Dear Bernard, Telly Tympas and myself happened to have presented a paper on aspects of the history of display of calculating and related artifacst at World Fairs (it has been published as: Aristotle Tympas and Theodore Lekkas, "Certainties and Doubts in World Fair Comparisons of Computing Artifacts", in East and West: The Common European Heritage, XXV Scientific Instrument Symposium Proceedings, Ewa Wyka, Maciej Kluza, Anna Karolina Zawada (editors), Jagiellonian University Museum, Krakow, Poland, 2006, 295-300. (I would gladly sent you a copy if you want to look at it and you have difficulties finding the book). Telly had a stored box with archival material from research on the history of display of computers at several World Fairs, to which I have added references from the secondary literature. If you want something more specific, I could go back and check that stored box. Best, Theodore Lekkas

Hi SIGCIS members, I'm doing some research on the 20th century exhibition of computers, particularly in the form of automata and televised calculating machines. I'd like to look for some historical precedents, though. Does anyone know of any works discussing the exhibition of calculating machines from the 17th through the 19th century? For example, in the 19th century calculating machines were sent to at least one World's Fair, and in in the 18th c. von Kempelen's chess playing Turk inspired popular speculations and exciting about thinking machines, etc. Thanks for your help. Bernard

Bernard Geoghegan Doctoral Candidate, Program in Screen Cultures, Northwestern University Institute Visitor, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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