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How quickly did the computer revolution reach the most remote Westernized country? Conventional history holds that the first modern computer in New Zealand—where "modern" means electronic, and with stored programs—was an IBM 650 leased from IBM Australia by the New Zealand Treasury in November 1960, and officially inaugurated in March 1961. This article discusses an alternative hypothesis—that the pioneer was in fact an ICT 1201 ordered in 1959 and installed by the New Zealand Department of Education a few months before the arrival of the IBM 650. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the Lighthill Affair. The Lighthill Report, which formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support of AI research in all but two universities. (Oral tradition paints a somewhat different and more colorful picture, with political ambitions and personal animosities that cannot be put into print.)1 In this paper, I describe the affair, put in print some of the things hinted at here, and elaborate on the issues that have remained topical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this essay is to examine how a comfortable paradigm for explaining the spread of a major technology began cracking, shaken by new findings. I do this by, first, summarizing familiar explanations for the diffusion of computing, as much recently historical research still depends on it. Then I describe problems-cracks-appearing in these assumptions, followed by a proposed modification of how to view IT's diffusion-the why and how-an an update more in line with current historiography. The conclusion of this essay identifies implications for research on other technologies, especially those that emerged during the Second Industrial Revolution still unfolding, many of which are morphing into quasi-computers themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1960, CBS aired a special issue entitled "The Thinking Machine" which featured three Western playlets scripted by a computer programmed by MIT researchers. Almost 60 years later, two researchers at Autodesk used a computer program to help design a chair. In this article, I link these two seemingly discrete examples of computational creativity in order to highlight how digital fabrication technologies have served as an important test site for defining human and computational expertise. I do so by illustrating how concepts of "creativity" and "routine" were produced alongside the concepts of computational creativity during the development of digital fabrication. This dichotomy of "creative" and "routine" is not only used to determine the kinds of tasks that are appropriate for humans and computers to perform within the design and production process, but it is also used to render invisible the embodied craft knowledge required to substantiate these systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to shed light on notable aspects of the history of computing in Greece, starting from 1920. We cover six areas, including the early days of computing in the country, the transition to the Internet era, the formation of a computer-related educational infrastructure, the evolution of data networks, and the growth of the software and hardware industry. In each area we highlight findings that involve the important role of women in this technological evolution, how the risks taken by particular individuals pushed the boundaries of the field, the slow pace of the universities at the early stages, and the key part of multinational technology companies and state-controlled banks. Apart from numerous reports and publications, our sources also include interviews with individuals who played a major part in the development of computing in Greece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dame Stephanie (Steve) Shirley is one of Britains most celebrated IT pioneers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. In 1962, she founded a contract programming company exclusively for women, seeing untapped potential in the large numbers of educated women who had left work in order to raise children at home. Shirleys company grew rapidly and had a successful IPO in 1996. Since retiring, Shirley has spent her time supporting various IT-related causes and, most recently, organizations researching and providing services to those with autism. This edited interview is based on an oral history conducted by Marie Hicks, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, on behalf of the Computer History Museum. The original transcript may be accessed here: www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738707. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines corporate labor and gender relations in transatlantic perspective. It argues that the gendered communication of IBM’s Thomas Watson Sr. shaped labor relations in his company’s West German subsidiary. In the United States, Watson acted as a business progressive, expanding internationally, opening professional careers to young women, and implementing welfare capitalist measures. When IBM took tighter control of its foreign operations after World War II, Watson sought to implement welfare capitalist measures in the subsidiaries abroad. His wife Jeanette by his side, he presented himself as the caring “pater familias.” German IBM employees embraced Watson’s conservative rhetoric of the IBM family but continued to join national unions and formed a works council, thwarting the major welfare capitalist goal of averting labor organization. Against such local labor practices, gendered communication undergirded a loyal workforce even in critical situations, an overlooked factor contributing to the company’s success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a biography of Anne-Louse Guichard Radimsky [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The term "computer utility" has been perennially present in the history of computing, though a precise definition of the term has been fleeting, even when it first appeared in the Mid-1960s. The recent resurgence of interest in the remote provision of computing power has brought with it the historical jumble of definitions that make up that term, and "computer utility" is once again being applied to computer architectures though with little justification or exposition given regarding this use. This article attempts to determine whether past and present applications of the term share any commonalities and in doing so questions whether there has ever existed a true "computer utility." To do so, incarnations of the "computer utility" are examined in two time periods--the 1960s and the 1970s--during which time computer time-sharing enjoyed significant prosperity and now as cloud computing has become increasingly popular and prolific. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the cultural climate faced by women in the American computer industry from the 1960s to the early 1980s, a period in which the percentage of the industry workforce that was female almost tripled. Drawing on a comprehensive study of articles and advertisements in the trade journal Datamation, sources from IBM, Control Data, and the Burroughs Corporation, and the records of the user group SHARE, Inc, the study argues that the cultural climate of the industry shifted radically in the early 1970s, from hostility in the 1960s to a more open one in the late 1970s and early 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is the second part of a comprehensive study on the rise of America's early computer clusters from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography. That is, we attempt to identify the historical processes that led to the formation of the early clusters of computer production in the United States. Here we explore explanations for the genesis of the agglomerations identified in part 1. We suggest that the clusters we observe in the early 1970s arose from the locational decisions of three waves of companies: the computer start-ups of the late 1940s and early 1950s, the large conglomerates that entered the computer industry during the 1950s, and the minicomputer and peripheral-making companies that entered later on. We argue that a combination of preexisting conditions and Marshallian externalities generated the clustering patterns for computer production we observe in the early 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an interpretation of the early computer industry in America from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography. We analyze the County Business Patterns microdata files for the 1970s and identify a variety of early computer clusters. We explore the economic factors that led to the formation of these clusters, including preexisting conditions and Marshallian externalities, and suggest that a combination of these factors goes a long way toward explaining the location patterns we observe in the data. Part 1 of our study analyzes the clustering patterns of the early computer industry. Part 2 develops explanations for those patterns. That article will be published in the next issue of Information & Culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Taiwanese laptop contract manufacturers established the foundation of their businesses between the late 1980s and mid-1990s. It casts doubt on the traditional view of a linear progression from manufacturing to design capability in Asia. By examining the three earliest laptop projects in Taiwan, however, this author shows that manufacturing was not necessarily simpler than design and how important these producers' design engineering capabilities were to attracting customers and establishing a solid foundation for their future development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The origin and history of Landauer's principle is traced through the development of the thermodynamics of computation at IBM from 1959 to 1982. This development was characterized by multiple conceptual shifts: memory came to be seen not as information storage, but as delayed information transmission; information itself was seen not as a disembodied logical entity, but as participating in the physical world; and logical irreversibility was connected with physical, thermodynamic, irreversibility. These conceptual shifts were characterized by an ambivalence opposing strong metaphysical claims to practical considerations. Three sorts of practical considerations are discussed. First, these conceptual shifts engaged materials central to IBM's business practice. Second, arguments for metaphysical certainties were made with reference to the practical functioning of typical computers. Third, arguments for metaphysical certainties were made in the context of establishing the thermodynamics of information as a sub-discipline of physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1981, videotex and virtual circuits were the hot computer network technologies and promised to bring the world to the masses. Amid a worldwide battle over standards, France started Minitel, which quickly became the first successful mass-market digital information-distribution ecosystem. In 1991, France Telecom launched the American version of Minitel, 101 Online, in San Francisco. 101 Online was as massive a failure as Minitel had been a success. This article reveals the previously undocumented history of the 101 Online ecosystem, suggests reasons why it failed where Minitel had succeeded, and draws lessons for the current policy debate on what information-network architecture and implementation best fosters digital innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is the second in a two-part series exploring the development of the early history of information technologies, from the 1940s to the present. This article describes the evolving information infrastructure used by historians in support of their research on the history of computing and of the role of IT practitioners, computer executives, scientists, and universities in creating that support since the 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Computer history displays in museum galleries and exhibitions traditionally focus on iconic machines and progressive lineages of hardware production. This approach has been widely criticized as unrepresentative of computing's wider context but is, in any case, becoming increasingly awkward as historical attention turns to the era of small, cheap, undistinguished personal computers and standardized networking. This article presents a range of more user-focused display approaches for consideration. In particular, I address the value and practicalities of period "set dressing" for hardware and hands-on interaction with software and call for greater hybridization between approaches devised for static galleries and for mobile displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the technological changes across computing's first three generations, how might the next serve humanity? Three critical technologies--the cloud, the crowd, and the shroud of devices connecting the physical and digital worlds--define the fourth generation of collective computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives, for the first time, a complete description of the machine developed around 1850 by Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué (1776-1856) for the mechanical computation of arithmetic sequences, of particular use in setting gear-cutting machines. The first part in a two-part series, this article describes the machine's historical context and structure. The second part will present the details behind its basic operations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents a brief history of how computing started and evolved in Mexico. From the first computer installed in 1958 to the present day, the authors analyze the role computer science has played in Mexico, looking at its limitations, opportunities, academic programs, government, and related industries as the motor of computer science development. They describe how research has gone from an approach centered only on applications development to the creation of research institutions granting advanced degrees and a growing community of researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although Mexico has a common border with the United States, on account of its enduring inequities in distribution of wealth and often rickety economy, Mexico's technological advances have been a step behind. Nevertheless, Mexico has had quite a few interesting high-end technology locations that helped stimulate the acquisition and spread of computing knowledge. This article briefly describes how Mexican computing has evolved-depending significantly on developments in the US and often hindered by the Mexican politics that have led to long periods of economic crisis. In the 1990s, an international treaty helped boost the Mexican computer