Category: Uncategorized

Dear friends,

CHM is completing construction of its signature 25,000 sq ft, $17 million dollar on the history of computing. Due to open in January 2011, R|evolution will be accessible to the general public and technical audiences alike and will feature over 1,000 artifacts from CHM’s world-beating historical collection.

See: http://www.computerhistory.org/exhibits/revolution/ for more information.

I hope you will drop by the Museum if you’re ever in the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley and visit us!

Sincerely,

Dag

SIGCIS 2010 Workshop:

Materiality & Immateriality in the History of Computing

Sunday October 3, 2010, Hotel Murano, Tacoma, Washington

New! Workshop photos available online.

The Society for the History of Technology’s Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society (SIGCIS –www.sigcis.org) announces its 2010 workshop with the theme Materiality and Immateriality in the History of Computing. The workshop will be held in Tacoma Washington all day on Sunday, October 3 2010. This is the final day of the annual SHOT meeting. SHOT has reserved that day for SIG events and therefore the symposium will not overlap scheduled sessions in the main program. For details on the main SHOT meeting see http://www.historyoftechnology.org/annual_meeting.html

Registration: Registration for the workshop should be made through the registration procedure for the main SHOT meeting at http://www.historyoftechnology.org/tacoma/tacoma_registration.html. There is no separate charge for the SIGCIS workshop (though we will be seeking donations to cover the cost of the coffee breaks!). The deadline for SHOT registration is September 10, after which a late fee will apply. Note that SHOT does not offer online registration and will not accept scanned registration forms sent via email — you’ll need to dig out that fax machine or find some stamps. When you register be sure to check the box for “Sunday Workshop on History of Computing” — that’s the SIGCIS workshop. We’ve been told that there is a special one day registration option for those not attending the full conference — contact shot@virginia.edu if you are interested in this option.

Workshop Meals: We will organize nearby group options for lunch during the workshop and dinner afterwards. Details will be provided closer to the meeting time, and we will contact registered attendees to determine how many people to reserve for. Payment for this cannot be made through the SHOT reservation process so please bring plenty of dollars with you.

Precirculation of Materials: Some of the workshop sessions follow the traditional format for SHOT and other history conferences, with a commentator but no publication or precirculation of materials. However the conference features two round table sessions devoted to discussion of precirculated items (syllabi and papers), a works in progress session, and a dissertations in progress session. Full text for the items to be discussed in these sessions will be available from this site by September 15th. Please make an effort to read these papers prior to attending the sessions as their authors will be making only very short presentations to highlight key points and frame questions for discussion.

Schedule:   Pavillion E Room Pavillion F Room 9:00-10:30

Opening Plenary (Pavillion F):

• Introduction to the Workshop and its Theme by Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Keynote Address: “Friction: Rethinking Speed, Power, and Possibility in the History of Information Infrastructures” by Paul Edwards, University of Michigan

10:30-10:45 Coffee break 10:45-12:00

Roundtable: Computers, Information and Society in the Classroom

• Andrew Russell, Stevens Institute of Technology (chair & organizer)
• Nathan Ensmenger, University of Pennsylvania
• Rebecca Slayton, Stanford University

(Short presentations to introduce pre circulated documents, followed by general discussion). Consolidated file of syllabi now available for download.

Examining the Interaction of Speculative Literature and Computing: Toward a Research Agenda

• David L. Ferro, Weber State University (chair & organizer)
• Janet Abbate, Virgina Tech
• Eric G. Swedin, Weber State University
• Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

(Short presentations to introduce pre circulated documents, followed by general discussion)

12:00-1:30 Lunch break (group lunch option TBA) 1:30-3:30

Dissertations In ProgressChair/Commentator: Paul Edwards, University of Michigan

• “The Akademgorodok Computing Center (1958-1990)” Ksenia Tatachenko, Princeton University.
• “Digital Equipment’s Rise and Fall, Could it Have Been Avoided?” Dave Goodwin, Birkbeck College London.
• “A History and Ethnography of the Cocoa Software Community.” Hansen Hsu, Cornell University.
• “Connecting Minds in a Multimedia Episteme: The Academic Supercomputer Centers and the Construction an Advanced Cognitive Infrastructure for the U.S. Research Community: 1983-1993” Kevin Walsh, University of California, San Diego.

