Hi SIGCIS-Members,

 

I just wanted to thank everyone I didn't get a chance to respond to earlier for their very helpful and thought-provoking posts in reply to my query.

 

Pierre Mounier-Kuhn, thanks for the reference to FH Raymond's memoirs published in 1989 in the Annals of the History of Computing ("SEA: An Adventure with a Sad Ending"). I also really like the subsidiary questions you posed regarding theoretical work: To what extent were theoretical studies of digital networks extensions of studies about data flows within a computer (queuing problems, etc.), and what were the radically novel problems raised by digital network design?

 

Allan Olley, thanks for pointing to the two fiction works ("A Logic Named Joe" and 1954's Year of Consent), plus the mention of WWII tech of converting punch cards into teletype.

 

Brian Berg, thanks for the link to the IEEE Milestone proposal for the SSEM with all the detailed documentation.

Emily Goodmann, thanks for the reference to the 1934 John Mills article "Communication with Electrical Brains" in Bell Telephone Quarterly.

Brian E Carpenter, thanks for the pointer to Williams and Kilburn's 1948 letter to Nature.

Willard McCarty, thanks for all the great citations.

Marc Weber, thanks for the link to the Computer History Museum's "Revolution" exhibition and Jim Pelkey's History of Computer Communications (currently being updated).

Doug