Introduction:

It’s hard to imagine life without the Internet: no smart phones, tablets, PCs, Netflix, the kids without their games. Impossible, you say? Not really, because we have the Internet thanks to a series of conditions in the United States that made it possible to create it in the first place and that continue to influence its availability. There is no law that says it must stay, nor any economic reason why it should, if someone cannot make a profit from it.

Nikola Tesla, whose name Elon Musk chose for his electric car company, was on the cover of Time magazine in 1931 for his achievements.  Unfortunately, he died a poor man in 1943 after years devoted to projects that did not receive adequate financing.  Although the main Tesla lab building on Long Island, New York is being restored by a nonprofit foundation — the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe — the World System broadcast tower he built there was torn down for scrap to pay his hotel bill at the Waldorf Astoria in 1917.

On 11/13/2015 the NY Times printed the obituary of Gene Amdahl, which prompted this recollection of him. His revolutionary attack on IBM with plug-compatible high-end computers  occurred at the time I was most involved in industry forecasting for AD Little. One result was a consulting assignment from Fujitsu of Japan, which was considering funding Amdahl.  IBM had put all its software "in the public domain" in response to an antitrust suit, meaning that anyone could do anything with it.

On Thursday, August 13, 2015, an FMS audience  enjoyed a marvelous "conversation" between FMS Technical Chair Brian Berg and SanDisk founder Eli Harari, PhD.  Eli's narrative was stimulated and augmented by very informative slides Brian created.   Thanks also to Ken Pyle for video recording this special event.

Dear fellow members of ITHS, I am an historian, serve on the board of ITHS, and worked at IBM for 38 years. Some of you may have seen books I have written on the history of the IT industry over the years. I am now going to write a large, full history of IBM from the 1880s to the present and need your help in acquiring copies of notes, presentations, and any other records you may have that help me fill in details, especially on the following topics:

The IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (in use from 1948-1952) pioneered some features of the modern computer such as self-modifying instructions and stood on the indistinct dividing line between the modern computer and the calculating machines that came before. It was also a pioneer in another sphere, the movie business.

The IEEE SV Tech History committee fulfilled its mandate by holding four technical meetings in 2014.  It was a close call as three of those meetings occurred in the last three months of the year.

Introduction:

IEEE Silicon Valley Technology History committee co-chair Tom Coughlin attended the dedication of an IEEE Milestone in Hawaii for the first Transpacific Cable System (TPC-1) in 1964.