinery, founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest educational and scientific society dedicated to the computing profession, and today has more than 100,000 members around the world. The ACM History Committee is preparing groundwork for a special history workshop in 2015. Aiming at the workshop, we will support research projects related to ACM’s professional and educational activities and/or to ACM’s rich institutional history including its organization, publications, SIG activities, and conferences. We may also support synthetic projects that analyze existing historical research on ACM, identify topics needing future research, and outline themes to illuminate ACM’s nearly seven-decade history. We will support up to four projects with awards of up to $4,000 each. Successful candidates may be of any rank, from graduate students through senior researchers. All awardees must be willing to present their work to a two-day ACM History Committee-sponsored workshop, tentatively scheduled for the late spring or early summer of 2015. Workshop travel, lodging, and meals for that event will be paid by ACM History Committee, in addition to this project award. To Apply: Applicants should send a 2-page CV as well as a 750-word project description that [a] describes the proposed research or synthetic project; [b] identifies the importance of specific ACM historical materials, whether traditional archival collections or online historical materials (oral histories, digitized conference papers, ACM organizational records, et al.); [c] discusses any additional project outcome besides the ACM history workshop (e.g. journal article, book or dissertation chapter, teaching resource, museum exhibit, website); and [d] outlines a timeline for completing the project—including, specifically, your willingness to contribute a 10-page (2500-word) paper to a 2015 ACM history workshop. Workshop papers will be pre-circulated to workshop attendees; revised versions may be published afterwards. In preparing a proposal, applicants should examine the document “ACM Research Materials” posted at <history.acm.org/content.php?do=links> as well as “Sources for ACM History,” CACM 50 #5 (May 2007): 36-41 <doi.acm.org/10.1145/1230819.1230836>. Other materials relating to ACM history may also be used. Applicants should include a letter of endorsement from their home institution or an external scholarly reference. Proposals are due by 15 January 2014. Proposals should be submitted as a single pdf-format document to <history-webmaster(a)acm.org>. Notification of awards will be made within eight weeks. ======================================

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VCF East 2014 speaker line-up -- Part 1
by Evan Koblentz 05 Nov '13

05 Nov '13

Hello SIGCIS, The next edition of Vintage Computer Festival East is scheduled for April 4-6, 2014, once again at the all-volunteer, grassroots InfoAge Science Center, in Wall, New Jersey. This edition will be VCF East "9.1" because we canceled last year's planned 9.0 edition due to lingering impact of Hurricane Sandy. We thought about keeping the 9.0 label, or jumping to 10.0, but mostly we thought 9.1 is funny .... it's the 9.0 edition with bug fixes. So far, the confirmed speakers include: - Paul Lasewicz (IBM's corporate archivist) - Maris Graube (founder of IEEE 802 LAN/MAN committee) - Dave Haynie (Commodore Amiga executive) - Bill Cheswick (Bell Labs firewall pioneer) There will be much more! We're working on a Scelbi activity, a couple of film screenings, a fun AT&T presentation, a really awesome technical workshop, and one more keynote speaker who is MIND-BLOWINGLY FAMOUS. (Sorry, I can't reveal the name yet...) There will also be our hands-on exhibit hall, consignment sale, book sale, museum tours, food, and prizes. Also new this time, all day on Friday April 4, is VCF East University. That's a separate admission event with eight technical classes in hardware/software tracks. We just started posting details; most of the speakers (and schedules) are not yet decided. We expect a couple of dozen exhibitors to start registering around the new year. Our web site is http://www.vintage.org/2014/east and we're social at http://www.facebook.com/vcfeast. This is a hobbyist celebration of computer history, not a professional conference, so anyone in a tie is considered suspicious. However, if SIGCIS members attend, we won't tell anyone what you do for work. :) Local endorsements: SIGCIS's Peter Meyer attended VCF East 8.0 and so enjoyed himself that he joined us afterward for drinks. CHM's Al Kossow and Dag Spicer have also both joyfully attended several VCF events. So: be like Indiana Jones! Exit the library, enter the hands-on laboratory that is the Vintage Computer Festival East. You won't die but you probably will have an exciting adventure.

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CfP: Little Data and the Big Picture (ACLA 2014, NYU, 20-23 March)
by Andrew Russell 04 Nov '13

04 Nov '13

Perhaps of interest to SIGCIS folks? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following call for papers (viewble at http://bit.ly/H79K6q) may be of interest to readers with inclinations to literary studies. "Little Data and the Big Picture: What Everyday Literature Can Do for Comparison" a seminar to be held at the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association New York University 20-23 March 2014 Abstract deadline: 15 November 2013 The broad claims of Big Data hide the continued importance of the specific, individual, and random. This seminar examines the contributions that Comparative Literature has made and can make for understanding the stories that are written and read against the background of “digital humanities,” “new media,” and the “information society.” Prospective participants are invited to problematize these key terms and explore how textual cultures have evolved alongside, been shaped by, and resisted successive fantasies of a data-driven society. There has always been an everyday literature of letters, memos, telegrams, and notes. How are the forms of today’s everyday literature analogous repetitions of past forms and how do they represent something qualitatively different? How do we judge? In some fashion, the papers in this seminar will explore ways that the specific, the particular, the analog, and the banal persist in the face of the general, the aggregate, the digital, and the grand arc. Possible topics include (but are not limited to): Histories and counter-histories of the information society; everyday digital textuality; computer and human languages; networked social media; Tweet poetics; posting addiction; life writing; comparative media and textual cultures; reception; censorship; quantitative historiography; textual geographies; platforms (computer and otherwise); analog/digital tensions; political action; lacunae; interface; objects (virtual and/or tangible); participation and/or non-participation; material and immaterial conditions of reading and writing. Submit a paper proposal at http://www.acla.org/submit (be sure to select "Little Data..." in the Seminar drop-down menu). Learn more about the meeting and its "distinctive structure" at http://www.acla.org/acla2014. Any questions about the seminar, inquiries about topic suitability, or nominations of possible participants may be directed to scott.kushner(a)gmail.com. ___________________________

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