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Computer Historian?
mike sollanych writes: "Is there any sort of job in the world for someone who's really interested in computer history? I love it, myself, but I'm just approaching the end of high school, and it's time to make some life decisions. So, is there any place in the industry for a computer historian?" How about it? Many businesses and government agencies employ company historians to record activities which might otherwise get overlooked as mundane. What skills would a most benefit a computer historian, and where are such people needed? Does such a job exist in any but the largest of companies now? Tell us what you think.
Why don't you write them and see what's going on there. At any rate, it does sound interesting. I don't know if there's a huge market, but maybe you can start the market yourself.
There's a computer museum in Boston, and Bruce Sterling has written about it.
I don't know if you could get a formal position, but by all means, start a web site! Even a lucid history with pointers to resources would be nice.
I have a good book from ~'86 that goes over the languages and the computer internals of the day (specs on the C64 hardware, a basic memory layout of the TRS-80, etc., etc.), and I'm sure you can find more of that at your local library. I got that one from a library book sale, actually!
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Seems to me it makes a better hobby than a job; knowing your sh!t from years of experience or knowing a different way to do things because that's how it USED to work (Win 3.1, DOS, and MacOS 6.x gurus unite) can definitely help you get your "regular" job done more quickly and effectively. I know DOS has saved my @$$ a few times when Win98 has puked on me.
Personally, I've always been a bit of a computer history geek myself (as my .sig probably attests) and I'd sure as hell be willing to buy yet another book on the subject... so write it.
My only suggestion is start at Alan Turing (or if you go back to babage, at least include him). Most people look at the pre-dawn of computers as a hardware-only affair and tend to skip over Good Ol' Al's contribution on the software front....
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This is typically the domain of Information Science, a combination of Library Science and Computer Science. Particularly you would be looking at a combined degree in IS plus potentially Sociology. Your best bet would be to pursue a government-level position if possible (think Library of Congress) as these people generally have the budget to fund computer history. Also keep in mind there is a big emerging field of data/format archival (ie, how do I read an 8 inch floppy disk on a modern computer etc. etc. etc.) which extends nicely to the field of computer history and human factors. Good luck! ;chroohan
Thanks,
Years ago, when the world wasn't interconnected, this may have been a viable hobby (note, 'hobby', and not 'profession', as computer historians are generally hobbyists), but not today. Anyone can hit up a search engine, and search for....say, ENIAC or EDVAC, and be presented with truckloads of material. The internet was spawned from computer history, so it's only natural that it has plenty of reference material regarding it's roots.
In the age of the Internet, and it's vast amounts of computer-related historical data, a person trying to do the same job would be pretty bored.
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There are documents out there that are in old formats. Regular historians and archivists are going to need a computer guy who knows how to get information off (for example) an 8" CP/M floppy.
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I think if its REALLY interesting to you, you should consider entering Academia and studying (and teaching) it there. I would have LOVED having a Comp. History course, but, as of yet, few professors are young enough to NOT remember when computers were a "new thing".
I think it might be interesting to see the very specific patterns and progression of computing throughout history. If you wrote some papers on it, I'd certainly read them!
Best of luck!
First I'd like to tell you not to worry too much about having to make the "good decision" right now. High school teachers seem to put a lot of emphasis on the fact that you should do the "right decision" at that precise moment. I was dumb enough to believe them at that time. Trust me, I changed my mind a lot of time and studied a lot of different things before finally deciding what I wanted to do. I am just saying that so you don't feel pressure from teachers/parents, it's right at that time of your life to make a choice that is not definitive.
To answer your questions I havn't seen anything like that, but in most computer related programs there are some sort of "history of computing" course so I can easily see that there will probably be some opening in that field in the future. If this is what interests you just go ahead and make your way...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
Huh? I think you were confused:
He wanted to be employed by a company as a computer _historian_
not
_hysterically_ (as in panicked) employed by a computer company.
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
To be honest I don't think the computer has been around long enough to warrant such a field. For most of us "computer history" is just a recent memory. Perhaps in 20 or 30 years computer history will outgrow the bounds of the first chapter in your favorite Computer Science textbook and have its own area of study.
It'll be hard to make a living in a field dominated by people who were actually there and make historical records as a hobby.
Computer people are just like that. They type all day, keep an eye on the developments around them, and have good memories, so it's no big deal for them to sit down one day and type up the highlights of all the developments they have seen (within a narrow focus) in the last 20 years of their career.
I'd as soon start a business based on creating a new desktop OS!
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
About all I can think of is working in a museum of some kind. If anyone out there just wants a nice reference site regarding the history of computers, the best one I have found is A Chronology of Digital Computing Machines. It stops at 1952, but the wealth of information regarding the predecessors to today's machines is very interesting.
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy." -Richard Feynman
While I can't think of any (profitable) uses in industry for a computer historian, in academia, it'd be a huge bonus.
In my college experience, the professors that were easiest to learn from (and best to take) had extensive knowledge about where computers came from (maybe because they could predict where they were going?).
Like was mentioned in an above post, a good base in computer history can help you with current projects, excellent for beginning computer students. And every university has a required class of some kind to prove that the geeks can string a sentence together (so they can post on slashdot).
The idea of compiling information about the computer world has many benefits, aside from trivial interest. A concept that is not in use may have fallen out of the zeitgeist due to lack of relevance, but in 15 years could again have merit. I would consider it a mistake to make a direct comparison between computers (which do lose worth as time passes) and the concepts behind them. The ability to store and reference information regarding the changes in computers and draw parallels between the past and the present (maybe even the future, as history tends to form patterns) would be a valued and relevant ability. But, I am not going to pay you. It might have to be a government/private industry endeavor, akin to the Genome Project.
...get a job as a professor in a CS department. Where else are you going to find assembly language and Pascal?
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
I don't know about business and getting paid, but if I had a sawbuck for every guy I've dated who filled his apartment with antiquated legacy hardware under the aegis of "creating a computer museum" I'd buy a couple of really nice dinners at the steakhouse... :>
If you're interested in history, you might be interested in perusing the wealth of information at Iowa State's John Vincent Atanasoff Archive. It has some great information on the inventor of the Electronic Digital Computer.
IMO, students should be required to take detailed courses in computer history. Why? Not for the trivia, but to understand why decisions were made, and what has been tried before.
Too many students come out of school thinking they know it all, but understanding only a tiny bit of computers beyond the present generation for which they learned to program. Understanding the computers of the past would be useful.
Alas, I have found no such position, or I would apply for it tomorrow.
Computer history sounds real interesting. I have also heard of organizations that collect old computers and try to preserve them and their software so that part of history isn't lost.
Geeky.org
Is there any place for a computer historian? Yeah: maintaining legacy systems is all about history :)
baldeep
I just threw away an old cdrom "cartridge" thingy & a Vic 20 tape drive he could have had for his collection.
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Ha, Ha just become a java programmer since it is pretty much history....
Got Code?
I graduated not long ago with a B.S. Degree in history, and a strong interest in computers. What it gained me was a position with a smaller company that had need of an IT person who could keep the old Tandy machines communicating with the new HP pavillions, NT Server, and the like. In all likelyhood the ability to understand and work with the recently or not so recently obsolete technology is of far more use to the word than simply archiving the hows and why's of PCs past.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Computer history, broadly defined, will probably be a growth industry
in academia. The prospective of the properly trained
historian/sociologist/economist is different from that of the
participants. For examples, the key decision makers during the
Vietnam war have written books about what they did, but the best books
on the topic are by professional historians (usually academics) who do
a much better job than the participants in synthesizing the relevant
information and being relatively objective.
If you combined computer history with some policy work, the project
could be really cool. History can teach great lessons about what to
do (and not to do) in the future.
It would be great to have a true, accurate and complete record of all the history of the computer industry, esp. before Microsoft changes it all (as we have seen they have tried).h tml) (great article - you can see the 'patent wars' have been going on eversince the patent system was started).
You also have to watch out for the Smithsonian - they seem to not always have their facts straight either (http://www.yale.edu/scimag/Archives/Vol71/Tesla.
So a private, complete, subjective history of all the computer happenings, devoid of corporate influence, would be a really Good Thing.
Nah, I doubt it. I'm sure that most of the old information and stuff that might have been on vintage machines has long been rendered obsolete or transferred off onto a newer computer.
