IT History Society

Those words were spoken by the late Professor W. David Lewis, of Auburn University, discussing a talk I had given about the relationship of computing to aerospace. We all know the corollary: if you discover a universal solvent, in what container can you hold itFor myself, working at the National Air and Space Museum, this paradox came home forcefully when...

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...

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...

At first I assumed that everyone out there knows who I am, but perhaps I had better introduce myself. I am Paul Ceruzzi, Curator of Aerospace Computing and Electronics at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum , in Washington, D.C. My interests in the history of computing go back to my graduate school days at the University of Kansas,...

A couple of months ago, when I was asked to become a contributor to this blog, my first reaction was, "Right. What's a Blog?" For many years I had been following the writings and software ideas of Dave Winer , who I believe was the "inventor" of the blog. I remember, years ago, when he first described the idea (he...