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Entreprises-et-histoire special issue on IT history
by Petri Paju 13 May '11

13 May '11

All, Here’s a recent special issue in a French journal (articles in French and some in English), including articles from well-known authors who are also in our list and from others. (I found this thanks to the latest CBI Newsletter (1/2011), in its page recent publications.) Entreprises et Histoire, De l’informatique aux systèmes d’information dans les grandes entreprises See: http://www.cairn.info/revue-entreprises-et-histoire-2010-3.htm Best, Petri -- Petri Paju, tutkijatohtori, Turun yliopisto -- Ph.D. Researcher, Univ. of Turku http://users.utu.fi/petpaju/ (new article: Computing Close to Iron Curtain: Czechoslovakia and Finland) http://www.ths.fi/bibliography.htm (new)

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Mahoney's "Histories of Computing" now available
by Thomas Haigh 11 May '11

11 May '11

Hello everyone, Earlier this week I received a full set of authors copies of "Histories of Computing," the edited works of Michael S. Mahoney on the history of computing. These were shipped from the Trilateral warehouse, which handles Harvard distribution, so I assume the book can now be ordered. It's priced at $50, which is a little high for an impulse buy but still much more reasonable than the library only pricing you tend to see from Springer or Routledge. I'll also be sure to set aside one or two copies for the SIGCIS book auction in Cleveland later this year. Book details at: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=31145 Buy discounted at: http://www.amazon.com/Histories-Computing-Michael-Sean-Mahoney/dp/product-de scription/0674055683 Flier: http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Mahoney/MahoneyFlier.pdf If you didn't know Mahoney, who died in 2008, you can learn more about him on his website http://www.princeton.edu/~hos/Mahoney/ and on his Princeton University tribute page. https://blogs.princeton.edu/mahoney/. An Eloge from two of his students is reprinted in the book but is also online: http://www.princeton.edu/hos/people/faculty/MahoneyElogeIsis.pdf. Fate moves in mysterious ways - when I first met Mike as a graduate student at Penn in the mid-1990s his book on the history of theoretical computer science was expected to appear soon, following his earlier "The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665." I little suspected that fifteen years later I would find myself charged with pulling together his second book for publication (or indeed that it would be my own first book.) I'm particularly grateful to Bill Aspray, who was the initial editor, for bringing me on board the project. While not the groundbreaking monograph we all hoped Mike would eventually finish, "Histories of Computing" is a nicely produced hardcover volume, including thirteen of Mahoney's papers on the topic from his widely cited 1988 "The History of Computing in the History of Technology" all the way through to his 2010 paper "The Structures of Computation and the Mathematical Structure of Nature." The book is named after my personal favorite, his "The Histories of Computing(s)" which should be required reading any graduate student developing an interest in the field. I grouped the papers into three sections focused on historiography, software engineering, and theoretical computer science. As Mahoney tended to rework material from older papers into new ones it took some editing to strike and appropriate balance between redundancy and completeness, and several papers are represented by extracts. There's also a reasonably hefty historiographic introduction, where I try to summarize the main strands of Mahoney's work, tie together themes that unite those three areas, and put his work in context. During the project I developed a new appreciation for the coherence of his thought across what had initially struck me as a rather eclectic set of topics, and as some of his best papers were published in journals and volumes outside the regular orbit of historians of computing there is real value in seeing the full scope of his work in one place. (Especially as the papers have now been removed from his personal website). His work will remain relevant for a long time to come. We're also hoping to pass the word on to any of his colleagues who knew him from Princeton, history of mathematics, or history of early modern science who might be interested in learning about his other work. My editorial honorarium has been donated directly to the SIGCIS Mahoney Fund, http://www.sigcis.org/mahoney. We now have more than $9,000 in the fund, which will be used primarily to provide ongoing funding in Mike's name for graduate student presenters at the SIGCIS workshop. Best wishes, Tom Haigh www.tomandmaria.com/tom

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] CFP, UK workshop on Information Concepts, Deadline June 17
by Thomas Haigh 11 May '11

11 May '11

Good point. I've never visited Bletchley Park, but had vaguely imagined it to be somewhere in rolling countryside rather than associating it with an urban area. There is now a computing museum there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Museum_of_Computing. Lest I be accused of being too hard on Milton Keynes, I should point out that (according to Wikipedia) it is also home to the National Bowl, a theatre, several music venues, multiple choirs, several professional sports teams, and "In 1981, the main shopping area in the town centre was used as the filming location for the music video to Cliff Richard's hit Wired for Sound." Also "the only unaltered building by the architect and physicist Robert Hooke." Tom -----Original Message----- From: Brian Randell [mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 3:40 PM To: Thomas Haigh Cc: members(a)sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] CFP, UK workshop on Information Concepts, Deadline June 17 On 9 May 2011, at 20:51, Thomas Haigh wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Came across this thanks to the wonders of social networking technology: "The > Difference that Makes a Difference: an interdisciplinary workshop on > information and technology" at the Open University (the UK's pioneer in > distance education). > > Description: http://www.dtmd2011.info/home > CFP: http://www.dtmd2011.info/call-for-papers > > From the program committee there appears to be decent representation of STS > expertise (although the word "impact" has somehow crept into the name of the > final session) but nothing historical there or in the keynote speakers list. > They promise in session 1 to explore the "philosophical underpinnings" of > information, whereas my hunch is that the historical roots would be much > more informative. So perhaps someone can fix that with a submission on the > history of information and its use within particular disciplines. > > The conference is in the Milton Keynes, England from September 7 to > September 9, and the deadline for abstracts is June 17. (Milton Keynes holds > a special place for devotes of post-War urban planning, and though otherwise > largely devoid of interest is not that far from London or Birmingham by > train). Registration is free, which doesn't hurt either and could make this > a cheap outing for those in the region. > > Tom Hi Tom: I must point out that Bletchley Park is within Milton Keyes - and is worth a special journey, not merely a detour (to use a Michelin Guide characterization) to anyone interested in computer history; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park Cheers Brian -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923 FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