Antique computers, like antique radios or antique TV sets, will never have any value except to Hollywood for use as props and as toys for hobbyists and collectors.
Let's face facts: my Trinitron uses a lot less power than my 1954 General Electric TV set. The Sony has stereo sound, a remote control, goes beyond channel 13 and - get this - it's color! But the old GE is a really neat piece of history, and while I only ever turn it on every now and then, it has a prominent place in my living room.
Now, here's a funny thing: ubiquitous as the TV set is, it has, perhaps, been a victim of its own success. There are less pre-WWII TV sets out there now than there are Stradavarius violins. 1950s and 1960s TV sets are getting rare, too. People tend to hang onto old radios because they're usually rather small or have more decorative cabinets.
There are lots of antique radio museums and collectors around the world, but there are only a handful of antique TV collections. (One of the best is the MZTV Museum in Toronto.)
Early computers are even less useful, from a practical standpoint, than a 40-year-old TV set; at least anyone can figure out how to use the 40-year-old TV, but few of us here could use even a 20-year-old computer effectively. Old TV sets often had gorgeous woodwork and great polished brass and chrome accents that were futuristic for their day. Early computers had that sort of retro feeling of "high-tech" too - a plastic prop out of the movie "Tron". But they lack the handmade qualities of earlier antique electronics.
So, what's the fate of my Commodore 64 in twenty years? Cherished museum piece that people will love to turn on, try out and admire; or will it be reviled and ridiculed for its age, simplicity and primitive design?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I'm sure that there would be considerable interest in the future, if by studying the future, you discover trends that facilitate discovering future products and technologies.
Let me state that again. Look at game designers. There are some very good game developers and companies that spend serious money by looking at old games to determine how successful they were from different aspects and trying to determine why they were successful.
If you like the history of computing, I'd say to try find an application of it that looks at the computing of yesterday to determine what the computing of tomorrow will be like.
How to do this? Research, writing articles, and create a demonstrated need. Show companies what they'd gain by reading your articles and getting your opinion in their R&D.
It's a neat idea. Takes some work, but there will probably be a strong demand for it in the coming days.
... is a large university. Especailly ones with strong Computer Science departments.
Part of the duty of such a historian would be to help provide a means of translating old stored data to newer mediums. As well as similar duties for the transcripton of old code.
If industry has percieved a serious need for this, then they have probably pulled few monitary strings, and courses on such subjects might be appearing. A lot of colleges work closely with industy to determine what skills need to be taugt. (I'm not a CS major, so I can't speak from personal experience for that field).
It also makes sense that a Univeristy might have enough space and funds to maintain a library/museum of old data and data storage devices. If only to maintain thier own records and to provide (sell) this service to smaller companies that can't afford to do it themselves.
Failing that, I can guess with about 90% certainty that the Smithsonian, or Library of Congress (which collects all forms of media) might have deparments dedicated to the history of computers. (If not, they should!)
Good Luck with your search!
..of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.
Take EE in college and you'll be on your way.
Plenty of other posters are speculating on what one could do as a professional computer historian, but a better question is how you'd get there. May I suggest that you find a university with a CS department that offers lots of ethics courses and then joint-major with History. Or get a CS degree and a diploma or MA in museum curatorship. The later is available at Trent where you can get a Computer Studies degree and a Museum Curatorship diploma in just 4 years.
You know, you certainly could ask Al Gore for a job as a computer historian. He needs all the help he can get proving that he invented the internet. You could be on CNN tomorrow telling everybody, "I was there with Vice President Gore when he invented the Internet. I helped him bind the servers into one connection. If it weren't for Mr. Gore, there would be no internet. The built-in CAT 5 data port in Al's neck allows the Father of the Internet to jack into his child every day...." and so forth, ad nauseum. Everything I say is just because I'm a history major forced into the IT world. These computers are so naughty, with their fancy Illudium processors.
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
While it might be nice if it were dead. It most certainly isn't. And belive it or not I know plenty of government agencies that still have windowless TN3270 terminals for database lookups.
Personally I'd like to have rows of blinking lights on my workstations : ( I see no reason that had to die. Why!?! Why!?!
http://windows.scares.us
Microsoft Museum
The Microsoft Museum is mainly focused on the history of Microsoft, although it does have quite a bit of information and exhibits on the history of computing and computer software. The whole place is decorated in Microsoftie colors. It's located on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA. Unfortunately it's not open to the public, but I got to attend a party there while I was interning for The Great Satan of Software. However, they do have a fairly nice website that's available to the public.
National Cryptologic Museum
The NCM is run by the NSA and is located on/near Ft. Meade in MD. It gives a good overview of the history of crypto and includes a lot of information on early computing and the role it played. They also have a small public library with plenty of old books that deal with crypto. It's open to the public and has a gift shop where you can buy plenty of things with the NSA logo on them.
Here's a very relevant article criticizing most accounts of computer history. This fellow basically says that most people just tell stories with classic heroes like RMS. I think a computer historian would be a great profession, since its very badly needed.
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wildmage
Memoirs of a Mad Scientist
This might prove illustrative.
As a young man, I was flirting with becoming a dedicated coin collector and I was already an avid photographer. The Smithsonian had a position available for just such a person. The position required studying their collection, documenting it both in words and photos, and acting as a resource person for all things numismatic. Even the educational requirements weren't too high which is understandable since many/most/nearly all top-drawer numismatists are largely self-educated.
The catch? The job paid, IIRC, about USD$15K per year. Living in DC, that would have meant camping out under a bridge somewhere.
My point? I imagine that many of the same forces would be at work when it comes to a position as a computer historian. Such a job would be fascinating but the market value of such services would likely be low. The people who would employ you would be doing it as a service to the hobby population. As a self-employed person, you might be able to deal in collectible computers, if an when such a market ever develops. (And it's out there, actually. There are people paying premium dollars for rebuilt Tandy 102s and the like. But it's certainly not yet a huge market.) I think the best feedback so far is from folks suggesting academic pursuits.
Of course, if old computers suddenly start to get fashionably "collectible," all bets are off.
:-)
Take for example XT based computers. Believe it or not but these machines are still being used by some corporations due to the simple fact that they can handle do what they need to do and its a waste of money to upgrade 'm with other machines when there is no need. But when there is an error and such a machine does crash the company sure won't call out for an 'historian' to tell them what they need in order to fix it. Thats simply too expensive. Its far more easy to buy a new PC (which is offcourse downwards compatible with XT machines (iow; any other PC)) and off you go.
I'd advice you not to focus on this subject from a 'business point of view' but I sure would advice you to spend some time on this subject in your spare time. If you like the idea of seeking information on older computers and also focus on the way they work you can learn much more about the whole 'computer aspect' then you can learn from studying books like "computer internals" and such. Its much easier to begin simple (XT) and work your way up to the current machines. Offcourse this will take more time then it does to study a book, but it sure will pay off more. For starters it will give you more insights in the working of the machines, which automaticly can lead to more insights on the internals of OS's which can lead to..... Well, I guess you get the picture :) Good luck!
This could be a graduate thesis for Anthropology or Philosophy/Sociology of Science if CS Depts won't take it. And the academic discipline of History is more interested in technique than content, so they'll let you do anything that requires the right kind of research.
He has an interesting book titled Artificial Life: A Report From the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology that covers the history of AI (slanted toward alife).
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
IBM has a public gallery space in their NYC office. At one time there was some display of historical computers (made by IBM, of course.) You may want to contact them.
As someone with a history degree (yes, from that Beserkeley place), I'd have to say stick with the computer part. History majors make just a little more than social science majors (most students get a history degree so they can take the easy path into law school), and we've all seen what CS majors pull coming out of a good school. There are a couple of good books on the history of computers (I've read most of them, but not all). Start with Campbell-Kelly and see which eras you prefer to dive into. Most of the folks on Slashdot better get out there and get a copy of Peter Wayner's Free For All (good stuff Maynard), put that on the best seller list and Uncle Bill will come out and say that (like Octavian) he doesn't want to be the richest, most powerful man in the world (remember what happens next, hint - Augustus, 1st Roman Emperor). If you insist in pursuing a history degree, you can always sell games (paper ones) or teach (even funnier), or do some accounting, and hope someone believes enough in you to let you play in their database (that's sort of the path I've gone - not recommended for the faint of heart). But best of luck (maybe someday someone will pull an Atlas Shrugged and we won't have to worry about business and money anymore).