(Short presentations to introduce pre circulated dissertation proposals, to be discussed in turn by workshop participants)

Traditional Papers: Teaching & ShowingChair: Olga Pantelidou, National Technical University of AthensCommentator: Rebecca Slayton, Stanford University

• “The PLATO Computer-Based Education System: Teacher’s Tool or Teacher?” Christopher McDonald, Princeton University.
• “Car Navigation Systems – A History of Associative Clusters.” Tristan Thielmann, University of Siegen.
• “A Material History of Bits.” Jean-François Blanchette, UCLA.
• “Museums and the Material Culture of Video Games.” Petrina Foti, Smithsonian NMAH.

(4×20 minute presentations followed by a 10-15 minute comment and general discussion) 3:30-4:00 Coffee break(Demonstration of the “IT History Society Archival Database,” Jeffery Stein, IT History Society). 4:00-6:00

Works in ProgressChair/Commentator: Tristan Thielmann, University of Siegen

• “Making Computers Logical: Edmund Berkeley’s promotion of logical machines.” Mai Sugimoto, Kyoto University.
• “Technological system or military-industrial-complex – the diffusion of numerically controlled machine tools in Sweden, 1950–1970.” Gustav Sjöblom, Chalmers University of Technology.
• “Meta Filter: Coming to Agreement with Interactive Computer Technology.” Sharon Irish, UIUC.

(Short presentations to introduce pre circulated papers, to be discussed in turn by workshop participants)

Traditional Papers: Place & SpaceChair: Ann Johnson, University of South Carolina.Commentator: Peter Meyer, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• “The Material History of Digital Electronics: The Development of Silicon Manufacturing Technology at Fairchild Semiconductor.” David C. Brock, Chemical Heritage Foundation & Christophe Lecuyer, University of California.
• “’The World Looks to Britain’: Technology Transfer, Heterogeneous Engineering, and British Computing Companies’ Attempt to Capture the Indian Market, 1955-1965.” Marie Hicks, Duke University.
• “Wat’ Forever: Computing Education at the University of Waterloo.” Scott M. Campbell, University of Waterloo.
• “Materiality, modernity and space: The British banks and their computer centres, 1961–1963.” Ian Martin, Open University & University of Manchester.

(4×20 minute presentations followed by a 10-15 minute comment and general discussion)

Dinner: An optional group dinner will be held following the workshop for those eager to continue conversation over food.

Sponsorship: SIGCIS wishes to thank the following organizations and individuals for donations made specifically to fund travel awards and other costs for this workshop.

• Richard S. Tedlow of Harvard Business School, on behalf of the Computer History Museum, $1,000
• The MIT Press, $800 raised from donated books
• School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, $500
• IT History Society, $200

If you experience difficulty logging into your account, your browser cookies may need refreshing due to recent updates of the SIGCIS website. For more information on how to delete the SIGCIS cookie, please see http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2 (the cookie is called sigcis).

Planning work is going well on the SIGCIS 2010 workshop on “Materiality and Immateriality in the History of Computing,” to be held in conjunction with the SHOT annual meeting in Tacoma, Washington on October 3. This is our second annual workshop. The first one drew around 50 people.

Full details and the submission forms are online atnhttp://www.sigcis.org/?q=workshop10.

Here are some updates:

1. The deadline for submitting session and paper proposals is JULY 1. Please make your submissions via our website before that date. We’re open to a very broad range of topics and formats including work in progress. We’re particularly interested in getting graduate students to submit draft or in-progress dissertation proposals for discussion and have some money to help them attend (see 3 below). Draft chapters can also be submitted for a works in progress session.

2. Paul Edwards will give a keynote address in the opening plenary session, discussing aspects of his work on cyber infrastructure and his hot new book A Vast Machine Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming related to the theme. Paul’s been involved with the history of computing community for many years, but his work has won acclaim from a diverse array of audiences and we’re very excited to have secured him for the workshop.

