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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.
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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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....
2 1337 4 u!
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!
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
...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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
:-)
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.
* 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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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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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...
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
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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!
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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.
I agree, Computer Historians are the ones who generate the web pages, but the Ask Slashdot article was asking if there was a *JOB* in existance for a computer historian.
As a hobby, yes. Profession, No.
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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
> _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!!!
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Imagine all the people...
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.
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.
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.)
Not to be too rude here, look into media job if this is what interests you. I don't see much value in a historian at a company, except maybe if you can scam an ombudsman job for a support group. I figure that is the sort of job that makes the most sense in the real world, that might do what you want. Or try the writer thing for real.
Oh yeah, if you go into tech writing, get used to getting flamed on
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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 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:
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.
The resident computer historian at the Smithsonian is Paul Ceruzzi; a very knowledgeable guy. So they already have someone, but other museums might not.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
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.
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.
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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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?)
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
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.
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!