* Get a good general education. Learn to WRITE. Being a historian is an academic job, and you're going to have to write papers. Even if you avoid that horror, you're going to have to write grant proposals and such.
* Take some journalism classes. Learn to write for a popular audiance. If the history thing doesn't work out, you can become a pundit.
* Learn the history of science and technology. It's fascinating stuff, and it will put the history of computers and related technologies into perspective.
* And take some computer science courses! Programming I and Programming II (or their equivalents), data structures, and most importantly a Operating Systems course. Both of the OS courses I took had a LOT of history built in.
Stefan
In the Seattle area there's a company called RE-PC. It's a fascinating warehouse like place that has bins and bins of old computer parts for sale that would give any hardcore geek's historical recall a run for his money. The place is run by a bunch of irritable and cranky guys who are tired of answering stupid questions. I go in there periodically and spend hours pouring over the bins trying to identify parts and picking up a few necessities for the reasonably up to date systems I have at home. In the back of this place is an amazing little computer museum. Stuff like an original field testing kit for the *OLD* IBM hard drives and vintage system parts from computers that existed before I was born. All of the old systems that we used to love as kids are there as well. You really have to go there and see it for yourself.
I always though that if they marketed it better (and housed it in a nicer looking building) it could be a draw unto itself. What it needs is an energetic person who can build it up and market it the way it should be done. Of course you would have to sell the owners on it, but if you have a good vision it wouldn't be that hard. I don't think it would be a HUGE draw right away, but it would break new ground. Perhaps it could even be the home of the AFIK first computing hall of fame. The possibilities are only limited by your energy and vision...
--
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I attend RPI. Computer Science majors here are required to take a class called "Computer Organization", which is a combination of computer history and the fundamental architecture of processors and memory and such. The two subjects go well together, because as we learn what cache is and how it makes stuff faster, we can learn about Von Neumann. I would be surprised if there wasn't a similar class in many other colleges.
....And I know him! His name is Sheldon Hocheiser, and he's a graduate of Reed College (Portland, OR). (Which is how I know of him, me being a reedie too.) So, Technical Historians do exist! I don't know about "computer historians" specifically, though. There is a Microsoft Museum on MS' campus, though.. Good luck, Blue
From my own experience, Stanford is definitely a good choice. You've got a world class computer-science department alongside incredible "fuzzy" liberal arts departments. Since we are right in the middle of Silicon Valley and the technical departments are so strong, course offerings in the economics, history, and sociology departments often have a technology slant. Last year, there was a seminar which detailed the history of the Valley. A course in the communications department on the effects of digital media (which I couldn't take because class size was limited!). And even the computer science department hasn't forgotten its history. Gates (ugh) Computer Science building is full of computer artifacts, notwithstanding Don Knuth :)
If not Stanford, find another top computer science department: UIUC, Carnagie-Mellon, MIT, etc. If the CS department is strong, it will flow into other departments who want to ride the wave.
As far as coursework goes, most schools allow majors to be designed if they don't have one which follows your exact path. Definitely take some CS courses to broaden your knowledge of technology, but a couple of history and economics courses wouldn't do any harm either. Just remember to get as much out of college as possible, since it's only four years.
OK. I'm on my soapbox; but I am a senior, so nostalgia has set in. Good luck and feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions.
Invidia fortunum ovit.
We definitely need a computer historian to record the motives behind important descisions. This would help us to discount 'time proven' (haha) standards, such as sendmail, to clear the road of baracades preventing us from moving on to better things, such as Postfix and qmail. Another example would be moving past telnet to ssh.
Another place for computer historians would that is crucial at the present time, would be to record the status of the industry and related industries along with, again, the motives behind descisions, in relation to technology laws, such as the DMCA and UCITA to keep a clear image of why they were passed and why we should abolish them.
--Drew Vogel
The Computer History Graphing Project -- it looks like it needs some work, but we'll see.
There's lots of other info out there too, like FOLDOC, which could probably be incorporated into a project like this.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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-psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
As someone who is both a Computer Scientist and History (and is getting degrees in both, and a honors thesis in History), the bad news is that the prospects at this moment are grim.....
The great news is that the prospects in 10 years will be great, esp with things like the NSA, Echelon, and other nice nasty things out there, they will increasinly play a role in history, and conversly, historians will have to know about CS to tell it as it is.
Unfortunitly, the typical definition of history is 25 years ago. This is just now hitting the Computer age. Give it a bit yet...
Nobody can predict what the job market will look like in 5 years from now, at least not very accurately, and it is those that choose things that are mainstream who runs the greatest risk of being unemployed (around here, political scientists are crawling all over the place, and run a great risk of being unemployed right now).
So, if computer history fascinates you, go for it. Have no fear for employment, there'll be some position somewhere. It might not make you a fortune, but at least you get to do what you like the most. And, I agree, it is an interesting field
And certainly very needed, many seem to think that the Internet was invented by AOL or M$ or something, or that it is something that just is, ignoring the contribution by brilliant hackers. And ignoring that hackers built the internet, not knowing a hacker from a cracker.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Personally, I find it fascinating, but I wouldn't want to devote all my time to it.
Yes. Picture it. Spend your days on a college campus, teaching classes on the history of computers. You just come up with some random BS thesis on the ways in which computers have affected and changed society, and run with it.
The advantages? It's tough to get a job as a colleger professor, but once you do, you're good to go. Plus, you spend the rest of your life around college-age women.
Come over to the dark side, Luke.
Seems like more of a side project for a professional journalist. Like what the cringe did with Revenge of the Nerds, only bigger and longer running. But I think you're unlikely to find someone that's willing to hire you just for a project like that, without you being proven in the field at all.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
That said, the end of high school is pretty early to decide on your career. It's certainly not too early to decide what you think your career should be, and make plans accordingly, but you should avoid getting too specific until you get a feel for what's out there.
Warning: History as taught at an American University can be very different from the stuff that you learn in high school. Universities really hire humanities faculty based on intellectual fashion, and the current fashion strongly favors politics over substance. I've been a card-carrying Green for ten years and I'm shocked by the hoohaa that my friends in the Social Sciences brought home from graduate courses.
P.S. Do yourself a favor and go to a liberal arts college.
Read Peter Salus's work on the history of Unix. His work is (in my opinion) the style of history we need.
There are also a number of other authors who are recording the happenings and putting them into books. Stuff like Fire in the Valley, Nerds and Nerds 2.01 come to mind.
For an especially great book on computer history, check out "Computer: A History of the Information machine" by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray (1997)
The point here is that: (1) There are already a number of people doing it. (2) Look at what's there and seek out holes in coverage. (3) Please, please, please -- work on your writing skills. A so-so history book that is well written is much better than a good history book that is poorly written.
There are two ways to do this. One is to get someone else to pay you and the other is to do it freelance. Either way your most inportant assets are your credentials, but more importantly your credibility. Develop a reputation for scrupulous accuracy and ethics.
Get a degree in computer and history related fields. Start writing papers and articles on the topic. Work to develop relationships with, and be a resource for others who have a similar interest. And while it is a lot of work, a PhD will open up many more options for you (including being a professor specializing in this area).
As computer history begins to become more "ancient", the interest in it will increase. When that happens, the call for your services will also increase, especially if if you are recognized as one of the respected people in this area. Another avenue to consider is collecting. You could do this on your own, or maybe offer to act as curator for some rich geek with a similar interest.
Sounds like and interesting career idea. Hope it works out for you.
http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery/potc.html
Sherwin Gooch's Account of John Bardeen's Lecture (Score:1)
by Baldrson (jabowery@netcom.com) on Tuesday December 28, @08:58AM EST
(User Info) http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery
In any case, I'll check with Sherwin Gooch to see if he has any more direct evidence from Bardeen himself to support the controversial account of the hide-away experimental stand.
I did, and here is Sherwin's response:
Jim,
Thank you for alerting me to your discussion.
To provide a more solid foundation, one should be aware that I heard this story from the horse's mouth.
John Bardeen himself gave a talk one evening at Altgeld Hall on the University of Illinois campus, circa 1978, in which he related various experiences surrounding his inventing the transistor. At the time, people suspected that the scheduling of this presentation may have been related to Bardeen's health.
