Fascinating, at Los Alamos our streets are named after islands that don’t exist anymore.

 

Gary Grider

LANL

 

From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Marc Weber <marc@webhistory.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 at 3:30 PM
To: "Schmitt, Martin" <martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de>, "members@lists.sigcis.org" <members@lists.sigcis.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Vint Hill Farms, VA

 

Not quite computing names but CERN, the huge high-energy physics research lab where the Web was created, has a lot of streets named after physicists – Einstein Drive, Rutherford Way, and so on as I recall. It also has a long and significant history of computer research beyond the Web. 

 

An under-appreciated sacred site in computing is the Dollis Hill Post Office research station in North London, where Churchill had a communications bunker, Tommy Flowers and his team worked on Colossus, ERNIE was created to generate lottery numbers, and Sam Fedida developed videotex – of which Minitel was the most successful variant. The research station has been turned into condos today, but you can walk around the outside. 

 

Best, Marc

 

Marc Weber  |   marc@webhistory.org  |   +1 415 282 6868 | Zoom 901 292 1071

Curatorial Director, Internet History Program

Computer History Museum, 1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043

computerhistory.org/nethistory  |  Co-founder, Web History Center and Project

 

 

On Oct 26, 2020, at 15:57, Schmitt, Martin <martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:

 

The quarter of the computer pioneers! The story of the area formerly used by state surveillance reminds me a little bit of the bunker sold by the German military to a Dutch business man to operate his dark net activities in the German province: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/the-cold-war-bunker-that-became-home-to-a-dark-web-empire

 

The Cold War left us with some fascinating infrastructure around.

 

In Germany, many streets are named after Konrad Zuse by the way. To my knowledge, none of them crosses a Gottfried Leibniz Street.

 

 

Best

Martin


Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter | Post-Doc | digital enthusiast

Technische Universität Darmstadt

Institut für Geschichte

Fachgebiet Technikgeschichte

Mail: martin.schmitt@tu-darmstadt.de

Tel: +49  6151-16-57327
http://www.computerisierung.com

&

Assoziierter Wissenschaftler
LEIBNIZ-ZENTRUM FÜR ZEITHISTORISCHE FORSCHUNG | POTSDAM 

Vice Chair IFIP WG 9.7 „History of computing"

Zuletzt erschienen: Leslie, Christopher und Martin Schmitt (eds.): Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe, Cham: Springer International Publishing 2019 (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology 549), https://www.springer.com/978-3-030-29159-4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Am 26.10.2020 um 23:20 schrieb Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP@si.edu>:

 

I wrote about this a few years ago, but many of you haven't heard of this. Vint Hill Farms was for many years a listening post for intercepting foreign radio transmissions, including some that were of crucial significance during the Second World War. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Hill_Farms_Station>

 

After it was decommissioned in 1997 the NSA "sanitized" the property and turned it over to commercial and other government uses. <https://vinthill.com/>.

 

The reason I mention this is that a housing development on one corner of the property has some interesting names of streets:

Cray Drive, Osborne Drive, Sutherland Court, Shugart Court, Auerbach Court, Hillis Court, Wilkes Court, Wirth Lane, Macintosh Drive, Sholes Court [?], von Neumann Circle, and Aiken Drive, and Eckert Court. 

 

Last time I visited, I asked the real estate agents who came up with the names, but they did not know. The property has an extensive web site, but I did not see any clues there either, unless I missed something.  I really wanted to know:  which Eckert--Wallace or Presper?

 

Do we have a real estate developer lurking among us? 

 

Paul Ceruzzi


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