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This book reviews the present understanding of the history of software and establishes an agenda for further research. By exploring this current understanding, the authors identify the fundamental elements of software. The problems and questions addressed in the book range from purely technical to societal issues. Thus, the articles presented offer a fresh view of this history with new categories and interrelated themes, comparing and contrasting software with artefacts in other disciplines, so as to ascertain in what ways software is similar to and different from other technologies.This volume is based on the international conference "Mapping the History of Computing: Software Issues", held in April 2000 at the Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum in Paderborn, Germany.
The papers in this volume were presented at a conference that was
designed to map out historical study needs in one area of the
history of computing, namely, software. The Paderbom conference was
sponsored by the Heinz Nixdorf Muse- umsForum and co-sponsored by
the Charles Babbage Institute and the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of
the University of Paderbom. The idea for the conference emerged
from the consideration of a larger concept that was to prepare a
new handbook on the history of computing. Believing that
preparation of the handbook would encounter obstacles in some areas
of computing that have not received adequate attention from
historians, the originators of the idea of the handbook decided on
aseries of mapping conferences to try to overcome the obstacles, of
which the Paderbom conference is the first. The organizers of the
conference invited a group of historians, sociologists, and
computer scientists to present pa- pers and comments about a
selected set of issues in the history of software. The organizing
committee consisted of William Aspray (Computing Research Asso-
ciation, Washington, D. C. ), Martin Campbell-Kelly (University of
Warwick, U. K. ), Ulf Hashagen (Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum,
Paderbom), Reinhard Keil- Slawik (Heinz Nixdorf Institute,
University of Paderbom), Michael S. Mahoney (Princeton University)
and Arthur L. Norberg (Charies Babbage Institute, Uni ver- sity of
Minnesota).
This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came
first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual
architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing
a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United
States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar
concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early
researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann
architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors
include not only historians but also engineers and computer
pioneers.An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer
architecture and explains why "being first" is even less
interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The
essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on
well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the
historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply
historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific
problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems
in today's machines.Contributors: Titiimaea F. Ala'ilima, Lin Ping
Ang, William Aspray, Friedrich L. Bauer, Andreas Brennecke, Chris
P. Burton, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzi, I. Bernard Cohen,
John Gustafson, Wilhelm Hopmann, Harry D. Huskey, Friedrich W.
Kistermann, Thomas Lange, Michael S. Mahoney, R. B. E. Napper,
Seiichi Okoma, Hartmut Petzold, Raul Rojas, Anthony E. Sale, Robert
W. Seidel, Ambros P. Speiser, Frank H. Sumner, James F. Tau, Jan
Van der Spiegel, Eiiti Wada, Michael R. Williams."
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