IT History Society

“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 jobs. By the early 1930s IBM was distributing information about novel (for the time) plugboard wiring diagrams to customers via...

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 & American Business (Aspray & Ceruzzi, 2008) (shameless plug). Anyway, I did some...

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 culture and behavior are too. So putting my historian’s hat on, here is my...

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 they take a lot of professional pride in and it’s...

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 work over time which I think, is a more important...

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 National Research Council's preliminary report. Initially I...

It's great to welcome new contributors to this blog. In the meantime, have a look at this video about the National Museum of Computing , located at Bletchley Park.

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 three birthdays?! Isn’t that a bit much? The birth and early histories of...

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 'scroll' to be found some way down this...

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, which provide the greatest access to computing and the greatest challenge to IBM’s System/360 hegemony until...