19 Oct
2010
19 Oct
'10
2:10 p.m.
Military computing tends to be 800 pound gorilla in
the room that
historians tend to dismiss.
How do you figure? The early history of digital computing,
especially in the 1940s - 1950s, is dominated by military
installations. Colossus, ENIAC, many UNIVACs, SEAC/SWAC, SAGE, etc.
.... in fact this year's winner of the Computer History Museum Prize*
is "Calculating a Natural World" by Atsushi Akera. The book is a
great read and focuses on Cold War computer research.
* The prize is administered by the Society for the History of
Technology's Special Interest Group for Computers, Information, and
Society, a.k.a. SHOT-SIGCIS. This is the primary organization for
professional computer historians.