3. We’ve raised more money to help support the travel costs of graduate students, the unemployed, and recent graduates in temporary positions without travel funds. In addition to the $1,000 or so we raised last year for this purpose via the book auction and cash donations (thank you MIT Press for so many books) we’ve received pledges from the IT History Society for an extra $200 and Harvard Business School Professor Richard S. Tedlow for an extra $1,000 to give grants in honor of the Computer History Museum. So that brings the budget to over $2,000 from which we plan to make awards of up to $500 depending on need and the volume of applications.

Preference will be given to those presenting only at our workshop, and hence unable to apply for the main SHOT travel grant program. However if funds remain we may also be able to make supplemental contributions to those who are presenting on the main SHOT program and at the SIGCIS workshop to cover need unmet by SHOT and other sources.

4. SHOT Secretary Bernie Carlson has confirmed arrangements on our behalf with the stylish and modern conference venue, the Hotel Murano. He’s been able to secure us access to two meeting rooms for the full day at no extra charge to SHOT or SIGCIS.

5. This means we will not need to impose an additional fee for the workshop beyond regular SHOT registration (or a discounted 1 day registration if you are unable to attend the rest of SHOT). Just make sure you indicate your plans to attend the workshop when you register for SHOT. What a bargain! We will just pass our money cup during the event to help cover the cost of the coffee breaks. More details and reminders later on this.

Please spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested.

Best wishes,

Tom Haigh

Might be of interest –

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10239623.stm

Compiled by Chigusa Kita

Jump to: Institutions  |  Online Resources

Institutions

Information Processing Society of Japan’s Virtual Computer Museum:

http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/index.html (in English)

http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/index.html (Japanese original)

This is the authoritative resource for Japanese history of computing maintained by the largest academic institution of computer science. It contains personal information of pioneers, history of hardware, and oral histories. Japanese computer scientists and computer makes are in collaboration with this. Mainly focusing on recording primary facts around computing, especially specifications of the products and personal contributions to the area.

Center of the History of Japanese Industrial Technology of National Science Museum’s history of computing technology database:

http://sts.kahaku.go.jp/sts/set_brws_01.php?id=1020 (in Japanese)

National Science Museum in Japan is the largest institution and physically located in Ueno, Tokyo. It has some vintage computers on actual exhibit. The subsidiary of it, Center of the History of Japanese Industrial Technology, maintains database which includes “computing technology.”

Museum for Modern Science and Technology of Tokyo University of Science:

http://www.rs.kagu.tus.ac.jp/infoserv/museum/

Tokyo University of Science maintains the website for online catalog of their collection on computing.

Online Resources: Virtual Exhibitions and other Primary Sources

History of NEC’s Personal Computers:

http://121ware.com/navigate/learn/pcmuseum/ (in Japanese)

Toshiba’s TAC history:

http://kagakukan.toshiba.co.jp/history/1goki/1954tac/index.html (in Japanese)

History of CASIO’s Calculator:

http://dentaku.casio.jp/info/history/beginning.html (in Japanese)

This is an official site for CASIO calculator. CASIO also maintains its physical exhibit in the headquarter building in Shibuya, Tokyo.

SHARP LCD dentaku history:

http://www.sharp.co.jp/products/lcd/tech/dentaku/index.html (in Japanese)

Another official corporate history site for SHARP LCD calculator. Development stories and time line are available on this site.

History of Japanese word processor, OASYS by Fujitsu:

http://www.ykanda.jp/document.htm

This is primary sources of the history of OASYS maintained by developer, Yasunori Kanda.

History of Nintendo Game Music:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0105/ayumi/index.html (in Japanese)

This is an article of Nintendo online magazine on the game music history told by developers.

History of keyboards:

http://www.pfu.co.jp/hhkeyboard/kb_collection/ (in Japanese)

IT company PFU, recently merged by Fujitsu, produces “Happy Hacking Keyboard”. It maintains this history of keyboard website.

