IT History Society Blog

Moore’s Law is an empirical observation—that the density of computer memory chips doubles about every 18 months, and it has been doing so for the past four decades. Magnetic storage capacity, and to a less-regular extent, processor speeds and telecommunications bandwidth have also been increasing exponentially in a complementary fashion. We all know the results, not just in consumer products but also in industrial and business processes that soak up this capacity in all sorts of creative and unexpected ways. 

I was reminded of this the other day when I was asked by a journalist to comment on the failed AOL merger with Time Warner. My response was that the merger DID work—it is called YouTube. YouTube combines AOL’s feeling of being part of a virtual community, with network television’s ability to deliver video entertainment and news. In 1999, Steve Case had a vision of this merger, but given the underlying technological base, he thought it would require a combination of two very large corporations, with gleaming corporate headquarters designed by famous architects, with armies of highly-paid vice-presidents, chauffeured Town Cars, expensive meals, etc. YouTube pulled the merger off on a comparative shoestring, but YouTube couldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Moore’s Law, which provided the bandwidth and video capability that was not there in 1999. Computing does not proceed in a linear fashion, although the steady progression of Moore’s Law may be an exception to this rule. The late Alan J. Perlis once said, “Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.” So are historians of computing. We have no choice but to follow the computer, however awkward or embarassing a place it puts us in.

Within the past decade, the cell phone has spread around the world. The iPod is a permanent appendage to teen-agers, while the Blackberry plays the same role for “grown-ups.” All these, of course, are based on the microprocessor, whose architecture in turn is based on computer designs that go back at least to the 1960s. The almost universal adoption of this architecture makes it dificult, if not impossible, to imagine that computer architecture could have evolved any other way. (Maybe that’s why we have science fiction writers.)

A recent book, edited by Anne Firtzpatrick, on the history of computing in the Soviet Union may help in this regard. Pioneers of Soviet Computing is a very personal account of that history, told from the perspective of Professor Boris Malinovsky, a first-hand witness to what happened behind the Iron Curtain.

 The book is full of wonderful stories, and for me the best show how technology can, indeed, follow alternate trajectories when the conditions allow.  American computing technology was not directly transferred to the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, as it was to other countries in Europe and Asia.  Yet the Soviets developed computers, based on designs they conceived of and executed themselves. And these computers worked–often very well. Malinovsky argues that the U.S.S.R. made a tragic mistake when it chose to reverse-engineer the architecure of the IBM System/360. That gave the Soviets access (mainly through espionage) to a vast library of software, but it also closed off the creativity and ingenuity of that country’s own scientists and engineers. This topic obviously resonates with current issues, and whether Malinovsky is correct or not ought to be the focus of further historical research.  The book has several other examples like this one of the “alternative universe” that existed in the Soviet Union at the time.

Anne welcomes comments and discussion about this topic, so feel free to contact her at <acbfitzpatrick@gmail.com> if you like. This will no doubt be a theme I will come back to again in this blog as well.