From bbl4 at btinternet.com Thu Aug 14 03:25:07 2008
From: bbl4 at btinternet.com (Bernardo Batiz-Lazo)
Date: Thu Aug 14 06:26:01 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Computers in banking @ Bordeaux
Message-ID: <717137.47539.qm@web86602.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Dear all,
We are happy to inform of further developments around computers in banking enthusiasts.
Following the very successful meetings at Aachen and more recently at Bordeux (which proceeded thanks to the financial support respectively of RWTH Aachen University and the Maison des Sciences de L'Homme D'Aquitane and GRETHA-Universite Montesquieu-Bordeaux 4), we are now in a position to expect a first draft by November 1st 2008 of the documents below.
Abstracts - http://sigcis.org/?q=node/9
01) Mechanisation or not? Postal Savings in Japan by Katalin Ferber
02) The development of the use of accounting machines in French banks from the 1920s to the 1950s by Hubert Bonin
03) Expanding Business, Scarcity of Workforce and Technical Progress ? The Case of German Savings Banks (sbs) in 20th century by Paul Thomes
04) Making Space for Computers in the Business of Banking: Barclays and Britain in the 1960s by Ian Martin
05) Britain?s National Giro, 1965-1977: Computerized Nationalism? by Mark Billings and Alan Booth
06) Organisational Change and the Computerisation of British and Spanish Savings Banks, circa 1950-1985 by B. B?tiz-Lazo and J. Carles Maix?-Alt?s
07) Automation in Mexican Financial Services: 1950-2007. by Gustavo del Angel
08) Banks as Partners in IT Innovation : A Study of the French Case by Pierre Mounier-Khun
10) Networks, Boundaries, and Gateways: The Visa Payment by Dave Stearns
11) Computarisation of Rabobank - Joke Moij
12) Computers, Banks and Big Business by Lars Haide
kind regards
Paul Thomes (RWTH-AACHEN);
J. Carles Maixe-Altes (A Coru~a);
Bernardo Batiz-Lazo (Leicester)
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From bbl4 at btinternet.com Sat Aug 16 00:18:11 2008
From: bbl4 at btinternet.com (Bernardo Batiz-Lazo)
Date: Sat Aug 16 03:19:09 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Computers in banking @ Halifax
Message-ID: <237256.74576.qm@web86603.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
A note to those interested in the history of IBM or computers in banking, you might want to get a hold of
Barrow, Richard?(2006) Fifty More Years of the Halifax 1953-2003, Halifax: HBOS & Richard Barrow?
ISBN 13: 9780955298301It is available through Amazon on both sides of the pond.
?
This is a personal but detailed account of the computerization of the Halifax Building Society (the largest mortgage specialists in the UK for much of the 20th century).?His memory?was?helped by unfettered access to the?historical records at HBOS in Edinburgh. Style and tone are rather colloquial but there are a number of 'pearls of wisdom' as well as?an insight into management thinking?and events that will not be available?otherwise (as HBOS has a 30 year closure period policy for its records).
?
Halifaxwas unique not only because of its size but also given that it built its own systems based on?IBM assembler. They never?(or?only by exception) purchase 'of the shelf'. Instead their policy was to 'build from scratch' and their motto?was "anyone would be fire if they bought IBM".?Barrow?tells of different encounters in which top management was assaulted by 'Big Blue' but always decided in favour of the in house team.?
?
I have recently interviewed Barrow and will be posting the transcript within the sigcis website, where he clarifies details around the deployment of ATM technology.
Best,
Bernardo
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From thaigh at computer.org Sat Aug 16 04:35:42 2008
From: thaigh at computer.org (Thomas Haigh)
Date: Sat Aug 16 07:36:41 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] SIGCIS Grad student travel funding for SHOT -
apply now
Message-ID: <005a01c8ff94$37e86940$a7b93bc0$@org>
Hello everyone,
You may remember that we raised a little bit of money at the last meeting,
which the SIGCIS Executive Committee decided to earmark for support of
graduate students presenting at the meeting. We'd originally decided to
limit this to official SIGCIS sponsored panels, but unfortunately our
grad-student heavy panel was rejected despite being a very strong proposal.
So we decided to broaden things out and offer our tiny $600 fund as support
to any existing SIGCIS members who are graduate student and presenting at
SHOT. It seems from the program that there are a decent number of such
people.
