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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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Magnavox and Intel: An Odyssey
Today we have high-resolution videogames connected to our television sets, but let us reflect on a pioneering system in this field from 30 years ago. As an Intel applications engineer in 1976, my job (Mazor) was to find new customer applications for microcomputers and to translate customer needs to chip designers like Peter Salmon, who used our technology to solve customer problems. Analog integrated circuits (ICs) were prominently used in the entertainment products, but digital circuits were just making their debut—particularly with digital readouts for time, station, and counters. I visited manufacturers of videogames, gambling machines, pinball machines, and consumer electronics to find new microcomputer applications. Although microcomputers are versatile, they were not fast enough to deliver a video stream in real time. Hence, additional circuitry was needed between a microcomputer and a TV monitor. Arcade videogames and gaming machines used a large amount of video screen buffer memory and ICs, along with microcomputers and ROM resident game-control programs. Unlike arcade videogames that are produced in the thousands, consumer products are sold in the millions. Accordingly, several special factors strongly differentiate consumer products. First, because these products are mostly bought at Christmas, retail stores make their choices and place orders at the June Consumer Electronic Show (CES) and stock them in September. At CES, retailers are particularly concerned with whether a demonstration is a "real" product that will be available in volume that year. Second, home videogames need Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval to insure they do not radiate energy, which in addition to normal design and manufacturing issues, causes an unpredictable delay. Missing any of these deadlines would delay a consumer product’s release an entire year. Third, consumer products are extremely cost sensitive and there is a sweet spot—usually in the $100 to $150 retail price range—that severely impacts design choices. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. Videogames in Computer Space: The Complex History of Pong
The earliest digital games emerged out of laboratories and research centers in the 1960s and 1970s. The intertwined histories of Nolan Bushnell’s Computer Space and Pong illustrate the transition from these "university games" to accessible entertainment and educational games as well as the complicated historical relationship among the arcade, computer, and videogames. Computer games such as Spacewar! and Adventure were created in institutions, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BBN, and Stanford University, that defined the main streams of computing research during the 1960s and 1970s. Telling the stories of these games reveals the emergence of "university games" out of laboratories and research centers. The institutional contexts of Spacewar and Adventure suggest an important, and at times underappreciated, relationship between exploratory work in computer science and the early history of computer games. Both games grew out of the very institutions that played an essential role in defining timeshared and then networked computing in its early days. Games such as these exemplified the technical mastery of programmers and hardware hackers. These links between games and computing recall Brian Sutton-Smith’s argument that games are fundamentally "problems in adaptation" and that computer games specifically address the problem that "is the computer." 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. Bull: A World-Wide Company Born in Europe
The Annals is now publishing more than ever on history of computing around the world. From India and Thailand to Chile and Finland, fully 21 of the last 34 articles published in the Annals have been on developments outside the US. The tradition of publishing on non-US history of computing in the Annals, however, began long ago. This has included special issues on particular nations, such as the 1989 issue on the "History of Computing in France," guest edited by historian Pierre Mounier-Kuhn (volume 11, no. 4). Among the articles in this issue, Mounier-Kuhn provides an important overview of Compagnie des Machines Bull, commonly referred to just as "Bull." Bull was not only the French national champion in electronics and computing; by 1960, it had become the second-largest electronic business machine company worldwide. Some managerial challenges, however, soon led to financial crisis within the firm, and General Electric acquired a controlling interest in Bull in 1964. Mounier-Kuhn details the rich history of this company: its prehistory in the patents of Fredrik-Rosing Bull in 1919, its rise as a firm in the three decades following its formation in France in 1931, its troubles and absorption by GE (and then Honeywell in 1970), and its achievement of a French shareholder majority again by the end of the 1980s. Click here for a PDF (14.9 MB) of the entire article (19 pp.). ELOGE: Adriaan van Wijngaarden (1916-1987)
The Annals has long documented not only the history of important computing technologies, firms, and institutions, but also the lives of the people who have pioneered these developments. Despite the title, this department piece is not a typically obituary, but rather a lengthy, reflective biography on one of the great pioneers of Dutch computing, and, more broadly, of international computing. Van Wijngaarden was a fundamental contributor to the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). As Zemanek writes, he "assumed almost every possible position [in IFIP] and participated in nearly all events..." This included giving highly influential papers on ALGOL 68 at IFIP Working Group 2.1 meetings and other gatherings of leading international computer scientists. In 1974, IFIP awarded Van Wijngaarden the Silvercore, the symbol of recognition and long-time service to the organization. Click here for a PDF (13.5 MB) of the entire article (16 pp.). |
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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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