Blogs

I am pleased to report that the IEEE History Committee has voted to move forward with approval of a proposal for the IEEE to add the early Manchester University computers to its list of historical milestones. The approved text is:

For several years now I have been editor of the official Turing Award website at ACM. This was originally set up by Mike Williams in collaboration with the ACM IT staff. The main content consists of short biographical profiles of each award winner, accompanied with supporting materials such as an annotated bibliography, links to oral history interviews, Turing Award lectures, and so on.

The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) presented me with a prize at its recent annual meeting in Milan.

As of Fall 2019 I am now a full professor, still in the UWM history department. A big thank you to my supportive colleagues there, to the anonymous external evaluators, and to everyone who participated in the promotion process.Time to get some new business cards...

Based on a workshop held at Siegen University back in 2017, and published with Springer in mid-2019, Exploring the Early Digital features a lineup of some very well-known figures in the history of computing.

I've now moved faculty positions within the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, from the School of Information Studies to the History Department. That's a rather small journey geographically -- 0.3 miles or six minutes walk according to Google Maps -- but a huge shift culturally and intellectually. Thanks to all those in the history department, the College of Letters and Science, and the Provost's office who made this move possible.

I am the primary organizer of a second workshop in what is emerging as a new Siegen University series on the Early Digital. This one is held on January 12-14, 2017 with the theme "Exploring the Early Digital." The workshop is primarily intended to lay the framework for a book, working title also “Exploring the Early Digital” in which members of the history of computing community will begin to reconceptualize their work within a new frame. We’re trying to broaden from “computers” to “the digital” and so engage with some aspects of media studies, engineering practice, etc.

The Computer History Museum has top notch facilities, so giving a talk there involved a lot more in the way of lighting setup, balance checking, and preparation than I'm used to. The result is a first class recording of my talk, "Working on ENIAC: Rethinking the Myths of Innovation" which has been getting a decent number of views on the CHM You Tube channel. 

I recently made my first Internet sighting of a cover and description for the new Japanese translation of ENIAC In Action. This should be out soon from Kyoritsu Shuppan, a leading publisher of computer science books, for just 5,500 yen. According to Google translate, the page at hanmoto.com says it will be out in June 2016, which seems remarkably fast.