The amount of money involved is quite small (max $300 per person, but very
probably less) so it seemed excessive to charter a new committee and force
people to submit a fancy application form. On the other hand it would be
arbitrary for us to pick people without information on other funding sources
(including SHOT), etc. So our stroke of genius was to get the main SHOT
committee for graduate student funding to agree to make decisions on
additional funding based on the mass of information you already supplied and
their knowledge of how much money they already awarded.
If you are interested, please email me and say so by August 22nd. YOU HAVE
TO DO THIS EVEN THOUGH YOU ALREADY FILLED THE FORM IN FOR SHOT. However you
don't need to send any other info. I will then collate the names, and
assuming there are more than two people interested I will pass them onto the
main SHOT grad student travel grant committee so they can figure out who
gets what.
(If for some reason you didn't apply for the SHOT money then let me know
anyway and I'll figure out what to do).
We'll be aiming to raise more money at the meeting to pay for next year's
travel assistance, including a continuation of last year's successful book
auction and our traditional passing of the money bowl. Thanks to all those
who contributed in DC.
Best wishes,
Tom
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From bbl4 at btinternet.com Mon Aug 18 01:43:47 2008
From: bbl4 at btinternet.com (Bernardo Batiz-Lazo)
Date: Mon Aug 18 04:44:46 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Re: Computers in banking @ Halifax
Message-ID: <497180.51957.qm@web86602.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Further to my previous message, copies of the book below can only be purchased directly from the author (at ?12 pounds each plus pp)
RicBarrow@aol.com [RicBarrow@aol.com]
Fern House, Old Lane, Ripponden HX6 4PA.
I do apologize for the misinformation
Kind regards
Bernardo
----- Original Message ----
Subject: Computers in banking @ Halifax
A note to those interested in the history of IBM or computers in banking, you might want to get a hold of
?
Barrow, Richard?(2006) Fifty More Years of the Halifax 1953-2003, Halifax: HBOS & Richard Barrow?
ISBN 13: 9780955298301
?It is available through Amazon on both sides of the pond.
?
This is a personal but detailed account of the computerization of the Halifax Building Society (the largest mortgage specialists in the UK for much of the 20th century).?His memory?was?helped by unfettered access to the?historical records at HBOS in Edinburgh . Style and tone are rather colloquial but there are a number of 'pearls of wisdom' as well as?an insight into management thinking?and events that will not be available?otherwise (as HBOS has a 30 year closure period policy for its records).
?
Halifaxwas unique not only because of its size but also given that it built its own systems based on?IBM assembler. They never?(or?only by exception) purchase 'of the shelf'. Instead their policy was to 'build from scratch' and their motto?was "anyone would be fire if they bought IBM".?Barrow?tells of different encounters in which top management was assaulted by 'Big Blue' but always decided in favour of the in house team.?
?
I have recently interviewed Barrow and will be posting the transcript within the sigcis website, where he clarifies details around the deployment of ATM technology.
?
Best,
Bernardo
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From thaigh at computer.org Mon Aug 18 05:08:54 2008
From: thaigh at computer.org (Thomas Haigh)
Date: Mon Aug 18 08:09:56 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] SIGCIS Secretary Needed.
Message-ID: <008601c9012b$311a04a0$934e0de0$@org>
Hello everyone,
SIGCIS has a vacancy for secretary. Joline Zepchevski, our hard working
secretary in 2006 and 2007, has had to resign to spend more time on her
dissertation.
The duties are fairly light, and mostly involve taking care of our members.
There is no pay.
As described on our website http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/6 the
responsibilities are as follows
Secretary
. Administer the SIGCIS email lists (including maintain and enforcing the
acceptable use policy).
. Edit material on the SIGCIS website dealing with the SIG and its
activities.
. Maintain and develop bylaws and other policy documents as needed.
. Maintain the SIG's online membership directory, reviewing and editing
entries as needed.
. Produce the lists of attendees and interests for the SIG's annual
meetings.
. Welcome new members to the SIG and create accounts as needed.
. Take minutes at Executive Committee meetings.
You would also be a member of the Executive Committee, and be well placed to
contribute to the institutional development of the history of computing as
an increasingly visible and diverse subdiscipline. Additional creative
contributions to the SIGCIS blog, online resources, etc. would be very
welcome. Over the next year or two we expect to add at least one prize,
expand our travel award program and begin to schedule a symposium in
conjunction with the SHOT annual meeting. It's an exciting time and the SIG
is growing up fast.