Dentaku Museum (Pocket calculator virtual exhibition):

http://www.dentaku-museum.com/ (in Japanese)

This is maintained by a collector of “dentaku”. Though it is originally written in Japanese, it has a functional button to translate the site into English by Google translation.

Hobbyist Computers reference:

http://www4.airnet.ne.jp/mit/ (in Japanese)

This site is maintained by Micom (= Micro Computer = personal computer) fan, featuring information on catalogs.

Prof. Masahiro Sano’s list of links for resources on history of computing:

http://www.isc.meiji.ac.jp/~sano/internet/www_computer01.htm (in Japanese)

This is maintained by a researcher, containing useful links for online resources on history of science and technology.

Short video showing working model of Colossus at Bletchley Park 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8486345.stm

Full story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8492762.stm

The Fund

SIGCIS established the Mahoney Fund in 2008, following a challenge by Ann Johnson to match her pledged giving in honor of historian of computing Michael S. Mahoney. The fund is the main capital reserve for the SIG, intended to provide a long-term income source and support for special projects. Money held in the fund has been growing proportionately with SHOT’s own endowment, which gave us strong returns to reinvest in 2009 and 2010.

The difficult economic climate is making it harder for graduate students to secure institutional funds to present at the annual SHOT meeting. Income from the fund provides ongoing support for the Michael S. Mahoney Graduate Student Travel Awards.

In 2013 we launched Phase II of the Mahoney Fund to create the Mahoney Prize, an annual award for an outstanding article in the history of computing. This will be a very fitting memorial for Mahoney, who made his contribution to our field through a series of expertly crafted articles. The goal is to generate enough investment income to support the new prize without compromising our commitment to graduate students. Update: as of January 2014 we already have $11,250 in new contributions and pledges for Phase II, which is enough to go forward with a formal proposal to SHOT to create the prize. Including money received from both phases and investment income the fund’s balance had reached more than $22,200.

Contributing to the Mahoney Fund is a great way to give back to the history of computing community, help young scholars develop, and promote the field’s long-term vitality and excellence. Please take this opportunity to recognize and honor Mike’s exemplary contribution to SIGCIS and his inspiring commitment to the discovery of new scholarship in our field by donating to the Mahoney Fund.

How to Give

SIGCIS funds are held by our parent society SHOT. SHOT has asked us to request that donations for the Mahoney Fund be sent by check if possible. This process is reliable and reduces overhead. Please make your check in US dollars payable to “The Society for the History of Technology” and send it to SHOT SIGCIS, C/O Andrew Russell, College of Arts & Sciences, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Utica, New York, 13502, USA. SHOT is a properly registered charitable organization, so donations are usually tax deductible for those who pay taxes in the U.S. and take itemized deductions. SHOT’s policy is to provide a written gift receipt for donations of $250 and over but receipts for smaller amounts can be provided on request.

If you do not have a United States checking account, then donations to the Mahoney Fund can also be made online. On the online form, please make sure to select the “SIGCIS” checkbox and fill in the amount to donate in to us in the corresponding text box. If you donate online please send an email to notify the SIGCIS Chair (arussell@arussell.org) of your donation so we can make sure it is credited correctly. Online donors receive an electronic confirmation for their records.

About Mike Mahoney

Michael Mahoney was a prominent and irreplaceable figure in the history of computing community until his unexpected passing in summer 2008 at the age of sixty nine. That this fund bears Michael Mahoney’s name is fitting, given all that he contributed to the intellectual and institutional development of the history of computing. An historian of science of the old school, Mahoney earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard and came to Princeton in 1962 to pursue a Ph.D. in the history of science, working under the direction of Thomas S. Kuhn. He never left Princeton, earning a place on the faculty in 1965 and remaining a core member of the history of science program for more than three decades. His field was the history of mathematics around the scientific revolution, most notably the book The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665.