Professor Bardeen showed us the B&W 16mm film BB&S had made at Bell Labs immediately after they got the first transistor to work (and, presumably, before Bardeen's boss got to work the next morning...) I have seen individual frames and out-takes of this film since, but I don't know if the entire film still exists. The "rolly-cart" with their experimental set-up is plainly in evidence on the film.
It was John Bardeen himself, at Altgeld Hall, who related that his boss had said that the "solid-state amplifying device" which they wanted to develop was "not feasible," and that, "even if it were possible, it would have no practical application." Dr. Bardeen related that sometimes, when his boss stayed at work past 5 p.m., the three of them would become very impatient waiting for him to leave so they could roll their setup out of the coat-closet, and get busy on what they, apparently, thought was the greatest "cool hack" of the day.
I wonder who Bardeen's boss was. His boss should be immortalized in history next to the NASA manager who advised the last engineer withholding approval of the Challenger launch to "put on your management hat!"
One of the anecdotes John Bardeen related was how he had left his set of photographic slides in the taxi which took him to the ceremony to collect his Nobel prize, and all the trouble to which he and the Swedish government had gone in trying to recover them. But their efforts were unsuccessful; the slides were never recovered. Professor Bardeen was extremely apologetic that he didn't have them to use in his presentation, and so we would just have to make-do with his relating the incidents to us.
With my background in computer music, I found one of the pieces of supporting paraphernalia that Dr. Bardeen didn't lose in Sweden quite interesting. He brought along a transparent plexiglas box, approximately the shape of a 6" cube, with randomly distributed 3/4" or so holes (apparently for cooling?) in the sides. On the top were a number (6 or so) of black SPST N.O. push buttons. A small loudspeaker was mounted inside. (There must have also been a battery of some kind, but I don't recall it.) The box contained a collection of electronic components, their leads soldered to one-another ("tacked together"), and hanging in "free space." (He hadn't bothered to use a prototyping board or connecting strip.) There were resistors, capacitors, possibly some coils, and these ~1" long bar things (which were the transistors), of which there were 3. Dr. Bardeen explained that he had had chosen to build this device because it embodied what he considered to be the fundamental 3 types of circuit: an amplifier, an oscillator, and a filter. He remarked that he thought that pretty much covered everything you could do with electronics. Each of these had been implemented as a single-transistor circuit. Dr. Bardeen then demonstrated the device (which still worked!) by playing "a drinking song of the time, which some of you may recognize" by pressing the few buttons on top of the box in the proper sequence. He apologized because it had gone so badly out of tune (which it had). He apologetically related that he had never re-tuned it. (I'm afraid I didn't recognize the song, nor did anyone sitting around me. I believe he said he had chosen it, in part, because the chorus could be played using a minimal number of different notes. I got the impression that he was somewhat embarrassed by the song, and that's the reason he didn't tell us it's name. I wish I knew what it was.) Even though this makeshift musical instrument was out of tune, I believe the monotonicity of pitches, as one traveled from one end to the other of the row of buttons, still held. The pitches were also all still of a central musical frequency.
Professor Bardeen then passed this device around the audience for everyone to examine, which amazed me at the time, and still does. I wish I had a picture of it. I think this first all solid-state device -- an electronic organ -- should be in the Smithsonian. After all, it contained 3 of the first transistors ever made, AND THEY WERE STILL WORKING!
But I wax nostalgic. Jim, if your point was that Bell Labs did not support Bardeen's research into solid state amplifying devices, you are in good company; John Bardeen, himself, was certainly in agreement. If there were teams being supported to research that area, perhaps he just wasn't lucky enough to be on one of them. I have no idea. All I know is what he told us.
Please feel free to copy this e-mail (less my e-mail address) into any discussions in which you were involved. I find it particularly upsetting when people or organizations fraudulently assume credit.
While it is true that many research facilities can be viewed as "sand boxes" which, independent of management, enable invention, and that many great breakthroughs could not have been accomplished without the collections of tools and talent amassed therein, in reality the role played by management in R&D is much closer to what Scott Adams has chronicled in "Dilbert" than it is to any accepted management text or theory.
Sherwin Gooch
991227
Nor are you advised to allow anything like this to shape your dreamwork:
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInqu iry.asp?isbn=0471048852#customerReviews
Jim Bowery (jim_bowery@hotmail.com), 46-year old network architect., August 18, 2000,
The Rise and Fall of Midwest Computing Sans PLATO
This is a great book, conveying much of the flavor of what it was like to be in the midwest's computing culture in its heyday of the 60's through the 70's. What it failed to do was tell the real story of the midwest's demise as computing leader of the world -- which isn't the story of Seymour's obsession with packaging over on-chip integration, as implied by this book. Rather it is the story of the failure to deploy the network revolution, now embodied in the Internet, to the mass market 20 years early on Seymour's matured hardware via the PLATO networking project at Control Data Corporation. PLATO was a $1 billion 'bet the company' investment by Bill Norris, the farmer/CEO of CDC who put a windmill pump from his Nebraska farm in front of CDC's corporate towers to remind people where they came from. That is the story of epic proportions only grazed on by this book. PLATO was ready to go to mass market, but Wall Street combined with classic middle mismanagement killed the mass market version of PLATO before it could even be test marketed -- for which it was ready. Had it gone otherwise, Seymour probably would never have left the midwest, and his supercomputer architecture would have focused more on the directions now being taken by Sun and Hewlett Packard -- except with Seymour's inimitable qualities.
I personally worked with the PLATO project and tested a version of it that would have leased a network computer with Macintosh-like interface, including network service, for a flat rate of $40/month with capital payback in 3 years. It had everything -- email, conferencing, user-programmable electronic commerce, multiuser realtime graphics games not to mention thousands of hours of computer based education courseware for which the PLATO system was originally designed. We could get this performance because the culture surrounding the land grant colleges of the midwest, such as the University of Illinois where PLATO originated, combined with Seymour's astounding performance levels created the right tradeoffs between hardware/software. Some of us were looking forward to incorporating Seymour's newly marketed Cray-1 as the foundation for the next generation of mass-market PLATO system -- and initial benchmarks looked to provide an outstanding bang for the buck as an information utility hub -- even without some of the more obvious architectural optimizations that would help in this new kind of application of his systems. This would have shielded Seymour from the vargaries of the government-dominated supercomputer market and driven his architectures into higher levels of silicon integration faster -- possibly providing the kind of capital in the kind of organization that could have delivered on gallium arsenide's potential, unlike the disaster that occured when Seymour left his farm and went cheek-to-cheek with the military in Colorado Springs, CO.
If you look at your Internet Explorer Help menu and select About Internet Explorer, you'll notice it is based on the NCSA Mosaic web browser and that it was developed at the University of Illinois -- right across the street from where PLATO was invented. This was no fluke. PLATO had a profound impact on the culture of the University of Illinois particularly its young students who wanted to push the envelope in networking. The NCSA also gave rise the most widely used web server, Apache, and the the founders of Netscape. The loss of possibly 20 years of 'new economy' is incalculable, but suffice to say, comparable losses have been suffered as the result of open war.
There are a lot of anecdotes this book doesn't tell that will probably die with the people who lived the tale. Just one, to capture a bit of what will be lost to history:
People looking for Cray Research's facility in the fields of Wisconsin could drive up to a farm house and ask where 'Cray Reserach' was located and friendly neighbor would say, 'Oh, you mean Seymour's place...' and then give directions to an area surrounded by an almost invisible network of intelligence agency surveillance equipment -- protecting what was seen as a national treasure from potential espionage. In a speech to one of these agencies, Seymour told them they could come out and protect his folks but only if they never got in the way, and that meant not even letting anyone know they were around. Well, you could tell they were around, but at least they didn't get in the way!
--------
Good luck -- and when they ask you to please consider castration -- tell them that went out with the pharaoh's eunichs (which has nothing to do with UNIX as obvious as such an association may be to them).
Seastead this.
Teacher is about the only option i can think of. I know many schools are begging for teachers in technical fields. At highschool, we had a class that was for basic computing. The class covered computer history for the first semester then basic office applications for the 2nd semester. Most people with extensive computer knowledge, aren't at a school (lack of cash), but if it's what you like to do, then do it.
