Founded in the mid-1980s, SIGCIS is the leading international group for historians with an interest in the history of information technology and its applications. Our primary activities include meetings held in connection with our parent society, the Society for the History of Technology; and a range of online resources hosted from this website.
Recent News
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Histories of the Internet: Special Issue of Information and Culture
Histories of the Internet – Call for Papers This is a call for papers for a special issue of Information & Culture: A Journal of History (Volume 50, Issue 1, February-March 2015). For the latest and most complete information on the special issue please see www.sigcis.org/InternetIssue. Guest Editors Deadlines Abstracts can be submitted to an…
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From Antisocial to Alphasocial: Exclusionary Nerd Cultures and the Rise of the Brogrammer
“Sometime in the last ten or twelve years, the stereotypical image of the Silicon Valley programmer has shifted from a socially awkward, Utili-kilt-wearing geek to something far more sinister, and fratty, and sexist,” begins the article in the Sfist. Recently, a new term for programmers in their 20s has come into the national consciousness:…
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SIGCIS 2012 Workshop
Information Identities:Historical Perspectives on Technological and Social Change SIGCIS Workshop 2012, October 7, 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark New! Pictures from this event now available. The Society for the History of Technology’s Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society (SIGCIS – http://www.sigcis.org) welcomes submissions for a one-day scholarly workshop to be held on Sunday, October 7,…
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Computer History Museum Event Summary: “The Idea Factory” – Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation-Jon Gertner
Introduction On March 28, 2012, author Jon Gertner was interviewed at the Computer History Museum (CHM) by KQED’s Dave Iverson about his new book, “The Idea Factory…,” which chronicles the history of AT&T Bell Labs. Mr. Gertner told this author he had spent three solid years researching and gathering information for the book. During the…
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25 Years of IBM’s OS/2: The Strange Days and Surprising Afterlife of a Legendary Operating System
Lots of recent coverage about the 25th anniversary of OS/2, including this from Time Techland: “Big Blue’s next-generation operating system was supposed to change everything. It didn’t. But it’s also never quite gone away.” I can still vividly remember installing and playing around with OS/2 Warp. Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/02/25-years-of-ibms-os2-the-birth-death-and-afterlife-of-a-legendary-operating-system/#ixzz1r4teUZcI
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Invention of Email: A Response to the Washington Post Ombudsman
Over the weekend the Washington Post delivered its response to a storm of protest over last week’s story claiming that the Smithsonian had “honored” V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai as the “inventor of email.” This came in the form of the “Reader Meter” column written by Patrick B. Pexton’ the Post’s Ombudsman. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog/post/reader-meter-who-really-invented-e-mail/2012/02/24/gIQAHZugYR_blog.html. Part of that…
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Starring the Computer
“Starring the Computer is a website dedicated to the use of computers in film and television. Each appearance is catalogued and rated on its importance (ie. how important it is to the plot), realism (how close its appearance and capabilities are to the real thing) and visibility (how good a look does one get of…
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Who Invented E-mail?
Our esteemed chair, Tom Haigh, noticed a rather shocking set of stories in the mainstream press today that claimed that a man previously unknown to the computer history community was, in fact, the inventor of e-mail: Tom dug into the story, and it turns out that V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai’s claim to fame rests on his copyright…
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2011 Computer History Museum Prize
Paul N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010). Prize Citation This insightful, ambitious and theoretically-sophisticated study addresses hotly debated political issues of our time through a methodical historical analysis. It traces the construction of climate sciences over two centuries, from weather forecasts to highly mathematized simulation…