The ideal secretary would combine reliability and an eye for detail with an
outgoing personality. As you'd be interacting with the history of computing
community all over the world you would have a chance to raise your profile
and impress us all with your abilities. Planning to attend at least one of
the next two SHOT meetings (Lisbon and Pittsburgh) would be a definite
advantage. Graduate students are welcome, as are people living outside North
America.
If you are interested, or have a friend to nominate, then please let me know
within the next week. We will need to have a secretary in place by the end
of the month to get ready for the Lisbon meeting.
Tom
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From thaigh at computer.org Mon Aug 18 05:37:04 2008
From: thaigh at computer.org (Thomas Haigh)
Date: Mon Aug 18 08:38:06 2008
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] 4S in Rotterdam - possible dinner
Message-ID: <009001c9012f$205398d0$60faca70$@org>
Hello everyone,
The 2008 4S conference begins in Rotterdam on Wednesday, August 20th.
http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm
Following our customary practice I am proposing to organize an informal and
affordable dinner for anyone with an interest in the history of computing.
This would probably be on Thursday night before the panel. If nobody is
going to the official and hugely expensive banquet then we could instead aim
for Friday night. Please email me if you are interested - I will send the
final details ONLY to people who confirm interest to avoid spamming the
list. If you can't get to email you could also text my cell phone during the
meeting: +1 414 526 6631.
For the third successive year this includes a SIGCIS organized panel, this
one prepared in collaboration with the Software for Europe Project. I'm
please that we were able to get celebrated STS scholar Trevor Pinch as
commentator, which should give our panel a little visibility in the
ever-expanding ocean of concurrent sessions that 4S has become. It's an
exciting panel, looking at the relationship between computing practices and
national/transnational identities on both sides of the iron curtain.
Our session is on Friday, 22 Aug from 11.00-12.30 am.
Session 2.2.4: Symbolic Internationalism: Computing, Users and
(Trans)national
Agendas
Organizer: Thomas Haigh
Room: T3-31
Chair: Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin, thaigh@computer.org
Policy Machines: Shaping European Computer Users
Corinna Schlombs, University of Pennsylvania, schlombs@sas.upenn.edu
Transnational Technology: The Unified System of Computing and its Discursive
Practices
Simon Donig, University of Passau, simon.donig@uni-passau.de
Socialist Internationalism and its Limits in Czech Computing
Helena Durnova, Brno University of Technology, durnova@feec.vutbr.cz
The Goodbye Petrovka Plan: Internet Use and National Identity in Ukraine
Maria Haigh, University of Wisconsin, mhaigh@uwm.edu
Discussant: Trevor Pinch, Cornell University, tjp2@cornell.edu
The conference program is dominated by medical and environmental themes. IT
shows up in a number of contexts, including panels on standards, online game
worlds, and open source and the fashionable world of surveillance studies.
Please reply ASAP if you may be interested in dinner (this includes the
panel participants).
Tom
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From fturner at stanford.edu Mon Aug 25 21:16:38 2008
From: fturner at stanford.edu (Fred Turner)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:16:38 -0700
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New ICA History SIG
In-Reply-To: <98910195-DAFA-45FC-AAAF-951623BA4F55@jhu.edu>
References: <03a001c879e7$2b2fd360$818f7a20$@org>
<98910195-DAFA-45FC-AAAF-951623BA4F55@jhu.edu>
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080825181430.030967b8@stanford.edu>
Hi All --
SIGCIS members aiming to broaden their audience a bit and
especially those housed in Communication departments will be glad to
know that a group of folks have recently formed a
Communication History Interest Group within the International
Communication Association. According to its charter, the group aims
to bring together folks around the following:
a) The history of communication, including media history
b) The history of the idea of communication
c) The History of research into media and communication
My own experience has been that the group has been quite
catholic in its interests and very open to the history of technology
and technoculture more broadly. To date, its panels have been among
the best at ICA. For those who want to follow up, the group keeps a
website
at:
http://www.communicationhistory.org/
and a listserv at
http://www.communicationhistory.org/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/commhistlist/.
-- Fred Turner
___________________________________________________________________
Fred Turner
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Building 120
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2050
Office: 650-723-0706
Fax: 650-725-2472
http://fredturner.stanford.edu
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From evan at snarc.net Thu Aug 28 23:42:25 2008
From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz)
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:42:25 -0400
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Event: Vintage Computer Festival East 5.0
Message-ID: <006e01c90989$421c4bd0$f750f945@evan>
Hello,
...Just wanted to invite everyone to an upcoming event at my museum (the
InfoAge Science Center, located on the NJ shore in Wall Township)...
