The Reviews Department features reviews of films, audio and videotapes, exhibits, and publications relating to the history of computing. Full-length studies of any technical, economic, business, social, or institutional aspect of the history of computing will be given a complete review. Dissertations, articles, and other studies of interest to Annals readers will be listed in a section on "Other Literature," with full bibliographic citation and notes on its nature and availability. Colleagues are encouraged to participate by indicating their wish to review a work or by suggesting titles to the Reviews Editor. Reviews without a byline are by the editor. It is the first evening of the 1976 ACM National Conference. The Great Grosch is sitting at a round table in a bar alcove surrounded by admiring youths of all sexes. With a glass of wine in one hand and a computing cutie on the other, Grosch TALKS, and TALKS, and TALKS. He tells fascinating Rabelaisian intimate stories of his adventures. He philosophises. He comments on the present, the past, and the future. He criticizes and tells what he would have done. He names names. He tells of his own and others' triumphs and disasters. There is one common element in. all the stories: Grosch. This is the entirely imaginary scene that this extremely entertaining book brought to mind for it is more an extended and detailed confession in the form of a collection of well-told stories than a history. Clearly the author did not rely entirely on his memory, keen as it may be, and has made use of voluminous personal files. The book would have benefited from a strong minded and ruthless editor with two rubber stamps, STICK TO THE POINT, and PUT THIS IN PROPER TIME SEQUENCE , which he (or she) would have had to bang all over Grosch's manuscript. The ordinary reader will become confused at once about the chronology of the story for the first seven chapters are deliberately disordered so the reader will be attracted by all the great names and events mentioned. More order prevails in later chapters but even here the narrative is repeatedly interrupted as the author jumps forward and back in time as new subjects come into his mind. This disorder, while disturbing to the ordinary reader and troublesome to a historian looking for nuggets of truth, is probably characteristic of the author whose quick and agile mind can …
The study from which the article paper grew examines software developers and related occupational groups. One of the first areas of interest that emerged in the course of the study dealt with the question of professionalization within the various occupational groups. One early observation was that those working in information technology development held a peculiar attitude toward the history of software development, specifically, an ahistorical orientation. Further examination of this ahistorical orientation has led to two considerations: 1) people who are interested in forming into a profession of developers are going to find it very difficult, if not impossible to create a community of professionals among software developers; 2) traditional historiography is inadequate for the analysis of the history of this technology and the people associated with it. The paper argues that the problem of creating an occupational community is related to a set of problems involved in writing the history of software development. It begins with a general discussion of professions and professionalization, followed by a focus on one element of the occupational world of software developers: their orientation to the past-their history. The discussion then moves to a consideration of some of the larger implications arising from the analysis
Punched-card machines were in a number of ways predecessors to computers. The punched-card technique was invented in the United States in the 1880s by Herman Hollerith, who continued development for another two decades. His firm later became the main component of IBM. Only two main competitors to Hollerith emerged, Powers in the United States and Bull first in Norway and later in France. This article covers the development of the Bull machines in the Norwegian period, 1918- 1930.
This Department is concerned with keeping our readers up to date with the activities of museums and archives concerned with the history of computing. [A major survey of these activities appeared in Volume 10 Number 4, and updates appeared in the last issue of volumes 11 and 12.] Readers, particularly those involved in museum or archive work, are urged to contact the editor with information, suggestions, or comments related to this Department. The following report their activities: Musee National des Techniques, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; Charles Babbage Institute (Unisys Donates Burroughs Historical Records); and Digital Equipment Corporation's Historical Collection Program.
The WEIZAC was built for the Applied Mathematics Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel during 1954-1955. It is an early example of successful technology transfer, with the design of the von Neumann machine moving from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. WEIZAC's existence, its intense application to physical problems and the cadres trained in digital hardware, software and computational methods opened a market of concepts and practices outside of the United States and Europe. The author, who worked on and directed the WEIZAC project, discusses its history, results, and impact.
Requirement specifications for the guidance of researchers in collecting and recording the history of computing have been sought by many persons during our 12 year history as a journal. While there does not exist a definitive outline which covers all aspects of the field, the set of guidelines created for the first History of Programming Languages Conference in 1976 have been used by many researchers, authors, and editors. This set of questions, primarily targeted toward those who were involved in the very history which they are recording and reporting on, has been revised and expanded by the program committee of the proposed second History of Programming Languages Conference, scheduled for 1993.
