What in heaven would be the purport of such claim? Computers were not only expensive, they involved major investments, certainly machines the size of Pegasus. Hence, the legitimation for making such investment was seldomly
How the machine was in fact used, once installed, is much harder to reconstruct. Did the administrative support staff actually get to use the computer or were they pushed out by the scientific computers from the laboratory departments. Were management scientists favored before the statisticians and the down to earth daily bookkeeping? In the incidental case where a logbook is preserved, or where a very early computing center kept statistics, one may be able to tell something about who was using the machine. So, what could be the meaning of "dedicated to"? Was that "dedicated" on
Say, if anyone in SIG-CIS is interested in sharing a room to reduce the costs of attending SHOT, feel free to let me know. I'll be happy to match folks. (Please indicate what dates you will be staying / already have a room booked for.) Best wishes, - Atsushi ===================================== Atsushi Akera Associate Professor, Department of Science and Technology Studies Director, First Year Studies Program--Sage 5206 Rensselaer Polytechnic institute 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180 USA ph: 518.279.9708/fx:518.276-2659/e:akeraa@rpi.edu /w: http://www.rpi.edu/~akeraa -----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Medina, Eden Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 1:38 PM To: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science I knew this was the right group to ask. I too agree with the comments being made and thank everyone for their thoughts on how best to address the claim. Additional responses can be sent to me off list unless their is extensive interest in this topic. To bring some closure to the topic I may have found a very easy way to address Beer's statement. It seems that the Pegasus machine he referred to was split between United Steel and Sheffield University, thus throwing into doubt claims that it was entirely dedicated to management science. Again, thanks for the help. Eden ________________________________________ From: Joel West [joelwest@ieee.org] Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 1:17 PM To: Medina, Eden; members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] computers and management science Dear Eden, I share many of Gerard's concerns about the unmeasurability of such claims and even how dubious making them might be. (I also agree with Tom that "management science" is too vague -- does he possibly mean operations research?) However, as a positivist (are there any others on this list?) I am inclined to take the claim at face value and see what they might mean. So while "first" is likely unprovable, I do think it would be interesting to say "most computers were bought to do payroll or missile trajectories and this one was bought to do management science." I suspect it would be relatively easy to document the "typical" motivation or application for computers in the era, even if the actual use (post hoc) is not easily measured. (Ideally, you'd want a list of who had login accounts, and if necessary assume each used their account proportionately). But in some ways, the inputs question is less interesting than the outputs question. If Beer was the first boy in the invisible college of his discipline to have a new toy, what did he do with it? Is there any evidence that this strategic foresight (or dumb luck) enabled him to advance his field in ways that his less-endowed rivals could not? I would find it terribly interesting if Beer has the best computing power but the major advances in numerical approaches to management science were being made elsewhere. IIRC, the field's major scientific prize (originally from ORSA, now INFORMS) is named after a mathematician who made his most important contributions before these sorts of computers existed. Joel On 6:25 PM +0200 7/17/09, Alberts, G. hath said: based on the single use for one field of application, or rather for one department in an enterprise or university. Historians usually can trace the considerations leading to the actual purchase in the company archives. Also one may be able to guess where (in which subdepartment) the first initiative to such deep investment in modernizing business originated. the level of legitimation of the purchase, or was it "dedicated" in terms of seconds and minutes of use of the system? Let alone that we could judge the claim of "entirely" or even "first".
Rather, to us historians being aware of inclusion and exclusion mechanisms
around the use of computers, simply power struggles if you will, the claim of "dedicated entirely" made in a first person account has a clear intent. Other users, other interested parties, were succesfully made invisible, at least in the account of the "management science" department. Probably bookkkeeping use didnot count, or was counted under management science in the first place, etcetera.
Rather than investigating the claim, my suggestion would be to investigate
the fact that such claim was made, when and by whom. On 11:11 AM -0400 7/17/09, Medina, Eden wrote:
I am hoping that your collective wisdom might help me check out a claim. The British cybernetician Stafford Beer claims that the Ferranti Pegasus 1 machine he bought in 1956 was the only computer at that time dedicated entirely to applications in management science. Do you know of any other examples of computers fully dedicated to management science applications during this time period?
-- Joel West, Ph.D. http://www.JoelWest.org/ Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship College of Business, San Jose State University BT 555, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0070 _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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