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CUNY CISC 1001 - Study Notes

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january 2010 | vol. 53 | no. 1 | communications of the acm 43Vviewpointsphotograph courtesy of the computer history museumSome of the science and technology museums around the world are devot-ed to science discovery—to teaching their visitors, es-pecially children, about the principles of science and technology. Other sci-ence and technology museums are more focused on the history and cul-tural significance of particular scientif-ic discoveries and technological inven-tions. Some museums include a blend of the two functions.This is the first installment of a two-part Communications series featur-ing five of world’s greatest computing museums. These museums have been chosen for their contributions to the history and culture mission, though most of them have some elements of the science discovery mission as well. There are perhaps hundreds of small and not-so-small museums around the world either devoted entirely to com-puting or at least having significant computing exhibits. The five museums highlighted in this series have been se-lected because of the large size of their exhibits, the importance and quality of the artifacts shown, and the quality of their interpretations. An exhibit is not simply a collection of artifacts; it includes signage and oth-er accompanying information (films, lectures, guided tours) that help to interpret the artifacts and set them in context. Each of the exhibits described in this series is the result of years of human labor in preparation: design-ing the exhibit, selecting and securing exactly the right artifacts, and giving them the right interpretation. This work has been carried out by some of the best historians of science and tech-nology, who work in these museums collecting artifacts and the associated information and documentation about them, answering queries from all kinds of people about their collections and about the science and its history, un-dertaking scholarly research, prepar-ing educational materials, and doing much more. The exhibits are only one facet of what these museums do.The museums featured in this issue are the Computer History Museum, lo-cated in Mountain View, CA, and the Heinz Nixdorf Forum in Paderborn, Germany. We hope you enjoy the ac-counts of these museums and that these stories will whet your appetite to explore the museums’ Web sites and to visit the museums in person.William Aspray ([email protected]) is Bill and Lewis suit professor of information technologies at the university of texas, austin and a Communications Viewpoints section board member.the computer history museumLen ShustekFor most of the 10,000 years of record-ed history, there were no computers. We are privileged to be living through the brief transitional period: from now doi:10.1145/1629175.1629193 William AsprayComputer museum Series Great Computing museums of the World, Part one The first of a two-part series highlighting several of the world’s museums dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and elucidating computing history. the computer history museum exhibit “mastering the Game: a history of computer chess.”44 communications of the acm | january 2010 | vol. 53 | no. 1viewpointson, and forever more, computers will be an intimate and inseparable part of our life and work. The engines of the 19th century industrial revolution were amplifiers for our physical bodies. The computers of the 20th century infor-mation revolution are amplifiers for our minds. Viewed from 1,000 years from now, the 50 years that elapsed from the in-vention of the computer to its ubiqui-tous use will seem like a point in time. We owe it to ourselves as current par-ticipants, and to future generations as our beneficiaries, to document and ex-plain how the information revolution came to be.This perspective motivates the mission of the Computer History Mu-seum (CHM; http://www.computer-history.org): “To preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age.” Therefore, the Computer History Museum is an evolving institution with three primary initiatives:Collecting. At the core of CHM is the computing collection, which was started 30 years ago in Boston, MA, by Gordon and Gwen Bell within Digital Equipment Corporation. It then be-came part of The Computer Museum, a public museum in Boston, and when that institution closed in 1999 the col-lection became part of CHM. This ever-growing repository, whose catalog is online, now has about 70,000 objects in six categories: Physical artifacts: from microscop- ˲ic chips to room-sized mainframes;Software: source code, executable ˲code, and documentation for systems and applications, both in original for-mats and converted to modern digital formats;Documents: 30 million pages of ˲primary reference material useful for the technical, business, and social his-tory of computing, much of which is unpublished or near-print;Photographs: tens of thousands of ˲prints, negatives, and digital images of items, locations, and people related to the history of computingMoving images: films and videos ˲stored on many kinds of media, most of which have been converted to digital format; and Oral histories: interviews of com- ˲puting pioneers, most done using Highlights of the Computer History Museum collection1. CDC 6600 transfer board, serial number 1: the CDC 6600 was a Control Data Corporation mainframe com-puter designed by legendary computer architect Seymour Cray. It is considered the first successful supercomputer, and was the world’s fastest computer from 1964 to 1969. 2. Busicom calculator prototype: the first device to use the first microproces-sor, the Intel 4004 from 1971.3. Altair BASIC paper tape: An original tape of the BASIC language interpreter written by Bill Gates for the Altair 8800 computer, and signed by him.4. Apollo Guidance Computer: the com-puter which, with less computing power than a typical digital watch, guided the Apollo lunar module through its de-scent to the moon’s surface in 1969.5. SAGE: A huge and amazingly reliable air defense computer built in the 1950s out of 51,000 vacuum tubes and located in an underground concrete bunker.6. John Backus interview: Videotape and transcript of


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