A detailed and exemplified account is given on the invention and development of the Hollerith Punched Card from the beginning in 1886 until 1928. The change of use from counting to value statistics is shown. The size of the Hollerith Punched Card was standardized very early. The cards were soon used both for data capture and data punching - the dual purpose punched card. The first Hollerith cards were punched with a conductor's punch, soon be replaced by the Pantograph Punch, and, after the decimal columns have appeared, a Mechanical Key Punch, the Type 001, later replaced by the Electrical Key Punch Type 011, was used.
A memorandum dated April 27, 1942, from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, is reproduced. The memorandum describes a computing facility at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, in which a team of humans equipped with mechanical calculators was organized to assist in aeronautics research. The memorandum reveals much about the state of computing as it existed just before the invention of automatic digital computers, whose introduction would bring this era to a close.
Charles Babbage designed Difference Engine No. 2 between 1846 and 1848. Contemporary drawings illustrate a machine - never built during his lifetime - that calculates and tabulates polynomials, printing results in hard copy and producing stereotype molds for plates intended for use in conventional printing presses. This article describes construction of the first complete physical realization of a full Babbage engine design and outlines Babbage's ambitions for this advanced engine.
The Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories have been important sponsors of, and customers for, supercomputers-high-performance scientific computers. The laboratories played an important part in establishing speed of floating-point arithmetic (rather than, say, at logical operations) as the performance criterion defining supercomputing. But their more specific influence on the evolution of computer architecture has been limited by the diversity and classified nature of their central computational tasks, together with the expansion of supercomputer use elsewhere.
This paper describes some factors in, approaches to, and specific elements of, programming language history. It first lists a number of general factors and approaches which can be used to discuss the history of programming languages. After presenting a life cycle for programming language development, it provides numerous illustrations of programming language history and chronology from many of the viewpoints indicated earlier. There is a brief discussion of relevant literature and a section indicating some of the reasons for the vast proliferation of programming languages. Various charts and lists are included. This paper should be viewed as one approach to considering the history of programming languages, rather than as a history of programming languages per se.
During the years between the World Wars aviation became established as a credible form of transport. Airmail delivery and passenger service gained acceptance with the civilian population, while aircraft for observation, transport, and combat roles were adopted by military and naval forces. A pre-requisite to routine air travel was the development of reliable methods of aerial navigation. In addition to new navigational techniques and instruments, numerous computational aids were developed to simplify the aerial navigator's work. Highly specialized computational aids were also developed to assist military aviators in performing aerial gunnery and bombardment. The following article describes a few of these devices, with special attention given to the mechanical analog computers used in military aircraft during World War II.
This paper reviews the introduction of factory concepts and practices, based on tools and methods from the evolving field of software engineering, at major software producers, in particular those that explicitly adopted the factory label to describe their software facilities or approach to software development: Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu in Japan, as well as System Development Corporation in the United States. The other United States firm discussed in detail is International Business Machines, which, without adopting the factory label, introduced numerous measures to organize and control software development, especially basic software. The paper emphasizes that the difficulty of the technology, shortages of skilled engineers, and large-scale projects have encouraged producers to become more systematic or factory-like in managing a series of projects, even though some characteristics of the technology and the industry have made software seem difficult to control and more suitable to a loosely structured project-centered or craft approach to development.
Babbage is noted for his technical, belatedly recognized, triumphs of computational technology; his personality has been the subject of scrutiny by several authors. Towards his end of life he is said to have wished that he could exchange the remainder of his life for three days in the future. This play provides us with the opportunity to step back to his day and to see the man separate (as far as he would allow) from his machines. That we could grant his wish...
This department attempts to help people think about the history of computing in new ways, through the mechanism of questions, with answers on a separate page - thus permitting the reader to do self-testing. The answers list source material for further self-study on topics relating to the questions. Occasionally some questions will be used that have either no answers or controversial answers.
The Happenings department reports on past, present,and future events that are of interest to the history of computing. These events include conferences, appropriate sessions from meetings, exhibits, projects, awards, publications, collections, general memorabilia, and important dates in the history of computing. Contributions to the department are encouraged, and should consist of a description or report of the event, highlighting its specific relevance. Sections are titlesd: John Backus, Developer of Fortran, Receives the Charles Stark Draper Prize; Retired IBM Scientist John Cocke Wins Medal of Science; and Computer Pioneer Award: Willis Ware