I completely agree. I work in an IS position where the CIO has been working the trade for eons, and he's got some amazing stories that can be told.
One of his favorite topics is in finding "new-technology" that has been around for years. Like things that have failed in the past, but are coming around again.
I too wish there was a formal class in the computer history field in college. It would be great!
If you're local to the Silicon Valley, you might care to check out the Vintage Computer Festival at the San Jose Convention Center on the weekend of 30 September. Nothing less than ten years old will be on display. You may even be able to see working models of Altair and IMSAI machines. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine brought his DEC PDP-8. And there was also the Wall-O-Mac, with every Macintosh model released up to 1993 or so.
I plan on being there. As the owner of two SOL-20 machines (one with a Helios drive), I have a soft spot for the old machines I cut my teeth on.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I had to take this class at APU (http://www.apu.edu). It wasn't that bad of a class.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the often overly-pragmatic replies of many of the posters here, but there would seem to be more to this issue than transcribing old code and keeping 20 year old machines running.
:P), there's no record of the progression of style or theory beyond what we remember and can tell one another. That's a far cry from the abundant paper trail design has left through the 20th century.
Historians not only analyze the past; they also often catalogue the present. This is vital in a field in which massive change over small amounts of time is a matter of course.
As a designer, I'm fascinated by the effect the internet has had on the history of my discipline. When there is no physical record, there is little in the way of history beyond oral tradition. When websites are redesigned (all of them every day, it seems
I imagine everyone who works with, on or around computers has similar issues to face.
How will future students investigate history without a physical record? The answer would seem to be found in people like the kid who asked the topic question, people who can archive, catalogue, analyze and synthesize information about the information age as it happens. There's no time for traditional history, in which we sit back years later and disect a great battle or read through ancient manuscripts in search of insight... because the record will be gone after the next daily big breakthrough.
I think there's a great deal of promise for this pursuit. Computer historians will ensure that we will continue to be able to learn from "the experience of our predecessors, [and] to sustain an imaginative grasp of posterity*"
*quote from Rick Poyner
Crispin
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Immunix: Free, Hardened Linux Distribution
Chief Scientist, WireX
Hey! My dad's in there!!
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I bent my wookie
> _The Second Coming of Steve Jobs
How do you know if it's a good book? I thought it wasn't out yet. Or am I thinking of another book.
I'd seriously warn anyone against taking any book with a history of Apple too seriously, however. It seems that there's not a writer out there who can put his feelings about Steve Jobs aside and simply write a history of the company.
Owen Linzmeyer (sp) did a fairly decent job of remaining detached in "Apple Confidential". But that one doesn't read like a history, so much as a collection of mostly independent essays, from which you can draw out a sence of the company's history.
Pretty much everyone else, however, uses their "history of Apple" book as their personal soap box, either to praise Jobs for his geinus, or tell the world how much they despise the man.
For a good example of the first, see Steven Levy's books; in particular "Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, The Computer That Changed Everything". The title pretty much says it all, eh? Jobs is almost the messiah in this one. Or you could read Pogue or Kaplan and get much the same.
For the other side, this "Second Comeing" book has already been widely described as a "hatchet job". Robert Cringly, in "Accidential Empires" calls Jobs "the most dangerous man in silicon valley", and compares him to the likes of Jim Jones and Saddam Hussain. And don't even bother with gil amelio's rag.
Not having met the man, I can't say IF he's so great as Levy thinks, or the physical incarnation of evil, as Cringly would have you beleive. I suppose you could just read them all, and try to pick a middle ground to beleive. Just don't expect anything resembleing objectivity from ANY of them... with perhaps the singular exception of Linzmeyer (sp).
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
There are in fact jobs in the field of computer history. Although it is not a common major, my school (harvard) does have a program in, and professors of, history of science. One of the possible focuses in this program is History of Technology. Computers obviously play a large part in this.
In addition, I can't offer too much in the way of specifics, but many government institutions in particular need to be sure that they will be able to read records created with outdated technology (and records created with today's technology when it becomes obsolete). You might look into that possibility.
cheers split horizon
You're in high school. You should be broadening your mind, not narrowing in on a professional specialty -- you'll be doing that throughout your post-college life soon enough. If you enjoy computer science and history, seek out your fellow students and teachers who share those interests. Go to the museums other folks have already mentioned. Talk to people. Ask questions. Take notes. Develop a passion for these and other subjects. Seek out internships. Become a problem solver. Read everything you can get your hands on, and find people who can discuss it with you. Don't limit your inquiries to just those of a "computer historian". Good luck.
--
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
IEEE, I believe, has a transactions on the history of computing which I used to subscribe to and enjoy quite a bit when I was a member.
I would advise going to a good University library, finding this journal, then finding articles that interest you in it. Then, figure out what the background of the authors are, or even contact them for advice. Clearly, the best procedure will be to find out who's doing the work you're most interested in and finding out how they got to do it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Go to a high-quality university or college, one that is called "highly-selective" in college guides. (If you pull a 1400-1500 SAT and have an A average, you can go most anywhere. If you get 1200-1300 SAT and have a B average, you won't make it into ivys or other high-prestige schools, but you may still be able to go to many excellent colleges.) This will prepare you for a strong graduate program.
There are history of science doctoral programs out there. The appropriate career path is university faculty. Academic salaries for historians start at roughly US$35,000 (for assistant professors; the salary for associate profs might be $45,000 and for full profs $55,000 or $60,000, figures vary by type of school and region of the country). So the pay isn't that swell, but there is an extremely important perk for professors: tenure, which amounts to an open-ended, permanent contract. You'll be there doing something you love come hell, high water or recession.
The catch is you have to get a tenure-track position in the first place. History is very competitive. Even if you get a position, it might be in a place you wouldn't otherwise want to move to (e.g., you love bright lights and big cities, but your only offer is from a "compass-point" school like South West State U, hell-and-gone in the middle of nowhere). It can also be rough making tenure; you have to move on if you don't get it (normally awarded after 7 years of service).
Ok, sure-- Academia has many strong points. If you're seriously thinking about it as your long-term goal, I advise you to become close enough friends with a PhD student that they tell you exactly how they feel about it, though. If you're still enthused-- go for it! A degree can't hurt you in the job hunt if you decide to leave the ivory later.
But-- if you *really* know your computer history, you'll have enough technical know-how to get a foot in industry (to keep bread on the table in the early years), and you could do something very exciting and far-reaching by presenting yourself as a project planner/consultant with enough perspective on tech progress and business to avoid the historical pitfalls and catch the long-term trends. This route would require more savvy with the tech itself, but you could have a real impact on the actual trajectory of computer history rather than just watching from afar.
I think it's a great career interest. Think big. Be creative. Most importantly-- do what you want.
Talk to the people who put together: http://library.stanford.edu/mac/
I personally /love/ computer history but I find there's a real lack of courses (at least at the University of Toronto where I go) in this subject. I'm taking a course on the history of science this coming term and the syllabus mentions computer and Internet history (both in the same lecture - the last one) but judging from the description, I can imagine it's stuff everybody already knows (ie. stuff from popular media). Are there any places that have really good courses in this subject? I might consider correspondence if the course it decent.
That's one perspective, but TV and radio haven't changed much. What changes have taken place are backwards-compatible. There's no need for old TV sets, because new TV sets can do all that and more.
But it's different when you look at IT.
Punch cards are still in use. My overclocked Celeron has a 5.25" disk drive. My friend just bought a record player.
Why? Because there's information in old formats that's valuable. And as long as that data's out there, the equipment that can read it is valuable.
But I challenge you to find a sub $1000 modern tuner that sounds better than a Leak Troughline with a Studio 12 decoder.
I could go on, but I'm getting further offtopic.
What's really sad for geeks is that 16-bit, 44.1 or 48kHz sound (CDs and DAT) aren't a patch on the quality of a good gramophone record, let alone a 15ips analogue mastertape. Though i accept that convenience is occasionally a little more important than quality.