industry, although this relatively recent event still left Mexico far behind its neighbor to the north. The treaty made it easy to import computers into Mexico and to produce them in Mexico, and the economy became more stable over the following decades. In time, computing developments in Mexico started catching up with the US, coinciding with cheaper consumer electronics products, a good economy, high productivity, and globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the end of 1960, Argentina began to incorporate its first computers and develop computing research projects and training programs. This early period overlapped with an renovation movement, and the most notable efforts to appropriate the new technology were initiated at the universities. Led by mathematician Manuel Sadosky, the most relevant contribution came from the Calculus Institute (Instituto de Cálculo, IC) at the University of Buenos Aires. From 1961 to 1966, equipped with a Ferranti Mercury computer, the IC went through a period of rapid growth, and it was fundamental to creating the first computer science degree program in Latin America. After the country's coup d'état in 1966, approximately 90 percent of IC's personnel resigned. Afterward, no institution could match its scientific and professional expertise nor equal its authority and leadership in the field, despite the modernizing rhetoric of the new authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is part of a two-part series exploring the development of the early history of information technologies, from the 1940s to the present. It argues that historians have developed this new field along the lines evident in other historical categories, evolving from accounts of machines and individuals to more complex historiographical issues involving research methods, institutions, groups, and whole nations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

These reminiscences relate to the period that Brian Randell spent between 1964 and 1966 first at IBM Research working on Project Y and then in the IBM Systems Development Division on the resulting ACS Project--then-secret projects that aimed to build a supercomputer that would be 100 times faster than Stretch. Randell's account is based in part on his memory, but also makes extensive use of the small set of files that he had retained, mainly relating to patent applications. A scanned copy of one of these files, the paper "Dynamic Instruction Scheduling," that he coauthored with Lynn Conway, Don Rozenberg, and Don Senzig in February 1966, is available as an online Web extra https://s3.amazonaws.com/ieeecs.cdn.csdl.public/mags/an/2015/03/man2015030055s.pdf and in Newcastle University's online archive at www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/891.pdf. Because of space constraints just the initial three pages of this paper are included in the present article, which also includes the text from a section on "Interrupts" that was added to the 1969 IBM San Jose Technical Report version of the 1966 paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Academically trained as a historian and then hired as an IBM salesperson in the 1970s, James Cortada spent many years working to define the scope of the emerging history of computing field. As an IBM employee, Cortada began his writing career with almost exclusive access to the IBM Archives. This article describes his experiences with the IBM Archives, the archives of other major industry leaders (such as Burroughs and NCR), and the still active pioneers in the computer industry during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The history of computing in India is inextricably intertwined with two interacting forces: the political climate (determined by the political party in power) and the government policies mainly driven by the technocrats and bureaucrats who acted within the boundaries drawn by the political party in power. There were four break points (which occurred in 1970, 1978, 1991 and 1998) that changed the direction of the development of computers and their applications. This article explains why these breaks occurred and how they affected the history of computing in India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Computer pioneer Gordon Bell has been one of the industry's leading figures for nearly 50 years. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994), American Association for the Advancement of Science (1983), ACM (1994), IEEE (1974), and Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2009) and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1977) and National Academy of Science (2007), Bell was also a founding board member of the Computer History Museum. This interview is based on an oral history conducted by Gardner Hendrie for the CHM in June 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article lists several research papers in engineering studies including topics engineering and war, gender equity in science and engineering, and history of international computer industry.

Engineers at Living Computers: Museum + Labs have salvaged one of the world's first supercomputers. In the Web extra at https://youtu.be/wDc1630krls, Charles Severance goes behind the scenes at the Living Computers: Museum + Lab to discover how its engineers salvaged one of the world's first supercomputers. In the second Web extra at https://youtu.be/8jysBmy5Bec, author Charles Severance provides an audio recording of this Computing Conversations column. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at India's IT industry history in the 1970s and early 1980s by focusing on the development of an indigenous microcomputer by the Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL). After gaining independence in 1947, the Indian government embarked on a program that focused on economic development, albeit with a socialist theme and central planning. Indigenization was the prime objective. Some industries were more favored than others, and electronics and computers were initially neglected and hobbled by restrictive policies. Foreign companies were pressured to reduce foreign equity. By the late-1970s, government efforts to induce IBM to transfer equity had failed. The government responded by forcing IBM to leave India and by relaxing policies and permitting local companies to import parts and components to develop computers locally. As a result, many private companies entered the computer sector. HCL was born in 1976 and released its first commercial system in 1978. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The collection of articles on the history of computing in Latin America reflects a growing body of work looking at the influences and effects of computer technology in the region. The articles here cover a broad range of topics, including the degree of dissemination of computer machinery, the availability of local expertise, the regulation of the computer markets, the quantity and quality of local activities involving computers, the role played by the state, and the relations between the computer and telecommunication sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Industrie 4.0 illustrates the interconnected nature of standards and software technology. The web extra at https://youtu.be/P11_LuZV2_0 is an audio recording of author David Alan Grier reading his Global Code column, in which he discusses the German manufacturing movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]