As a young man, Mahoney worked briefly as a programmer on a Datatron computer, and by the 1980s he had become one of the first trained historians to develop an interest in the history of computing. He developed several courses in the area, from a freshman seminar to demanding graduate level seminars on ‘Computers and Organisms’ and ‘The World of Software.’ Over time his research included software engineering, the history of theoretical computer science, and computer modeling and simulation (he found the concept of artificial life fascinating). Mahoney threw himself, and his students, deep into the technical literature and research culture of the fields he studied. Yet his background and fierce intellect ensured that he always grounded investigation of the recent events in a much longer intellectual history. Whatever the subject of his public lectures they were unlike to pass without reference to Newton, Huygens, or Descartes.

Mahoney helped to pioneer the history of computing and was deeply committed to its evolution as a field with its own scholarly agenda and identity. His much cited 1988 article “The History of Computing in the History of Technology” heralded an attempt to reshape the history of computing from a field dominated by the questions and interests of computer specialists into a mature area of study within the history of science and technology. More recently, his paper “The Histories of Computing(s)” (2005) challenged us to move beyond the machine-based master narrative implicit in existing histories of computing. At the same time, Mahoney put more effort than anyone into working with computer scientists and software engineers to further historical efforts within their communities. He provided excellent historical guidance to the three History of Programming Languages conferences organized by ACM SIGPLAN, collaborated on projects at Bell Labs, was a founding member of the ACM History Committee, and worked with the ACM SIG on Software Engineering in its attempts to determine the real world impact of software engineering research.

As part of his commitment to building the history of computing Mahoney helped to nurture SIGCIS during its formative years, participating in a number of our conference sessions and proposals, auctioning the books donated for our annual meeting, and serving on the committee that created the Computer History Museum Book Prize. A contribution to the Mahoney Fund will help preserve his memory and promote his mission.

Learn more in the book collecting Mahoney’s work Histories of Computing (Harvard University Press, 2011) the Princeton University tribute page and on Mahoney’s own website which is full of papers and syllabi.

Mahoney Fund Supporters

Thanks to those who have already made contributions to the Mahoney Fund.

Mainframe Class (individual donations of $500 or more)

• Ann Johnson (pledged annually 2008-12)
• Thomas L. Drucker (2011, pledged annually 2013-16)
• Leonard Shustek (2008 & 2013)
• Angela Creager (2013 & 2014)
• Thomas Haigh (2010)*
• Joseph November (2013)
• James W. Cortada (2013)
• Theodore Dolotta (2009 & 2012)

Minicomputer Class (individual donations of $200 – $499)

• Jonathan Coopersmith (pledged annually 2008-2012, 2013-2016)
• Joseph November (pledged annually 2014-2016)
• Richard T. Snodgrass (pledged annually, 2013-2016)
• Wendy Vogenitz Tinsley (pledged anually 2009-2011, 2013-2016)
• Thomas J. Misa (2011)
• Daniel J. Feldman (2011, pledged annually 2013-2016)
• Angela Creager (2010)
• School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (2009)

Microcomputer Class (individual donations of $100 – $199)

• Thomas J. Misa (pledged annually 2013-16)
• Thomas Haigh (pledged annually 2008-2012, 2013-2016)
• Andrew Russell (pledged annually 2013-2016)
• Paul Ceruzzi (2013)
• Richard T. Snodgrass (2008)
• Chigusa Kita (2008)

Handheld Class (individual donations of $50-$99)

• Dag Spicer (pledged annually 2009-2012)
• Brent Jesiek (2010)
• Erik P. Rau (2009)
• Burton Grad (2008 & 2013)

* Haigh donated the honorarium he received for editing the Harvard University Press book Histories of Computing, a collection of Mahoney’s work.

nnn

 

by Alan J. Weissberger

On July 1st, the Computer History Museum (CHM) launched the Silicon Engine exhibit, which traces the history of semiconductors that led to the design of the first microprocessor- the Intel 4004. Very impressive artifacts from the CHM collection are displayed in a glass enclosed panel. The artifacts illustrate: early transistors, Jean Hoerni’s first planar transistor (the planar process of semiconductor manufacturing was a key enabler of producing ICs), the genesis of the integrated circuit, the first transistor radio, IBM SLT manufacturing process, a semiconductor based computer circuit board, a 1965 calculator, and other early computing devices. Jack Kilby’s TI engineering notebook pages on the design of the integrated circuit are particularly impressive.

