Hello Reg,
I think your topic is important, but must admit to doubts regarding the way you framed the thesis. It is not so much that I disagree with the idea that the System/360 was a wonderful achievement, but you draw the claim so broadly that it can’t legitimately be evaluated: “a definitive manifestation of the best of historical humanity and humanities, and it has continued to develop in a definitive role as part of our shared humanity, now and into the unforeseeable future.”
To mention one issue, to sustain your argument you would have to demonstrate foreknowledge of the “unforeseeable future” which is by definition impossible. You also would run into problems from readers who challenge your assertion that an architecture devised by white men to serve the military industrial complex and corporate administration, etc. has a “definitive role in our shared humanity.” I don’t think your thesis needs to assert the inherent primary worth of certain activities over others to make a contribution.
So perhaps something more tightly drawn might work better? For example, if you wanted to focus on the technical and infrastructural legacy of the /360 you might argue, “The System/360 has a complex and underappreciated technological legacy, and the decisions made by its designers shaped taken for granted aspects of our digital world such as A, B and C. Without it, our lives would be very different.”
Or if you wanted to focus on the digital humanities side, you might write, “Although the importance of the System/360 to business data processing, scientific computation, and the evolution of systems software are well established, in this thesis I will argue that its contributions to the development of scholarship in the humanities are just as important. I focus particularly on A, B, and C. Without such accomplishments, the digital humanities movement would never have existed.”
Those are still very ambitious claims, but they are better aligned with what your research might plausibly be able to show and would not raise hackles.
Best wishes,
Tom
From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Reg Harbeck
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2020 2:38 PM
To: ggrider@lanl.gov; members@lists.sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] [EXTERNAL] Introduction and Humanity and the IBM System/360-descended mainframe
Thank you, Gary. This is an angle I could perhaps spend more time thinking about than I have so far. I appreciate the recommendation!
- Reg Harbeck
On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 19:33:36 +0000, "Grider, Gary Alan" <ggrider@lanl.gov> wrote:
Interesting thesis topic. If you trace 360 back a bit further I think you will find that the 360 descended in some degree from Stretch or at least what was learned from Stretch.
Since I walk by the building built for Stretch at Los Alamos every day, While I am not sure that the Cold War represents the best in humanity, it is a slightly different angle to your quest.
Not sure if the Stretch 360 predecessor adds to your humanities angle but much has been written about the Stretch project and the people involved were a bit of a who’s who in Computing of that era.
Gary Grider
LANL
Hello, SIGCIS. I am happy to have joined your listserv and be in such excellent company.
I've joined this listserv at the recommendation of Dr. Willard McCarty, founder of the Humanist listserv, which I've also joined, and for the same reason:
I'm working on my second draft of my thesis for my Master of Arts (Interdisciplinary Humanities) with a subject of the humanity of the IBM System/360-descended mainframe.
I've been working on that platform since 1987, the year both of these listservs were founded, as a technologist and, more recently, ecosystem enabler. You can see what I've been up to if you Google "Reg Harbeck" "mainframe" - lots of both technical and cultural content.
My research, experience, and perhaps predisposition, lead me to believe that the best of our human and humanities history were brought to bear in the development and announcement of IBM's System/360 mainframe on April 7, 1964. Prior to that, everything from the lessons of deep history (e.g. "measure twice, cut once" and other established practical and philosophical principles), more recent history (e.g. Jacquard, Babbage, WW II, Turing, Von Neumann, Fr. Roberto Busa, etc.), and input from experience and experienced users (e.g. the SHARE user group, founded in August of 1955 - still alive at SHARE.org) from the first two decades of electronic computing, funnelled into the design and creation of this system.
Since then, while the actual platform was used by people studying the humanities, including the humanity of computing, until more autonomous systems became generally available, its further advances were more driven by the practical needs of serving humanity - especially business - than by philosophical considerations.
Today, the modern mainframe descended from S/360, aka IBM Z, runs the world economy, with the large majority of credit card, financial, tax, and other government and business data of record. But most personal computing happens on other platforms - for now. But Moore's Law has ended, and the world is refocusing from novelty to sustainability, just on time for this same mainframe platform to become an increasingly evident option for quality cloud services.
All of which leads to my request from this list: I'm still trying to tie the threads together well enough to ensure my thesis statement is logically supportable by the data I've put together, and my current version of that statement, still somewhat in flux, is something like, "The IBM System/360 mainframe and its successors are a definitive manifestation of the best of historical humanity and humanities, and it has continued to develop in a definitive role as part of our shared humanity, now and into the unforeseeable future."
So I would be most grateful if anyone has any publications or other sources they can recommend that speak specifically to these origins and this journey. While I have gathered a great deal of data so far, I'd rather have the same thing recommended to me multiple times than miss an important document that could be the missing link in my thinking.
Thank you all so much for reading and considering this, and for your anticipated responses.
- Reg Harbeck
Reg@Harbeck.ca
+1.403.605.7986