Hello Julie,
You may wish to add a footnote to
your speech about the history of software.
In 1972, François Gernelle
and a team of electronics engineers, working for a small company called
R2E,
designed a program to support the logic of Intel's
untested 8008 microprocessor.
It was intended to
run the Micral, an electronic calculator for which Gernelle coined the term
"microcomputer".
In www.feb-patrimoine.com/.../micral/micral_gernelle_toulouse.doc he
explains in great detail - in French - the basics of the operating system.
This constitutes the birth certificate of the PC.
Two of the engineers who participated in the program
gave me a short memo about their contribution.
The Micral was successfully sold to government
agencies and to private companies.
In 1974, an upgraded version was
demonstrated without success at the National Computer Conference in
Chicago.
The director of 'Popular Electronics' picked
up the advertising material outlining the technical specifications.
He gave
it to Ed Roberts, the owner of a small hardware store, and asked him to put
together a do-it-yourself kit. They named it Altair.
Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak used the kit to build their first Apple. Bill Gates and
Paul Allen wrote the software.
The rest is history.
For several years, R2E had a world monopoly. Badly
managed, the company went bankrupt and was taken over by
Bull.
Gernelle set up his own company, but did not have the
financial resources to compete with the multinationals.
For several years, he
served as consultant, before retirng to cultivate his vinyard.
Best wishes,
Armand
Armand Van
Dormael
33A
Drève de la Meute
1410
Waterloo
Belgium
Tel/fax :+32 2 3549663
a.vandormael@skynet.be
--------------------------------------------------
From: "julie
hugsted" <jhugsted@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 4:50
PM
To: <members@sigcis.org>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] software
history/historiography?
> Hello fellow sigcis'ers,
>
> I
currently work on a speech for the Danish Society for the History of
>
Technology. My working title is 'Software - the historical study of an
>
immaterial technology', and I attempt to a) give an introduction to
> the
field, software history, and b) discuss the challenges of working
> with
software history.
>
> I know of this very comprehensive
bibliography of software history
>
(http://www.cbi.umn.edu/research/shbib.pdf - thanks to those who made
>
it!!) and I think that I have an overall good overview of the
>
litterature on the subject.
>
> Nervetheless, I figure that some of
you might have a favourite
> article, a must-read suggestion or have just
worked with the matter of
> software history and historiographical
challenges? If this is the
> case, please, do not hesitate to send me
suggestions for further
> reading, - I prefer a suggestion that I might
already have thought of,
> than no suggestion at all!
>
>
Thank you very much, have a joyfull Monday
>
> The best
regards
>
> Julie
>
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