The Silicon Engine exhibit also includes two individual video kiosks and a short video documentary that details the steps that led up to the design and development of the Intel 4004 microprocessor in 1971. The documentary covers the invention of the transistor, its role as a building block of the integrated circuit, the rapid growth of semiconductors and the profound effect these technological breakthroughs have had on modern life.

To view the CHM’s Silicon Engine “virtual exhibit” please visit: http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/

Thanks to David Laws – the Curator of the CHM Silicon Engine exhibit.

Chairs of the SIG

Years shown are the SHOT annual meetings on which the terms began.

• 1987: Founding meeting – chair unknown.• 1988: William Aspray, Charles Babbage Institute• 1989: David K. Allison, Smithsonian Institution• 1990-91: Judy O’Neil, Charles Babbage Institute• 1992: Janet Abbate, University of Pennsylvania• 1993-2005: Paul Ceruzzi, Smithsonian Institution• 2005-2014: Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee• 2014-Present: Andrew Russell, SUNY Polytechnic Institute

SIGCIS History 1987-2005

The story of SIGCIS begins in 1987 when an unofficial Special Interest Group on the History of Computing was convened during SHOT’s annual meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina. The history of computing was represented in several sessions at this meeting, including one chaired by Arthur Norberg, with papers by Aspray, I.B. Cohen, and Norberg, with Mike Mahoney commenting. Paul Ceruzzi commented on a session with papers on Soviet computing & nuclear technology. No records of the meeting survive. We know more about its second meeting, which was reported in the Charles Babbage Institute’s newsletter for Winter 1989 (http://www.cbi.umn.edu/about/nsl/v11n2.pdf) as follows:

The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) Special Interest Group on the History of Computing held its second annual meeting at the Hagley Museum and Library on 28 October 1988. Representatives from many United States and Norway (sic.) organizations and companies attended. The group first selected William Aspray (CBI) chair for the coming year. The group then changed its name to the Information, Computing, and Society Interest Group and will request official recognition from SHOT. The assembled members discussed to principal items of business: the sharing of information about current projects and plans for a session at next year’s meeting of SHOT. Henry Lowood (Stanford) and Arthur Norberg (CBI) agreed for a session to be submitted to the SHOT Program Committee. The members also discussed ideas for the next joint SHOT/History of Science Society meeting, to occur in either 1990 or 1991. Anyone wishing to become associated with this interest group can do so by writing to William Aspray at CBI.

Today, Aspray recalls (email to Thomas Haigh, 26 June 2009) that:

Part of the rationale for the organization of SIGCIS was that there was a growing number of historians of computing, and they had been meeting together with the Jovians and the Mercurians but were unhappy that they did not have their own organization. There were several examples of SHOT meetings where computing history sessions overlapped with electrical or communication history meetings, and we wanted a bit more power as computing historians to control the scheduling. My recollection of the first couple of meetings is that there were few enough people that we all went around the room to talk about what each of us was doing – and this represented the most significant part of the meeting.

Until 1993 the chairmanship of the group changed hands every year or two. Its progress was chronicled with frequent updates in the CBI newsletter. In those days around a dozen people attended the SIG’s annual meeting, which was devoted primarily to informal introductions and exchange of information. At the 1989 meeting it adopted the CBI newsletter as its official communication medium, and in 1991 threw itself into the world of new technology with a decision to “start an electronic bulletin board or mailing list.” This was followed in January 1992 with Paul Ceruzzi’s establishment of a list serve distribution list (oddly announced as an “electronic bulletin board” http://www.cbi.umn.edu/about/nsl/v14n2.pdf) “in response to the group’s desire for an informal forum to discuss ideas, questions, and themes.” Called SHOTHC-L it was distributed for some years from the Smithsonian’s mainframe via BITNET. (By the late 1990s had fallen victim to unchecked spam and the retirement of the Smithsonian’s mainframe). Paul Ceruzzi writes of the email list (in a message to Thomas Haigh dated December 12, 2006) that:

I recall some very early instances of flame wars, “newbies,” lurking, etc. before those things became commonplace. They were so interesting, and so novel, that a sociology professor asked me for permission to use transcripts of a flame war for a research paper he was writing, on the social interactions spawned by Listserv. I did find a draft of the sociology paper written in 1993: “Electronic Mail as an Academic Discussion Forum,” by Paul F. Burton (Univ. Strathclyde, Glasgow). I do not know where, or if, it was published. It is kind of fun to read, especially his remarks about “flaming” (in quotes). I had one of the first e-mail accounts at the Smithsonian, and that my e-mail address in those days was “NASEM001@SIVM (“National Air and Space E- Mail [serial number] One”). So my geek credentials are impeccable. I may have some old business cards to prove it – again it was a novelty to have one’s e-mail address printed on a business card. I moderated the list for a while but then opened it up. For a while it was really great—a lot of postings every day, but not so many as to be overwhelming, and the quality was usually very good. I remember Mike Mahoney was an enthusiastic contributor, as were a few other Annals people. It was the definitive place to discuss history of computing on-line, until a few years later, when someone on the West Coast established a “community memory” listserv which competed. That was a more Silicon-Valley oriented list, and it attracted more practitioners than historians…. In both cases the emphasis was on composing text messages to that were succinct, factual, and well-reasoned. The Spartan nature of Listserv led to a “rediscovery” of the ancient art of rhetoric, which, alas, did not survive the transition to the Web.

Ceruzzi took over as SIG chair in 1993 and retained the position for more than a decade. However on several occasions he was not able to attend the meeting, and so delegated chairing the session itself to other such as Bob Seidel and Atsushi Akera. Ceruzzi has a note from SHOT founder Mel Kranzberg, dated Sept. 27, 1993, telling him that he was impressed to see that the group had 68 members “… and I was even more impressed to see how many people from outside the USA are included. But I was most impressed to see how many people are involved whose special field is not directly information or computer science – for that demonstrates that SHOT is doing a good job in getting together people from related fields and thereby broadening their outlook and understanding of the interconnections of what were once viewed as separate fields.” SIGCIS continues that tradition to this day, including among its members many computer scientists, museum people, amateur scholars, and faculty within schools of business, communication, and information. During this era the SIG continued primarily as a mechanism for informal discussion and the sponsorship of conference sessions for many of SHOT’s annual meetings. Ceruzzi writes (email to Thomas Haigh May 27, 2009):

For me, the high point of the SIG meetings was at Charlottesville, in 1995. JAN Lee, who was the Editor of the Annals at the time, drove down from Blacksburg, and Jean Sammet drove from DC. Atsushi, Bill, Anne Fitzpatrick, Bob Seidel, and others were also there. Also there were lots of younger scholars, who could not believe that Jean was actually there – it was as if Leonardo Da Vinci suddenly showed up at an art historians’ s conference. I think it was sort of the last time when you felt that you knew the entire field, and that they could all be contained in one room. That was not really true, of course, but it felt that way.

Its name was rather fluid. A new name, “the Computer History and Information Processing SIG (CHIPS)” was announced in 1996 http://www.cbi.umn.edu/about/nsl/v18n4.pdf and appeared in the SHOT Conference Program for its 1997 meeting. Its present name, which appears subtly different from those used in the 1980s and 1990s, is the version used on official SHOT conference programs since at least 2002.

Developments Since 2005

Thomas Haigh succeeded Paul Ceruzzi as SIGCIS chair at the 2005 meeting held in Minneapolis. Since then the SIG has harnessed the energy of a large volunteer community to develop a range of new initiatives.