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Fw: [inforoots] AT&T and tape recording
by Evan Koblentz 10 May '11

10 May '11

SIGCISers, See the message below. ======================================= Posts to inforoots(a)computerhistory.org is information known to or the opinions of the poster. All posts to inforoots(a)computerhistory.org are archived. By posting to this list you grant a license for use of this material to the Computer History Museum located in Mountain View, California, USA. ======================================= In the May issue of Communications of the ACM is a MUST READ article. It tells how a Bell Labs researcher invented magnetic recording tape and had a six-foot tall answering machine in his office, and how and why AT&T suppressed this invention. As a result, we did not have magnetic recording until after WW II, when we got it from the Germans. -- Herbert Kanner kanner(a)acm.org 650-326-8204 Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer! _______________________________________________ inforoots mailing list inforoots(a)computerhistory.org http:mail.computerhistory.orgmailmanlistinfoinforoots

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New CBI Newsletter (Spring 2011, Vol. 33:1)
by Charles Babbage Institute 10 May '11

10 May '11

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Computer history library in New Jersey
by Evan Koblentz 10 May '11

10 May '11

As part of the Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0 (this weekend - May 14-15), MARCH (Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists) will debut part of its computer history library. The collection includes full (well, mostly full) runs of the first few years of Byte, Compute, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's Journal, SCCS Interface, Interface Age, Kilobaud, and more. We also have the early years of the People's Computer Company newsletter, anthologies of the early years of the West Coast Computer Faire, a large number of machine-specific publications, and early issues of various user group newsletters (some on CD). We also have hundreds of computer books (and related topics) from the 1940s-1980s and a vast assortment of technical manuals and user guides. Our full library will be organized later this year. It will be a reading / research library, not a lending library, except by special permission.

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CFP, UK workshop on Information Concepts, Deadline June 17
by Thomas Haigh 09 May '11

09 May '11

Hello everyone, Came across this thanks to the wonders of social networking technology: "The Difference that Makes a Difference: an interdisciplinary workshop on information and technology" at the Open University (the UK's pioneer in distance education). Description: http://www.dtmd2011.info/home CFP: http://www.dtmd2011.info/call-for-papers >From the program committee there appears to be decent representation of STS expertise (although the word "impact" has somehow crept into the name of the final session) but nothing historical there or in the keynote speakers list. They promise in session 1 to explore the "philosophical underpinnings" of information, whereas my hunch is that the historical roots would be much more informative. So perhaps someone can fix that with a submission on the history of information and its use within particular disciplines. The conference is in the Milton Keynes, England from September 7 to September 9, and the deadline for abstracts is June 17. (Milton Keynes holds a special place for devotes of post-War urban planning, and though otherwise largely devoid of interest is not that far from London or Birmingham by train). Registration is free, which doesn't hurt either and could make this a cheap outing for those in the region. Tom

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PhD Bursaries at Bangor
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 03 May '11

03 May '11

Please alert anyone who might benefit / Por favor informar a sus estudiantes Thanks / Saludos Bernardo Bangor University Bangor Business School PhD Scholarships Bangor Business School is inviting applications for Research Bursaries starting in October 2011. This provides three years of support for full-time PhD study. Each PhD bursary provides a total annual allowance of £13,000. Bursary holders are required to pay fees and contribute around 100 hours teaching and/or research support per annum focused on a supervisor / research team as part of their development as an academic of the future. Bangor Business School is encouraging applications for specific research interests in the Financial Studies and Business and Management domains. As part of your application, we require applicants to submit a research proposal and review of the salient literature in one of the stipulated research areas. Normally, the preferred applicant will have gained distinction at masters level (or be demonstrating culpable evidence of being able to achieve this) and have an IELTS score of 7.0 or equivalent. http://www.bangor.ac.uk/business/academic/crs_postgrad/scholarships.php.en?…

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Photos, etc. related to UCSD Pascal
by William McMillan 29 Apr '11

29 Apr '11

Greetings, all. Some work I did a while ago on UCSD Pascal is the basis for an upcoming article in IEEE Spectrum. They'd like to have interesting illustrations, so I sent them links to various images out on the web. Besides sometimes thorny copyright issues (thanks, Tom Haigh, for you recent comments on those), most images on the web are too low-res. I searched the CBI and Computer History Museum archives and found some manuals and the like, but not much that looks useful as illustrations. I haven't asked Apple yet (they distributed UCSD Pascal as Apple Pascal). I'm in touch with Ken Bowles, the leader of the UCSD Pascal project, and have asked him what he might have. I'll also be getting in touch with other early participants in the work. Do any of you have suggestions about where I might find some good graphics for this article? Thanks. Bill

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Event Summary articlepublished: Paul Allen on MSFT then and Now at CHM
by Alan J Weissberger 28 Apr '11

28 Apr '11

http://viodi.com/2011/04/27/paul-allen-on-microsoft-then-and-now/ Please comment in the box below the article Thanks Alan J Weissberger, ScD IEEE ComSoc SCV Chairman Google voice: 650 469 3159 www.comsocscv.org

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