ACS History SIG April 2010

David Benn

Back to the FutureThe best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay)

On the other hand...

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (Winston Churchill)

ACS is 50.

computing goes back a long way...

Why should we talk about history?

to recognise, celebrate, and learn from the past.

To understand, e.g. why are computers, GUIs, programming languages etc the way they are?

It’s interesting...

Actually, do we need another reason?

We like to explore; the past is no different...

“I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.”

Charles Babbage (19th Century inventor)

“Before computers were machines, they were people.” (David Alan Grier)

they were people.” (David Alan Grier)

Harvard College Observatory Human Computers (1925)

Harvard Archives (1891)

ENIAC

Early (Australian) Computers

CSIRAC

SILLIAC

Univac

IBM 7094

IBMSystem/360

Minicomputers

supercomputers

Microcomputers

Microcomputers

Microcomputers

Computer Science

But, as Edsger Dijkstra remarked:

“Computing Science is no more about computers than Astronomy is about Telescopes.”

Computer Science

Programming Languages

People

Operating Systems1969 - UNIX

1985 - OSX (Mach kernel)

1985 - AmigaOS

1991 - Linux

1993 - Windows 7 (via WindowsNT)

1995 - BeOS

1996 - Windows Mobile (via WinCE)

1997 - Symbian (via EPOC32)

2005 - Microsoft Singularity

Australia, SA, ACS, ...

CSIRAC, SILLIAC, ...

Computer Society of SA (CSSA) founded in 1960 by late Prof. Renn Potts & Don Overhue

First society for computing professionals in Australia (amongst first in world).

CSSA merged with others across Australia in 1966 to form Australian Computer Society. (ACS)

Questions for you

What big topics don’t appear in these slides?

What do you think this SIG should be about?

Do you have suggestions for talk topics, speakers?

Are you interested in writing, reviewing, speaking?

quotes could form basis of SIG meeting topics.

References

http://www.philsoc.org/2001Spring/2132transcript.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage

info@ITHistory.org

http://www.ithistory.org

Powerhouse Museum (Babbage etc)

The Computer History Museum

http://dbenn.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/martin-davis-on-the-importance-of-pure-research/

acs history book, other society’s (IEEE, ACM) journals

Notes

Leinbiz (17th century)

Binary number system

Calculus, independently of Newton

Stepped reckoner

calculus ratiocinator

characteristica universalis