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June 16, 2011
Happy birthday, Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the 1911 formation of the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation through the merger of the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company. We probably wouldn’t care, except that in 1914 CTR appointed...
April 27, 2011
Mainframe History and the First Users' Groups (SHARE)
“Programming” (and programming support) was an old data processing concept that originally was broadly defined as the adaptation of general-purpose devices to specific tasks. Programming therefore goes back to Herman Hollerith wiring and rewiring (programming) his equipment to handle specific...
April 22, 2011
Where exactly is the "cloud"?
You have probably heard the news about the failure of Amazon's Cloud computing services, in spite of their claim that it was geographically dispersed, redundant, etc. This is a relatively new phenomenon, but Martin Campbell-Kelly discussed its early genesis in his chapter in our book The Internet &...
April 4, 2011
How Does a Company Make it to 100? The Short History.
We all know very few organizations do live to the age of 100, especially corporations. Those that do obviously tend to get more things right than wrong, and the market rewards them for their behavior. Luck and circumstances are important factors, but increasingly historians observe corporate...
April 1, 2011
The Mainframe: A Living History
This month is the 47th anniversary of IBM's introduction of the System/360. In other words, the birthday of the modern mainframe architecture as a computing platform. They say that one common flaw with mankind is a failure to learn from our history. Ask any mainframer what is one thing that...
March 31, 2011
Remembering Paul Baran
There are many measures of success; wealth, power and fame are the most common. Paul Baran’s successes have been well documented, both prior to and since his recent passing. After reading many of the tributes and technical accomplishments, what struck me most was the societal impact of his body of...
March 17, 2011
End of an Era
I was going to title this post "The End of Moore's Law," but that would not be quite right. What is happening is that increases in processor speeds have slowed or even stopped. Without faster processors, it is hard to take advantage of increases in memory capacity. Here is the reference to the...
February 28, 2011
Happy Birthdays IBM
James W. Cortada IBM Corporation Happy Birthdays?! Yes, the company has potentially three birthdays, so which one is the “real” birthday? In 2011 IBM is celebrating its 100th birthday, a remarkable achievement for any company, but especially one in such a volatile high-tech industry as ours. But...
February 25, 2011
Historic Computing Calendar
In March 2009 I interviewed Roland Bryan, one of the original Arpanet team and now CEO of MachineTalker, a Santa Barbara based company developing intelligent wireless networks. I was in pursuit of some drawings I found a few years ago on Martin Dodge's great Atlas of Cyberspaces - namely the...
February 24, 2011
Ken Olsen and his once-great company
Ken Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, died Feb. 6. While most millennials would say “who?” those with a little more perspective will remember him as one of the most significant business leaders and entrepreneurs of 20th century computer history. DEC invented the minicomputer,...
February 21, 2011
Sue Thomas: Introduction
Hello everyone. I'm honoured to have been invited to be an occasional contributor to this stimulating and important blog. I hope you enjoy my contributions and find them relevant to your interests. A bit about me. I'm a writer and Research Professor of New Media in the Institute of Creative...
February 16, 2011
I'm not ready to give up yet
In a couple of months a book entitled Science Fiction and Computing, edited by David Ferro and Eric Swedin will appear. I contribute an essay about the relationship between Artificial Intelligence research and AI's portrayal in science fiction, especially "HAL" in the Kubrick film 2001: A Space...