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MIT STS 035 - The History of Computing in the History of Technology

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Annals Hist COnpUt (1998) l&113-125IntroductionSince World War II “information” has emerged asa fundamental scientific and technological con-cept applied to phenomena ranging from blackholes to DNA, from the organization of cells tothe processes of human thought, and from themanagement of corporations to the allocation ofglobal resources. In addition to reshaping estab-lished disciplines, it has stimulated the forma-tion of a p%anoply of new subjects and areas ofinquiry concerned with its structure and its rolein nature and society (Machlup and Mansfeld1983). Theories based on the concept of infor-mation have so permeated modern culture thatit now is widely taken to characterize our times.We live in an “information society,” an “age ofinformation.” Indeed, we look to models of infor-mation processing to explain our own patterns ofthought.The computer has .$ayed the central role inthat transformation, both accommodating andencouraging ever broader views of informationand of how it can be transformed and commu-nicated over time and space. Since the 1950s thecomputer has replaced traditional methods of ac-duthor’s Address: Program in History of Science, Prince-ton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. (609)452-4157.The History of Computing inthe History of TechnologyMICHAEL S. MAHONEY‘iAfter surveying the current state of the literature in the history ofcomputing, this article discusses some of the major issues addressed byI.?;recent work in the history of technology. It suggests aspects. of the*+,,-1development of computing which are pertinent to those issues and hencefor which that recent work could provide models of historical analysis. As aInew scientific technology with unique features, computing can provide newj,perspectives on the history of technology.dCategories and Subject Descriptors: K.2 [Computing Milieux]: Histoof Computing. K.4.0 [Computers and Society]: Genera/.Additional Terms: History of Technology.counting and record keeping by a new industryof data processing. As a primary vehicle of com-munication over both space and time, it has cometo form the core of modern information technoI-ogy. What the English-speaking world refers toas “computer science” is known to the rest of.:western Europe as informutique (or Informatik or.informutica). Much of the concern over informa-tion as a commodity and as a natural resourcederives from the computer and from computer-based communications technology.’ Hence, thehistory of the computer and of computing is cen-tral to that of information science and technol-ogy, providing a thread. by which to maintainbearing while exploring the ever-growing mazeof disciplines and subdisciplines that claim in-formation as their subject.Despite the pervasive presence of computingin modern science and technology, not to mentionmodern society itself, the history of computing hasyet to establish a significant presence in the his-tory of science and technology. Meetin& of theHistory of Science Society and the Societyfor t&eHistory of Technology in recent years ‘;have in-.duded very few =ssiom dew@+ .speci$&y!~~~,~$~., :p;^I -‘,, ..‘_ .; -’_ .‘+_ :;*,. ,:,-4-c‘ ir- ,p;>,,Y” “ ,, s- ,’‘To characterize the unprecedented capabilities of e&-puters linked to telecommunications, Nora and Mine (1978fcoined the term k%%mfque.1-\Annals of the History of Computing, Volume IO, Nut&wI .; .-M. S. Mahoney l History of Computing in the History of Technologyhistory of computing, and few of the thematicsessions have included contributions from theperspective of computing. There is clearly an im-balance to be redressed here.This status of the history of computing withinthe history of technology surely reflects on bothparties, but the bclk of the task of redress lieswith the former. A look at the literature showsthat, by and large, historians of computing areaddressing few of the questions that historians oftechnology are now asking. It is worthwhile tolook at what those questions are and what formthey might take when addressed to computing.The question is how to bring the history of com-puting into line with what should be its parentdiscipline. Doing so will follow a two-way street,the history of computing using models from thehistory of technology at the same time that thehistory of computing is used to test those models.In some aspects, at least, computing poses someof the major questions of the history of technol-ogy in special ways. Each field has much to learnfrom the other.Computing’s Present HistoryWhere the current literature in the history ofcomputing is self-consciously historical, it focusesin large part on hardware and on the prehistoryand early development of the computer.2 Whereit touches on later developments or provides awider view, it is only incidentally historical. Amajor portion of the literature stems from thepeople involved, either through regular surveysof the state and development of various fields (e.g.,Rosen 1987, Sammet 1969j3 and compilations ofseminal papers (Randell 1982; Yourdon 1979,1982; AT&T 1987),4 or through reminiscences andretrospectives, either written directly or tran-scribed from contributions to conferences andsymposia.5 Biographies of men or machines -someheroic, some polemical, some both-are a prom-inent genre, and one reads a lot about “pioneers.”.,”‘See Aspray (1984) for a recent, brief survey of the stateof the field.3Many of the articles in Computing Surveys, begun in 1969,include an historical review of the subject.4The 25th anniversary issues of the leading journals alsocontain useful collections of important articles.‘Wexelblatt (1981), a record of the 1978 ACM Conferenceon the History of Programming Languages, is an excellentexample, as is a recent issue of the Annuls of the History ofComputing on the Burroughs B5000.A few corporate histories have appeared, ,RQ@.’notably IBM’s Early Computers (Bashe et al.1986);“~but they too are in-house productions.-‘This literature represents for the most part :“insider” history, full of facts and firsts. While it:is firsthand and expert, it is also guided by -the:current state of knowledge and bound by the’professional culture. That is, its authors take asgivens (often technical givens) what a more crit-ical, outside viewer might see as choices. Read-ing their accounts makes it difficult to see thealternatives, as the authors themselves lose $ouch.with a time when they did not know what jtheynow know. In the long run,


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