- Derwen
http://fsfeurope.org/
Check with the Smithsonian (and perhaps even some European museums such as the British Museum) and see if they have positions for computer historians. I have to think that they would. If you can find such a person, ask what the qualifications are for the post, so that you can effectively direct your studies. Also ask about any associations devoted to the field and join them; getting a job like that is going to require some networking.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
When I was in school (at Worcester Polytech) I was *this* close to becoming a History of Science major. I burnt out on the CS major (after an abortive sidetrack into EE) and was looking for something, anything, that would get me out of school with a useable diploma. The classes I took in the history of science were great. I did loads of research on the early computing done by Turing to break the Enigma and other codes (a dead-end, since the details of the work were still classified at the time). I found, oddly, that put into the context of history, that science became a *lot* easier to learn. How we came up with modern physics (particle physics and quantum mechanics) actually made sense.
Alas, this was back during the recession of the late 80's, getting a degree in the History of Science looked like it would perfectly suit me for a job saying "you want fries with that?"* So I opted for something else.
Anyhow, there is an entire discipline out there regarding the history of science and technology. I don't know which schools are big on the history of science. But I can tell you that the big acedemic journal for the History of Science is called ISIS. I assume you can get some information out of that journal about academic programs.
(* note to those interested in funky majors like the history of science. The truth is, if you have computer skills, you can get a job even if you don't have a major in it. I suspect that I could have gone on to have the career I have right now, even if I did get a diploma in the history of science. Oh well.)
This includes car radios, cell phones, pagers, military communications equipment, processors, all sorts of things. It even includes the advertisements for Motorola (including some cool psychedelic posters from the 70s for Motorola's 8-track car stereo).
You might like that sort of thing, I can't say. It's quite fascinating for employees and their families though.
Most, if not all of the museum is online as well but it may only be accessible within Motorola, I haven't checked.
There a are a couple of programs history of science and technology at universities in the US, and, eventually, they will catch up with computers.... The best histories of media technologies (TV, computers etc.) are written by German scholars (don't ask me why), particularly Friedrich A. Kittler and Siegfried Zielinksi. Kittler is Professor in Berlin, Zielinksi is founding rector and chair for Communication and Media Studies at the Kunsthochschule fur Medien in Cologne, Germany. Little has been translated into English and it is a bit theory-heavy but if you're determined that's the place to start.
I'm sure many colleges offer study in the history of computers/technology. I know Georgia Tech does. Look here. It seems pretty broad including stuff like sociology too.
-tim
There are a lot of really good ideas have gone to waste over the years since the h/w wasn't capable enough to let people run what they wanted to run. Look at what we're using today. Many of the major ideas are very old. Many of the things thought of as "new" had been talked about or at least mentioned by the likes of Turing, von Neumann, Zuse, et al.
It is very valuable to go back and read some of the old papers. I have a copy of Newman's "History of Mathematics" which I inherited from my father. This has lots of papers from major figures in computing. Ever wanted to read George Boole on logic? Or Turing's paper where he proposes the "Imitation Game"? This is a great set of books. There's also some very good papers on general mathematics in there too. It's a bit old now but is very interesting in any case.
Another good source of information is the ACM SIGPLAN "History of Programming Langauages" conferences. Alan Kay's "History of Smalltalk" presentation at the 2nd is fascinating. And for Unix devotes it also has Dennis Ritchie on the history of C. This conference is one of the best for historical recolection. The people who did things are telling you about it.
I also often go through my old copies of Dr.Dobbs from the 1970s and 1980s. Very interesting to see the types of thing people where proposing for microprocessor based computers Dr.Dobbs also got quite a few good papers from well know CS types. For instance there's a paper from Knuth on TeX in which he states "...I'm going to write a book about the program..." (or somesuch) and some nice articles by the Bell Labs folks on C, Unix, algorithm design (Jon Bently).
I've got a history degree, and while I don't really have the academic bent that being a historian requires, there are certainly jobs out there for computer historians. Museums, libraries, and large computer companies all hires historians with various specialties, including computers. Archives of various sorts (academic, museums, corporate, etc) also hire historians, as do universities and colleges. Getting a Ph.D. in history is rather competitive, though. If you are sincerely interested in such a field, I would attempt to apply to a school that offers cross-disciplinary fields, such as Harvard. Failing acceptance into that, I would get a computer science degree from a local school, and then apply to a history program for a master's degree. They'd be more than interested in a candidate with such an unusual background, especially if your collegiate grades are in the B+ - A range. Good luck!
-we see not what is, but what we are--anais nin
Usually this involves getting a BA from a liberal arts school either in history or in computer science (or an ScB if you really want to dedicate your life in college to computers). If you major in one, though, make sure you take a bunch of courses in the other so you know both aspects. After college you can apply directly to a PhD program in history with an emphasis on computer science (or technology). Usually, this means that you apply to a program with a couple of professors who are interested in the same areas you are. For intance, both MIT and Stanford have a number of top people working on the history of computer science. The program at MIT is more centered on the technology aspect whereas Stanford's tends to be more theoretical. There are, of course, many others than just these two, but you have several years to explore all the possibilities.
I recommend getting a PhD in the history of computer science (or technology), because that provides you with a substantial background in both history and the specific science you are intersted in, as well as a lot of experience in doing research and writing professional quality papers. But getting a PhD doesn't limit you to working in the academy- indeed, many new PhD's, especially in the histories of science, tend to move into the private sector, working for companies, institutions, and sometimes the government.
Be warned, however, that getting a PhD is a long and difficult undertaking. While your friends in CS are earning big bucks right out of college, you're doing fantastically well if you've got a tuition waiver and a $12,000 stipend. Even when you finish your PhD, you still aren't going to be very wealthy. The life of an academic is not one of luxury...
A computer historian would be someone who knows a little more about the field than just reciting the latest technobabble found in "Wired" magazine. For example, anyone who has programmed in a George 2 type, late 70s environment with intelligent terminals offering unprotected fields, already knows a lot about structuring CGI programs using HTML FORM tags. Unfortunately, the supervening bullshit usually makes applying the lessons of the past ideologically inacceptable, because "state of the art indescribable complexity genius blah blah" doesn't sit well with a simple technique from dad's era :-(
I can't say how much of a demand there is for this sort of thing right now, but ask the Census Bureau for raw data from 1970. I bet they'd have a really tough time retrieving it. The same must be true for older companies as well.
And the brethren went away edified.
See Cringley, Robert X. and others.
An undergrad degree in comp sci would be necessary, just to provide perspective.
Beyond that, a masters degree in library science would be required in order to assure a working knowledge of the vast field of information science.
This matriculation path would provide the credentials to become a research librian in the field, researcher, author, or historian.
`
Warning: It is a federal offense to impersonate The President.
dude, go to college
go to
__college__
you'll figure out what you want to do
___trust___ me
--
"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
I note that many replies here are about the technological aspects of less-than-modern computers. I think that if you were to actually do some reading on the subject (there are many good books), you might find that the people involved in this field are mostly trained historians who are concerned more about the historical issues (preservation and accuracy of the historical record, etc.), rather than being engineers or authors of hero myths.
I believe that many universities, the British Science Museum, the Smithsonian, the Deutsches Museum, and possibly the Computer History Museum Center (at Nasa Ames, Moffit Field) employ historians with specialties in computer "stuff".
Several of these museums have volunteer programs (British Museum, CHMC). The amount of artifacts that need to be sorted and cataloged is enormous.
Good luck. If this really is one of the major revolutions in human culture, than an accurate record of its happenings may have the same importance many centuries from now, as do the works of those ancient students who preserved the teachings of Pythagoras.
Check COmputer Museums, don't know how many but there is one in Boston. (Boston Computer Museum). ALso check some large universities involved in computing and technologies.
Could this be Al Gore's future career if he does not win the election?
.sig here.
I mean after all, if he invented the internet, he's got to know a lot about computers...
--
Insert
That's why we'll get DVD-audio. Hopefully that will improve all audiophiles situation a bit.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Why don't you take up computer architecture as a career. It will provide you with many challenging years of college and graduate studies, and in the process of learning how new technology works you will study the past.
At Cornell we have a Science and Technology Studies program. It also has a sister program, Bio and Society. Both courses of study look at the history of technology and deal with issues of ethics, innovation, and historical patterns. I've taken 2 STS courses, in one we spent some time talking about the debate about vacuums and the ether. In the other, I wrote a paper about the beginnings of television. It would seem as the STS program might suit the type of career that you seem to want to persue.
Goodluck
I knew a fellow in college who was heading to graduate school to study History of Science. I gathered it was an established sub-field. You might look for universities that have some professors who specialize in that. Even if you didn't end up doing that for your career, it would be a nice liberal arts major.
