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Welcome to Computing Then
While Computing Now focuses on hot-topic articles and the latest developments in the technology world, Computing Then is designed to take a step back—to contemplate, explore, celebrate, analyze, and learn from the past. The site draws considerably from articles and documentation of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, the leading source of scholarship and pioneering accounts in this field. Computing Then presents materials in both traditional (PDFs) and new, multimedia formats (including podcasts). The site will continue to explore new mechanisms and means for producing and distributing a wide variety of content on the history of computing, software, and networking.
— Jeffrey Yost, Editor in Chief, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
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IBM France La Gaude Laboratory Contributions to Telecommunications
For more than 40 years, IBM France’s La Gaude Laboratory had a tradition of working across the computing and electronic communications fields, leading to many innovative scientific and engineering contributions. In the first of a two-part article, the authors explore La Gaude’s contributions in data communications, telephony, voice technologies, and more, from 1959 through the early 1990s. IBM France’s La Gaude Laboratory worked at the intersection of computing and electronic communications for more than 40 years. Its research led to specific technical contributions such as voice encoding, trellis-coded modulation, and many others. Part 2 of this two-part article discusses in detail the contributions, inventions, and concepts that were, at the time, landmarks in the state of the art, from the creation of the laboratory in 1959 through the early 1990s. Click here for a PDF of part I. Click here for a PDF of part II. Prototype Fragments from Babbage’s First Difference Engine
Being a computer scientist and an amateur historian, I have always had an admiration for Babbage’s struggles and achievements. As such, I have had the opportunity to examine all the known fragments from the first difference engine as well as study the second difference engine. While trying to reach an operational understanding of the simplest of these machines, the first difference engine, I stumbled on the findings I report here. Specifically, the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford owns a rare assembly related to Charles Babbage’s first difference engine. But in addition to the conventional parts found in fragments of the difference engine at other museums, this assembly contains ‘‘intruder parts’’ that do not fit but are closely related to the first difference engine. I believe that some of these parts are relics from a prototype of the first difference engine, which I call the Difference Engine 0. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. The Pentium Chronicles: The People, Passion, and Politics Behind Intel's Landmark Chips |
Annals Through the YearsFor three decades Annals has been publishing path-breaking academic scholarship, pioneer accounts, and department pieces detailing the rich history of computing around the world. "Annals Through the Years" highlights this material with a few selections from each year. These selections, chosen for their importance and/or continuing interest, will be rolled out on Computing Then every several weeks from the earliest volumes forward. See the Annals Through the Years archive. How the SAGE Development Began
The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment was a computer and radar air defense system designed in the 1950s for North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to track and intercept enemy bomber aircraft. While SAGE was obsolete by the time it was fully operational in the early 1960s�it was completely defenseless against the Soviet Union�s growing arsenal of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)�it pioneered advances in computer memory and online, real-time communications and forever changed computer history. The SAGE A/N FSQ-7 computers, designed and built by IBM, were the most powerful and expensive computers of their time and contributed to IBM�s securing and extending their lead in the computer industry. In this engaging memoir, former MIT physicist and associate director of Lincoln Laboratory George E. Valley, Jr. details the technological (telephone lines for air defense operational messages, choosing Whirlwind, and so on) and organizational (Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee, Project Charles, and Lincoln Laboratory) pre-history and beginnings of SAGE. He even reveals how his first two initials became part of the naming of the system. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. Data Processing Digest: Thirty Years Before the Masthead
Data Processing Digest might seem a strange topic for a biography, but in telling the story of this publication, Margaret Milligan recounts an important piece of her career and those of its founders, Richard Canning and Roger Sisson. Canning and Sisson formed a computer consulting partnership in 1954. To stay current in consulting they continually surveyed literature on data processing�and figured many other were doing the same. Seeing an opportunity, they formed Data Processing Digest (DPD) to provide a summary of the emerging literature on computing. They generally provided the themes, but hired a technical writer Sisson had worked with at early computer firm Computer Research Corporation, Margaret Milligan, to do much of the research and writing. In 1961, Canning and Sisson, having gone separate ways in 1958, sold DPD to Milligan. Canning went on to found and write nearly all the articles for the influential publication EDP Analyzer�a more expensive publication in which he offered his expertise on a range of data processing topics gathered from his travels, participation in meetings, and research. Both DPD and EDP Analyzer have been and continue to be valuable resources for historians. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. |
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Podcasts
The First Computer Dating In 1959, two Stanford undergraduate electrical engineering students enrolled in Math 139, Theory and Operation of Computing Machines, and as a final class project, devised the first known attempt at computer dating. 
Jack Kilby (1923–2005) A biographical sketch of Jack Kilby, pioneering inventor of ICs. 
Recollections: The Rise and Fall of WordStar This memoir focuses chiefly on the story of WordStar, the pioneering word processing software for personal computers that was ahead of its time. 
BBN's Earliest Days: Founding a Culture of Engineering Creativity In establishing BBN, the founders deliberately created an environment in which engineering creativity could flourish. The author describes steps taken to assure such an environment and a number of events that moved the company into the fledgling field of computing. |
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