It's the Vintage Computer Festival East 5.0, Sept. 13-14. The VCF first
existed in Silicon Valley back in 1997 and then expanded to other regions.
VCF is a ** celebration ** of computers from the 1940s - 1980s. Imagine a
car show .... and the imagine that every owner lets you drive his car!
That's what the VCF is all about, seeing the computers up and running again.
We also have special events. This year's are a replica creation workshop,
where you can build a replica of the Apple 1 or the KIM under kit creator
Vince Briel's guidance, and we'll have a ceremony and tours for the "beta"
opening of our computer museum. (We've been in "alpha" for the past two
years.)
Sign up for Vince's workshop at
http://www.vintage.org/2008/east/workshop.php?action=select&id=104.
We'll also have some cool guest speakers. Most notably, on Sunday, we have
Bill Mauchly. Bill is the son of ENIAC co-inventor John Mauchly. We also
have a lesser-known engineer named Watts Humphrey, who wrote the proposal
for the military's "MOBIDIC" computer in the 1950s; it was an early example
of client-server architecture. And we've got Claude Kagan, who spent 30
years at Western Electric and Bell Labs and who worked to get our museum a
first-generation DEC PDP-8 minicomputer.
Tickets for one day are $10, both days combined are $15, and anyone younger
than 18 is free. Parking's free too.
- Evan
PS - Just as I spoke at SHOT last year about the hobbyist side of computer
history, it would be beneficial to have someone from this list speak to our
hobbyist audience about academic side of computer history -- how we
hobbyists can help, and how we can learn too. Tom isn't able to make it
that weekend. Unfortunately my other choice was Michael Mahoney. :( Is
anyone else here interested in talking at our event?
- Evan
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From evan at snarc.net Sun Aug 31 20:02:02 2008
From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz)
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:02:02 -0400
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Eckert 1942 engineering notebook at the VCF East
In-Reply-To: <006e01c90989$421c4bd0$f750f945@evan>
Message-ID: <004601c90bc5$f77bac30$f750f945@evan>
An important update: At the end of Claude Kagan's lecture, he will display
-- for the first time ever -- J. Presper Eckert's 1942 engineering notebook.
I figure that should get the attention of more than a few SIGCIS members.
:)
-----Original Message-----
From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of Evan Koblentz
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 11:42 PM
To: members at sigcis.org
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Event: Vintage Computer Festival East 5.0
Hello,
...Just wanted to invite everyone to an upcoming event at my museum (the
InfoAge Science Center, located on the NJ shore in Wall Township)...
It's the Vintage Computer Festival East 5.0, Sept. 13-14. The VCF first
existed in Silicon Valley back in 1997 and then expanded to other regions.
VCF is a ** celebration ** of computers from the 1940s - 1980s. Imagine a
car show .... and the imagine that every owner lets you drive his car!
That's what the VCF is all about, seeing the computers up and running again.
We also have special events. This year's are a replica creation workshop,
where you can build a replica of the Apple 1 or the KIM under kit creator
Vince Briel's guidance, and we'll have a ceremony and tours for the "beta"
opening of our computer museum. (We've been in "alpha" for the past two
years.)
Sign up for Vince's workshop at
http://www.vintage.org/2008/east/workshop.php?action=select&id=104.
We'll also have some cool guest speakers. Most notably, on Sunday, we have
Bill Mauchly. Bill is the son of ENIAC co-inventor John Mauchly. We also
have a lesser-known engineer named Watts Humphrey, who wrote the proposal
for the military's "MOBIDIC" computer in the 1950s; it was an early example
of client-server architecture. And we've got Claude Kagan, who spent 30
years at Western Electric and Bell Labs and who worked to get our museum a
first-generation DEC PDP-8 minicomputer.
Tickets for one day are $10, both days combined are $15, and anyone younger
than 18 is free. Parking's free too.
- Evan
PS - Just as I spoke at SHOT last year about the hobbyist side of computer
history, it would be beneficial to have someone from this list speak to our
hobbyist audience about academic side of computer history -- how we
hobbyists can help, and how we can learn too. Tom isn't able to make it
that weekend. Unfortunately my other choice was Michael Mahoney. :( Is
anyone else here interested in talking at our event?
- Evan
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