And hey there really isn't a field of historiography that involves computers. I think we need more of them!
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
IMHO, a course on computer history belongs as much in the computer science department, as a course on the history of the automobile belongs in the mechanical engineering department. History which is technical in nature will be a natural part of a course (e.g. an OS course will cover the different types of systems), but things like the names and who invented what are not technical, but sociological, and have no place whatsoever in a technical department.
I think there's definitely a need for computer historians. They probably belong in Universities (I don't know whether it would be in the CS or the History department, though). It's not because computer science is such a young field that there aren't some interesting questions to be studied yet.
Possible areas of study include:
Perhaps you might want to consider pursuing Computer History as a passionate hobby while making the big bucks in boring old programming or engineering?
Fortune magazine, November 22, 1999: "Before Gates and Allen started Microsoft, pure software companies didn't exist."
This obvious false statement is the kind of stuff we have to live with if we don't bother to learn the history of our industry...
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I bent my wookie
Such as Paul Ceruzzi, who works for the smithsonian, and has written several books on the subject. He's also involved with SHOT, the Society for the History Of Technology.
You might also be interested in the slightly less formal Vintage Computer Festival, taking place at the end of September. There will be plenty of history and historians there. The VCF web site also has a long list of links to museums, collectors, etc.
And, of course, I would be denying my own conceit if I did not mention my own collection of classic computers.
Computer history is a growing field, but not one that I think you could ever get rich in, any more than any other similar field. Certainly it is fascinating to look back and see just how far we've come.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Try the Science Museum in London:
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
They have a communications and computing
collection and, for extra points, have actually
built Babbage's analytical engine.
And so they blissfully* reinvent the wheel, over and over again...
*as in "ignorance is bliss"
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Michael S. Mahoney is a computer historian at Princeton University. http://www.princeton.edu/~mike/computing.html -- nobody
parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus
Being somewhat involved in the computer history field myself, I know several people who have made a few bucks off their knowledge -- through providing that knowledge to legal firms for use in patent cases. Prior art is a very big part of proving a patent should not have been given, and having the obscure knowledge of old systems that might have had a particular feature can be very valuable.
And if you'd like to pick up some of that knowledge, check out the Vintage Computer Festival!
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Why don't you send an email to these folks. They run a library devoted to the history of computing at the University of Minnesota. I'm sure that they would be happy and able to lead you in the right direction. Charles Babbage Institute
You may want to look at Structured Computer Organization from Andrew S. Tanenbaum (Creator of MINIX). It covers the changes of programming languages, instruction set, computer architecture, milestones in development of digital computers (Vaccuum Tubes to Transistors to VLSI), Moore's Law, Pentium , UltraSPARC, picoJava, storage, RAM, .... to how to design your own CPU.
You may find it too advance to under the whole designing CPU chapters, but it sure gives you a general idea of the history of computer in its introduction chapters.
You can also try the Computer History Association of California, and the Computer Industry History page from Electronic Software Publishing Corp.
============
Mathematics will always come back to hunt you down, in so many ways
To get some sense of what's involved, you should go look up an actual historian. It doesn't have to be a historian of science or technology, just someone who knows what historiography is about.
Yeah, more jobs working for loopy liberal arts graduates.
My suggestion would be to check out the better books on computer history (imo, the best by far is COMPUTER: A HISTORY OF THE INFORMATION MACHINE by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray), find the author who you admire, and try to go to school where s/he teaches. It's hard to find departments that will support your area of specialty, but it should be pretty straightforward to find a professor who can help you learn what you need to know and who will already have jumped through the "nobody studies this but me" hurdles. Take a look at the IEEE's Computer Society -- www.computer.org -- they have a computer history SIG that's chockful of contacts. OR you could go to a school that specializes in self-designed study, like Gallaudet (NYU). Good luck! It's a topic I love, too.
Things are not good in the computer history business. In part because the main-line companies that felt this was important have faded into oblivion (think mainframe and mini) and the dot coms are too interested in wasting their venture capital on roll-out parties.
The sadest example of the problem is the death of the Boston Computer Museum. Strongly supported by DEC, when DEC went away, so did their funding (and yes there were other reasons including some idiots for executive directors). I was in it several weeks before it closed and a pretty sad thing to see. It has been 'moved' to the Boston Science Center.
The actual museum for the BCM is in California and can be found at Computer History Center. It looks to be alive and interested in history, not 'gee, look, computer interactive toys for school bus loads of children to play with instead of learning how to add, subtract, multiply or heaven forbid divide without a calculator'.
Probably the most respected computer history place at the moment is the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
In any case, learn more, subscribe to IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and remember that the dot comes have mostly forgotten/ignored all of this and so you can make money consulting on 'NEW' ideas that are actually old things revisited.
--multics.
Jumping into this late, but I think you shouldn't worry about what's happening now, but rather what will be happening 7 years from now. My advice: go to college, double major in history and computer science (or major in one and minor in the other). Then enter a PhD program in either history, history of science, or science and technology studies. If you do everything right away, max out on courses, and finish your dissertation quickly, this will take at least 7 years. By that time more people will presumably be using computers, and more universities will probably be likely to want professors to teach history. The PhD is important because it will not only make you a professional historian, but it will allow you to get a job just about anywhere. Any large history department will probably have someone who specializes in the history of science and technology, and with a PhD you'll be able to also teach other history courses, making you a more attractive candidate for a job. There are also museum jobs, as other people mentioned, and large corporations often have positions as company historian that you might be able to get. If all else fails you can fall back on your undergrad CS work and get a higher-paying job as a programmer or admin.
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Computer Historian? I'm still trying to forget my Commodore 64!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I have several friends who got PhD's in the last few years. Once you get the teaching job your struggle has just begun. There is huge pressure to 'publish or perish' which means you have to publish a lot of research over a number of years to prove yourself. Then you are either awarded tenure or asked to leave. You are in cut throat competition with your peers. It is not an easy life in the least especially in the liberal arts.
Engineering and computer science are better because there is a shortage of professors. The competition for tenure is a little less intense.
You might want to drop Dr. Lee an email, I'm sure he would love to answer your questions.
I have several friends who have completed PhD's in established fields: philosophy, biology, and computer science. The process of getting PhD was a monumental struggle. Then getting a job is a challenge -- though not for the computer science PhD: he got a research job outside of academia.
Once you get an academic job your struggle has just begun. You are pitted against other young professors in a battle to get tenure. You either get tenure or you are asked to leave after a number of years of intense politics, research, writing, and brown nosing. Very stressful And these people were in established fields.
I am not saying don't pursue this if you have a real passion for it but consider other alternatives. Get a practical career as say a compter programmer and make history your hobby. You can get good enough at it to write books and papers without being dependent on the academy for approval. For example, look at Eric Raymond. He is a geek who has established himself as an excellent historian, anthropologist, and philosopher -- but he does not depend on academia for his livelehood. He has written some well respected papers and books.
This is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of artifacts and information about computer history in the world. They are located at Moffat Field in Mountain View, CA. They welcome volunteers. Check out http://www.computerhistory.org/
On a more general level, I believe that "computer history" is a job for both CS people *and* historians. Professional historians have learned a few tricks over the years about understanding the past, and trying to write history without their skills leads to amateurish, sloppy work. If historians were trying to use computers for their job, should they get help from an expert or should they try and write the code themselves?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
There is already substantial interest in the historical study of computers, and especially of their impact on society and culture. As time goes on, the subject will attract more interest, funding, and jobs in academe. While the CS world may not now (and probably never will) be open to historical analysis of computing, the subdiscpline/cross-discipline of "History of Technology" could provide you with the training to be a computer historian.
History of Technology tends to focus on the social/cultural/political context as well as the technical details of a given technology. People in the field study everything from metallurgy to recombinant DNA. History of Technology is a stepsister to History (and/or Philosophy) of Science. History of Science, as traditionally practiced, focuses on the development of ideas, e.g. from Newton to Bacon to Darwin, etc. Some History of Science people do technology and/or society, too.
Check out the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), and especially their journal, Technology and Culture. http://shot.press.jhu.edu/
If you want to be an academic computer historian, research and teaching in the history of technology be a good route to employment. Starting out from high school, the first step is getting a good undergraduate education. Don't be afraid to follow your interests. Try to choose classes from the most invigorating (not necessarily the most emminent) professors. Lean to think clearly, to write well, to read with great abandon.