• February 2005. The first message is sent to the new CompHist email list (hosted at UWM), soon adopted as the official SIGCIS email distribution list.
• July 2005. An online directory of computer historians and research interests is established.
• November 2005. 2005. As incoming chair, Thomas Haigh hosts the first informal SIGCIS dinner at the Annual meeting, restoring some of the leisurely informal interaction lost as the SIG’s official meetings grew to around 50 people.
• November 2005. A set of new volunteer offices are created within the SIG, constituting the Executive Committee. Joline Zepcevski becomes the SIG’s first Secretary.
• March 2006. Creation of a network of International Vice Chairs to represent the SIG outside North America and act as information gateways to integrate the global history of computing community. These include James Sumner for the UK and Chigusa Kita for Japan.
• November 2006. The Internet domain sigcis.org is registered for use by the SIG.
• November 2006. For the first time an annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science includes SIGCIS-organized panels (as well as a SIGCIS dinner and a SIGCIS executive committee meeting).
• March 2007. SIGCIS organizes three panels for the Fiftieth Anniversary SHOT meeting. All are accepted, contributing to a record showing for history of computing at the conference.
• May 2007. For the first time an annual meeting of the Business History Conference includes a SIGCIS-organized panel (as well as a SIGCIS dinner).
• October 2007. The SIG’s website goes live at www.sigcis.org, powered by the Drupal content management system. This includes a new version of the online member directory, in which SIG members can manage updates to their own entries. Also the “Key Resources in the History of Computing” resource guide formerly hosted on Thomas Haigh’s personal website. Brent Jesiek leads the project and arranges for hosting at Virginia Tech.
• October 2007. The SIG’s annual lunch meeting includes a highly successful experimental feature: an auction of donated spare copies of books in the history of computing. As auctioneer Mike Mahoney shows a light touch and drives up prices while keeping the audience laughing. Exactly $360 is raised, an auspicious number in our field.
• November 2007. The first SIGCIS subgroup, the Focus Group on Banking Automation, is created. The group has its own SIGCIS email list and uses the SIG website to host research materials and announcements.
• February 2008. The CompHist email list is replaced by a new Members email list hosted at sigcis.org.
• June 2008. A new section, Member Contributions, is added to the SIG website. This serves the purpose of a technical report series.
• July 2008. The SIGCIS online Syllabus Repository project is announced by Joseph November. The project links to and hosts a selection of syllabi and other course materials for the history of computing.
• October 2008. The first Michael S. Mahoney/MIT Press graduate student travel award is made by SIGCIS to Honghong Tinn during the 2008 Annual Meeting in Lisbon.
• October 2008. At the annual meeting, Thomas Haigh and Tom Misa publicly announce the establishment of the Computer History Museum Prize, awarded annually to an outstanding book in the history of computing. Misa chaired the ad-hoc steering committee responsible for recommending a suitable format and set of procedures for the prize. Its other members were William Aspray, Paul Ceruzzi, and Michael Mahoney. The prize is funded with a major commitment from an anonymous donor.
• November 2008. Prompted by a generous pledge from Ann Johnson, SIGCIS launches the Mahoney Fund to accumulate capital in support of its growing operations.
• February 2009. SIGCIS Secretary Jeffrey Tang distributes the formal call for nominations for the first Computer History Museum prize. Over the next month each member of the initial panel of judges (Tom Misa, Jen Light, and Paul Ceruzzi) receives more than a dozen books from which to make their selection.
• May 2009. SIGCIS issues a Call for Papers for its first annual post-conference workshop. The one day event honors has the theme “Mike Mahoney and the Histories of Computing(s).” The organizing committee includes Joseph November (Program Committee Chair), Jeffrey Tang (Local Arrangements) and Brent Jesiek (Internet Infrastructure) as well as Thomas Haigh as SIG chair.
• October 2009. The first Computer History Museum Prize is presented to Christophe Lécuyer for his book _Making Silicon Valley_. This is the centerpiece of the SIGCIS lunch during the SHOT annual meeting in Pittsbugh, which sets two new record: 53 people prergistered and $1,117 raised between the book auction and donations placed in the money cup as it circulated the tables.
• October 2009. The first SIGCIS post conference workshop, on “Mike Mahoney and the Histories of Computing” takes place. Around 50 people attend the plenary session, to hear appreciations of Mike’s life and work my Bill Aspray, Gerard Alberts, and Thomas Haigh. Six full sessions take place in two streams during the rest of the day.