Then, if you really want to be an academic, chose a program carefully. Chances are, the place to do computer history in most universities will be either the History department or the History of Science deptartment. A few schools have History of Technology or Studies in Technology and Society programs. All it takes is one or two good professors to make a good department. Rensaeler Polytechnic, MIT, U of Chicago are some schools with strong History of Technology programs. Start by reading widely--find books/articles you like, and find out who wrote them. Maybe you can study with those authors, or with those that trained them. Read a good general guide to graduate school--I like either Lingua Franca's The Real Guide to Grad School: What You Better Know before You Choose or Peters, Getting What You Came For.
Academe can be a great life, if it's what you really want to do. Don't worry about that now, though--enjoy your education.
--EG
Or unless you stop someone from repeating history(I know there's a cliche in there somewhere) I can't imagine going back to the dark ages of computing, but I'd like to be the guy who stops the next y2k fiasco.
Space Cadet
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I believe a good knowledge of computer history could be vital to fighting patents. Soon there will be technologies that were developed so long ago no one remebmers them and patents will be created for them when people reinvent them. A knowledge of the history would fight these. As an example; a couple of years ago I went to a computer history lecture where someone described how babbages difference engine had a mechanism for breaking the carry chain part way down to allow it do multiple calculations simultaneously. This isn't that far away from what MMX (and its precursors) do. That technology is 150 years old!
Incidentally, Bob Cringely's Pulpit of 2000-07-27, Everybody is Wrong recalls a bit of history of the fiascoes from the people that later became AOL.
A historian of the computer business has to dig beyond corporate statements.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
So what you are telling me is that you:
a) don't work in a technical field
b) you have no grasp of the "bigger picture"
c) you just squeeked by getting that finance degree
d) the bubble you call 'the world' is a 'happy place' for you
If you were a technically based person, you would realize that 70% of all problems were already solved, 20% just can't be solved currently and the last 10% set us who have a clue apart from those like you who don't have a clue.
Accredited Universities have to do this. It's part of the curriculum requirements to acchieve accredidation. My university (Millersville University of Pennsylvania) is accredited in CS, but we don't have "Computer History 382" or any such thing. Rather we have classes like "Programming Languages 240," wherein we discuss the evolution of programming languages, the conccepts that held true through all their trials, and those that failed, and why they failed. Then we have "Operating Systems 380," which discusses the history and evolution of operating systems, and again those concepts that just worked, and those that pooped out.
I find these classes to be some of the most interresting and enlightening. They provide me an opportunity to learn from what my superior elders have already tried, so that I don't make the same mistakes as them. I am certainly not a history buff, and in fact, it's my least favorite subject, but I definately enjoy the history CS courses.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
There is a typical job requiring a big computer history knowledge : Technological surveyor (From the French . Veilleur technologique).
This job consists o being aware of the latest relevant technologies in order to advise corporate buyers about potential updates.
Computer History knowledge is used here to help evaluate the products' advance and estimates the actual possibilities its use may bring to the company.
Choosen products are then extensively tested and compared to currently used ones before they can be deployed in a production environment.
Of course, I used the word product but this could also be whatever which could have an effect on the workers productivity (method, etc.).
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
But hey! Where's this PDP-7, didn't we dump it a decade ago? Is there still anyone that can operate one (or even know where ther is still a working one...)
You see what I mean? Sooner or later all the data gathered today and yesterday will be worthless without staff that have knowlegde in vintage Hard- and Software.
Just remember the Y2K-bug. Lots of retired engineers have been reactivated to revise their old code and/or hardware...
Just my 2 pfennigs
Konrad
Last I looked in the newspaper for jobs I didnt run across any for Computer historian. I would say go to college and in your first year go as undecided because most likely you will realize that not everyonegets to do what they want and that it is more pheasible to pay off your student loans when you have a job. I wanted to be an artist so I became a programmer so that I would have money to buy food and paints.Got the point? The world doesnt give a shit what it is that you want to do.
There is a small, but growing, collection of historians of science and technology exploring the history of computing/computer technology (I'm just halfway through my master's program here: The Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. There's only a couple of us doing computers, but it's a start :)
You might want to start at the library reading the Annals of the History of Computing. Off the top of my head, Michael Mahoney (who started in the History of Mathematics) has done a lot.
Historians of computing have looked at Babbage, Turing, and Wozniak, but you can start just about anywhere. The field has barely been touched - there are plenty of unexplored areas. And the great thing about the history of technology is that everybody can help: from engineers to economists.
Myself, as a recent University of Waterloo CompSci grad, I thought I'd return to my roots, and write my MA thesis about the early computer science program there. In particular, I'm thinking about looking at the birth of WatFor and the related successes achieved in undergraduate education. Hint: if you have a story to tell about Watfor, email me!
There should be a required class that covers the history of computers and technology as a part of a CS degree. Learning history is important. Studying history is the only whay you can know how and why things came to be as they are today. By studying the trends of the past you can gain an idea of where things are going. It's just too important to leave out.
It has been quite a few years, but when I was at Johns Hopkins University, they had a History of Science department. I always thought that would be a cool major. I don't know what someone would do with such a degree except teach, but the folks who run the department probably do! --Dave
From their page:
-mls
It might be useful to find out why certain systems failed and others thrive from a market standpoint. Record what features crippled one system and which were a real advantage.
Don't know for sure though. My guess is that some industry leader out there is doing it (M$, Oracle, Sun, HP, IBM, etc.) More of a businessy/marketing position though...
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
As a historian, allow me to make a couple of comments. If you are really interested in pursuing this professionally, then you have a number of options.
If you're reasonably intelligent and reasonably creative you can create your own niche. But to do anything you need to gain a good combination of qualifications & experience. Someone suggested library science but I think you're unlikely to find much joy there; unless you're interested in becoming a technician (and I think you're aiming at something else).
I'd suggest two other approaches: archival or musuem studies or plain old university history. When searching out programs/classes your key phrases will be "material history" and "history of science and technology". Material history studies non-textual artifacts (computers fit here) and history & philosophy of science and technology will provide the theoretical and intellectual background you'll need. In an academic setting, history is all about contextualization and analysis. You'll need to supplement this stuff with hands-on experience. There's lots of musuem/archival internships avaliable and even if the setting doesn't directly fit into your goals, that experience is vital. Like other areas, it's a competitive and (occassionally back-stabbing) arena but it can be rewarding. But not financially rewarding: I hope you're not looking at this for the big paycheck because you'll be disappointed.
One other bit of advice: don't put all your eggs in one basket. You're young, you're enthusiatic, you're probably intelligent. Don't close any doors. If you decide to attend university take a wide variety of courses in stuff that looks interesting. You may find in two years that what really gets you going is marine biology.
I sure would be happy for a source of information like a book, website, or database (or all in one :) ) which allowed me to look up specs, pinouts and other technical information both hardware and software related to legacy computers.
This is really the kind of "history" most people are interested in. The kind which explains why we have to deal with BS standards and such.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
a. I design micrprocessors for a living
b. Sure I do
c. Nope - Computer Science
d. Sure!
I agree, Comp Sci 101 should teach the humble beginnings of the computer. I have a painting in my basement that dates back to Blaise Pascal and Charles Babbages, etc. But we need something that gets more detailed. One that shows the mistakes that companies made, like Osborne annoucing a new system before it gets released to market and thus killing the current product line. Or Commodore nickel and diming its computer line to death. Or Apple with good marketing, but not able to get enough third party companies to support its Lisa or Apple /// platform.
;)
We can even document the rise and fall of the Microsoft empire!
is it that there are so many people who want to make money off computers without doing things with computers? If I had a buck for everytime I met someone who wanted to be a manager, or a "New Media Specialist" or whatever, I'd be rich.
If you want to be a historian, be a historian. If you want to be into computers, be into computers. But some company isn't going to pay you a six figure salary plus options to be a computer historian. You want to basically do something liberal arty and useless, go work in academe, just like the six figure tenured academic who specialises in 15th century paper making techniques in Renaissance Florence, or the only person in the world who has an encyclopoaedic knowledge of medieval vexillography.
Yes math is hard. Yes you spend til 2 am coding sometimes. That's the way it is. Deal.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix