CSCI 4921 -- Changes

Mon Jan 25 13:05:02 2010

Effective Term:	New: 1109 - Fall 2010 Old: 1089 - Fall 2008
Years most frequently offered:	New: Even years only Old: Other frequency
Proposal Changes:	New: LE proposal for Fall 2010: CORE: Historical Perspectives THEME: Technology and Society Old: <no text provided>
History Information:	New: Split from multiple course offering for Fall 2005. 6/07 Update years/terms offered. Jan 2010- Update to match HSci 4321 which is its cross-listed course. Old: Split from multiple course offering for Fall 2005. 6/07 Update years/terms offered.
Faculty Sponsor Name:	New: Tom Misa & Phil Barry Old:
Faculty Sponsor E-mail Address:	New: barry@cs.umn.edu Old:
Student Learning Outcomes:	* Student in the course: - Can identify, define, and solve problems New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. Assessing any of the classic historical processes (industrialization, urbanization, post-industrialization) requires identifying what the process is, defining the relevant data and appropriate bounds of the inquiry, and addressing how evidence (often varied and sometimes conflicting) bears on the central phenomenon or process, or solving the analytical problem of how and whether the given evidence is relevant to a certain historical observation. A key historical theme in the class is the profoundly different types of computers and computing applications that evolved historically. Students read materials and engage in discussion to understand the differences between (e.g.) calculation, control of manufacturing processes, business or government data processing, and communication. How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. Students' learning related to this outcome is assessed through quizzes and papers that describe and discuss the distinct types of computing as well as a final exam that is comprehensive and comparative. Example from Quiz #1: "Choose TWO of the following. Write a PARAGRAPH explaining how they helped pioneer large-scale 'information processing' in the 1800s. DISCUSS specific examples. Astronomers, Surveyors and map-makers, Nautical Almanac, Insurance companies, Bank/railway clearing houses, Central telegraph offices, Government census efforts." A question from the midterm exam is this: "CHOOSE two of the following [historical-computing] periods. For each, write a PARAGRAPH [a] that describes how computers were used for existing problems in calculation, tabulation and/or large-scale information processing; and [b] that identifies new engineering or industrial problems, scientific questions, or information-processing demands that spurred new developments in computing. Analog Era (1920-50s), Digital Divide (1935-55), Business Machines (1946-59), Computing, Control, and Cold War (1943-60s)." Old: unselected - Can locate and critically evaluate information New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. Locating and critically evaluating relevant information is a crucial activity for historical analysis. Historians always need to assess not only whether the information is accurate, but also whether it is relevant to the question, hypothesis, or observation at hand -- as well as how it is relevant. How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. Learning related to this outcome can be assess through quiz questions and papers that ask students to FIND and IDENTIFY relevant documents, observation or data illustrating course themes. Students do a visitation to the archival facility at the University's Charles Babbage Institute. Students' learning is evaluated through an open-ended quiz question: "In 3-4 sentences, explain what you learned this week by examining the documents at CBI. You should address one or more of the 'document workshop' questions: When was your document written/published? Who is the author? What does the document tell you about him/her? or the company/institution? For what purpose what the document written? What does this document tell you about the historical period? What other information would you like to know about the document/its author? How might you get that information?" Similarly, the final exam is open-ended and asks students to identify and explain the significance of material learned across the course. One final exam question was this: "CREATE a picture-and-text 'timeline map' for personal computing networked computing. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Identify influences or consequential models with arrows." Old: unselected - Can communicate effectively New: Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome. Students communicate verbally in large-group (cross-class) question-and-answer sessions as well as in small-group discussions; discussions are centered on a set of 5-7 questions prepared by instructor and given to students to prepare for the upcoming week. Students communicate in written form through bi-weekly quizzes, a midterm exams, and a comprehensive final exam. All quizzes and exams are essay-type requiring full sentences (or paragraphs) and students expressing their ideas in written form. How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated. Instructor makes regular weekly assessments of the readiness and the value of students oral participation, often eliciting or drawing out students' ideas and calling on individual students (with due allowance and understanding if a student happens to be less than perfectly prepared). Written communication is assessed when evaluating the quizzes and exams, with feedback on written communication frequently offered. Fully 20% of the student's course grade is composed by the student's in-class participation. Old: unselected
Requirement this course fulfills:	New: TS - TS Technology and Society Old:
Other requirement this course fulfills:	New: HIS - HIS Historical Perspectives Old:
Criteria for Core Courses:	Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed core requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or method. Core courses must meet the following requirements: They explicitly help students understand what liberal education is, how the content and the substance of this course enhance a liberal education, and what this means for them as students and as citizens They employ teaching and learning strategies that engage students with doing the work of the field, not just reading about it. They include small group experiences (such as discussion sections or labs) and use writing as appropriate to the discipline to help students learn and reflect on their learning. They do not (except in rare and clearly justified cases) have prerequisites beyond the University�s entrance requirements. They are offered on a regular schedule. They are taught by regular faculty or under exceptional circumstances by instructors on continuing appointments. Departments proposing instructors other than regular faculty must provide documentation of how such instructors will be trained and supervised to ensure consistency and continuity in courses. New: This course amply satisfies the general requirements for Core courses. It is designed to give all University students -- and not only computer science majors -- an understanding of how and where and why computing technologies, practices, and institutions have emerged as well as how computing has shaped our modern economy, society, political system, and entertainment patterns. The course uses a blend of traditional lectures, class-wide question-and-answer sessions, and in-class small-group discussions, as well as quizzes, exams and necessary class participation, to engage students with readings and exercises that develop the course's topics and themes. The course does not have prerequisites; and in fact has been successfully taken by students from across the University; it is offered on a regular schedule (usually in the fall) and taught by regular full-time faculty (Misa) in the HST program or by CSE department Assistant Professor Phillip Barry (course is cross-listed as CS 4921). Historical Perspectives Core: Students gain insight into how people have created computers and how they have changed the world in the past two centuries. Students explore four broad comparative themes -- invention of computer(s); calculation and control; software, chips, and the PC; and networked world -- that together deal with roughly the past 200 years through the present day. Students gain knowledge about the profound changes in computing in specific historical contexts, including governmental, railroad, insurance, and banking offices; scientific and technological research; military applications and agencies; international standards setting; and networked organizations. Students assess long-term transformations in how and why societies generated distinct demands for different types of computing. For example, computing artifacts and practices were invented and developed to respond to the needs of the 20th century bureaucratic state (for census tabulation, welfare state administration, and economic regulation) as well as the perceived imperatives of the Cold War for command-and-control of military, space, and surveillance systems. In turn, the possibility of large-scale databases fostered the perceived feasibility of large, complex bureaucratic systems. Computers created the modern state, but also the modern state in the 20th century created a huge market for IBM and other computer companies. Similarly, there is a complex relationship between the "counterculture" of the 1960s and the emerging anti-establishment personal-computing movement, soon to become an immense industry. Beliefs, practices, relationships, networks, and institutions both shaped computing artifacts and practices as well as were profoundly shaped by these artifacts and practices, as can be seen in the Whole Earth catalog and Wired magazine. "Cyberculture" is an especially slippery concept: it seems pervasive today, and seems "caused by" pervasive networked computing. Yet a powerful image of cyberculture recall William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) clearly preceded the widespread social and cultural practices. Methods and conceptual frameworks for evaluating primary sources--including photographic images of computers in (different) uses, selected examples of accessible computer code, advertisements and promotional materials (including video), and varied diagrams and pictograms of communications networks are emphasized in lectures, large-group discussion, and small-group discussion sections. The active creative work needed to interpret images, diagrams, and even computer programming languages gives students active experiences with the methods and practices in producing historical knowledge as well as insight into the strengths and limits of such methods. Comparative historical analysis is used throughout. Course compares/contrasts the changing needs of and demands for computers for (e.g.) solving scientific or technical equations, creating or cracking encrypted messages, storing large amounts of business or governmental data, and real-time control applications. Contrasts of the changing means of support and promotion that have shaped the evolution of computing, such as businesses, government agencies, NGOs, and consumers. Course also examines the different uses and modes of computing in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as the limited accessibility of computing in Africa and many countries in Latin America. A comprehensive final exam gives students the opportunity to reflect on the longer-term questions about how computing practices, institutions, and visions of the future have changed across time. Old: <no text provided>
Criteria for Theme Courses:	Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed theme requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or methods. Theme courses have the common goal of cultivating in students a number of habits of mind: thinking ethically about important challenges facing our society and world; reflecting on the shared sense of responsibility required to build and maintain community; connecting knowledge and practice; fostering a stronger sense of our roles as historical agents. New: For the Technology and Society Theme, this course meetings the following specific requirements: (1) students think critically and contextually about the ethical implications of specific technologies. Students can clearly see that the US-based computer scientists who standardized the ASCII format for storing letters in effect (and possibly unwittingly) created an "English" artifact that was hostile to European languages needing diacritical marks, let alone Asian ones. Many of the current problems with Internet security can be traced to its origins in relatively open computer-science networks among trusted colleagues, so that security provisions were not considered from the start (as might have been done). Students also explore the gender implications of computing, and try to understand the unusually low (and proportionately shrinking) number of women in the computing profession and computing workforce. (2) Students gain insight into their shared sense of responsibility to build community when assessing the role of computing in creating professional communities of computer scientists, activist communities for privacy rights, and civic communities through the presence (or absence) of digital networked technologies today. Historical examples of the Association for Computing Machinery as well as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility provide instances of models of computing professionals dealing with ethical implications. (3) Students gain appreciation for concrete examples of the connections between knowledge and practice. Throughout, the course considers the problematic relationship between theorizing about computing and computing practices. For instance, mathematician John von Neumann is widely credited with inventing the "stored-program concept" (which made electronic calculating machines into general-purpose computers) but close inspection of the ENIAC and EDVAC projects strongly suggests that shop-floor practice has already developed such a concept, later popularized and made famous by his high-profile report. Debates on artificial intelligence, including pattern and word-recognition, networking, and programming languages are further instances where interplay between knowledge and practice can be explored. (4) The course topics naturally lead students to a stronger sense of their roles as active historical agents, since a central theme "emphasized during the entire course" is the important role played in the evolution of computing by consumers, citizens, and government agencies and not only by inventors or computer scientists. Rich examples are developed, discussed, and evaluated throughout the course. Email is one extremely good example of a now-pervasive technology that was not foreseen by the early Internet's designers but was devised by a active set of users who demanded and develop methods for sending email messages. Personal computing, social networking sites, as well as multi-player game environments are other "spaces" in which users seem to have driven major developments in computing technologies and practices. Technology and Society Theme: Students examine and assess the technological foundations of contemporary information society through a historical and contextual methodology. The course examines specific computing technologies that clearly have shaped historical developments, including code-breaking during WWII, atomic bomb calculations, air- and missile-defense systems as well as the data-processing capabilities that were necessary to create modern bureaucratic governments and businesses, including the welfare state and the computerized financial markets. Multiple actor viewpoints are considered throughout, from political elites and military agencies, leading inventors and computer scientists and mathematicians, workers in offices using spreadsheets and/or word-processing, as well a divergent perspective. Through evaluating divergent perspectives on security, privacy, and so-called digital divides students gain insight into understanding of technology and society for contemporary debates and controversies. Old: <no text provided>
Provisional Syllabus:	Please provide a provisional syllabus for new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed that include the following information: course goals and description; format/structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (texts, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated. The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/semestercon.html . Provisional course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification, This provisional course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester. New: Web Address for complete syllabus: https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/tmisa/www/courses/4321/syllabus_4321.html History of Computing HSci 4321 / CSci 4921 for AY 2009-10 Time and place -- TBA Thomas J. Misa <www.umn.edu/~tmisa> \| email: tmisa [at] umn [dot] edu Charles Babbage Institute <www.cbi.umn.edu> Program in History of Science, Technology & Medicine <www.hstm.umn.edu> Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering <www.ece.umn.edu> This course addresses the question "how do technologies change the world?" through examining the history of computing. Readings and discussions on the people, technologies, ideas, and institutions of modern computing; and the uses of computers in computation, control, simulation, communication, and recreation. Developments in last 150 years: evolution of hardware and software; growth of computer and semiconductor industries and their relations to other businesses; changing relationships resulting from new data-gathering and analysis techniques; automation; social and ethical issues. REQUIRED READINGS are [1] Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Westview 2004; 2nd ed.) -- available at the bookstore; and [2] required readings linked to this syllabus -- see the links [] and/or the needed issues of Annals of the History of Computing available on-line through the University Library. For GRAD credit, students should read the extra assignments and consult my bibliography. COURSE ASSIGNMENTS: six quizzes [45% of course grade]; in-class discussion participation [20%]; mid-term exam [15%]; comprehensive final exam [20%]. Quizzes draw heavily on questions from weekly handouts. There will be six quizzes, each 20-minutes long, held in class on the Thursdays of weeks 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 14. Quizzes will be short-answer and short-essay format, on lectures and readings. Your lowest quiz score will be dropped. Quizzes and exams are closed book. Supplemental Credit available for attending and submitting a one-page write-up (250 words) on sessions from CBI's lecture series "Minnesota's Hidden History in Computing." [Fall 2008] The hour-long open public talks will be at 7.00 pm (Andersen Library 120) on 17 Sept., 8 Oct., 19 Nov., and 17 Dec. (2 write-ups = 1 quiz). REGULAR ATTENDANCE is necessary. Bring the day's reading -- printing out WWW readings -- to each class meeting. OFFICE HOURS: by appointment (612/624-5050) in my West Bank office (Andersen Library 211) or anytime in the hour after class on East Bank. I try to respond promptly to email. Historical Perspectives Core: Students gain insight into how people have created computers and how they have changed the world in the past two centuries. Students explore four broad comparative themes -- invention of computer(s); calculation and control; software, chips, and the PC; and networked world -- that together deal with roughly the past 200 years through the present day. Students gain knowledge about the profound changes in computing in specific historical contexts, including governmental, railroad, insurance, and banking offices; scientific and technological research; military applications and agencies; international standards setting; and networked organizations. Students assess long-term transformations in how and why societies generated distinct demands for different types of computing. For example, computing artifacts and practices were invented and developed to respond to the needs of the 20th century bureaucratic state (for census tabulation, welfare state administration, and economic regulation) as well as the perceived imperatives of the Cold War for command-and-control of military, space, and surveillance systems. In turn, the possibility of large-scale databases fostered the perceived feasibility of large, complex bureaucratic systems. We also examine the complex relationship between the "counterculture" of the 1960s and the emerging anti-establishment personal-computing movement, soon to become an immense industry. Beliefs, practices, relationships, networks, and institutions both shaped computing artifacts and practices as well as were profoundly shaped by these artifacts and practices, as can be seen in the Whole Earth catalog and Wired magazine. "Cyberculture" is an especially slippery concept: it seems pervasive today, and seems "caused by" pervasive networked computing. Yet a powerful image of "cyberculture" recall William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) clearly preceded the widespread social and cultural practices. Methods and conceptual frameworks for evaluating primary sources -- including photographic images of computers in (different) uses, selected examples of accessible computer code, advertisements and promotional materials (including video), and varied diagrams and pictograms of communications networks are emphasized in lectures, large-group discussion, and small-group discussion sections. Students do visitation at Charles Babbage Institute to gain hands-on experience with primary-source documents. The active creative work needed to interpret images, diagrams, and even computer programming languages gives students direct experience with the methods and practices in producing historical knowledge as well as insight into the strengths and limits of such methods. Comparative historical analysis is used throughout. Course compares/contrasts the very different needs and demands of computers for (e.g.) solving scientific or technical equations, creating or cracking encrypted messages, storing large amounts of business or governmental data, and real-time control applications. Contrasts of the varied supports and patrons that have shaped the evolution of computing, such as businesses, government agencies, NGOs, and consumers. Course also examines the different uses and modes of computing in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as the limited accessibility of computing in Africa and many countries in Latin America. A comprehensive final exam gives students the opportunity to reflect on the longer-term questions about how computing practices, institutions, and visions of the future have changed across time. Technology and Society Theme: Students examine and assess the technological foundations of contemporary information society through a historical and contextual methodology. The course examines specific computing technologies that clearly have shaped historical developments, including code-breaking during WWII, atomic bomb calculations, air- and missile-defense systems as well as the data-processing capabilities that were necessary to create modern bureaucratic governments and businesses, including the welfare state and the computerized financial markets. Multiple actor viewpoints are considered throughout, from political elites and military agencies, leading inventors and computer scientists and mathematicians, workers in offices using spreadsheets and/or word-processing, as well a divergent perspective. Through evaluating divergent perspectives on security, privacy, and so-called digital divides students gain insight into understanding of technology and society for contemporary debates and controversies. Students think critically and contextually about the ethical implications of specific technologies. US-based computer scientists who standardized the ASCII format for storing letters in effect (and possibly unwittingly) created an "English" artifact that was hostile to European languages needing diacritical marks, let alone Asian ones. Many of the current problems with Internet security can be traced to its origins in relatively open computer-science networks among trusted colleagues, so that security provisions were not considered from the start (as might have been done). Students also explore the gender implications of computing, and try to understand the unusually low (and proportionately shrinking) number of women in the computing profession and computing workforce. Students gain insight into their shared sense of responsibility to build community when assessing the role of computing in creating professional communities of computer scientists, activist communities for privacy rights, and civic communities through the presence (or absence) of digital networked technologies today. Historical examples of the Association for Computing Machinery as well as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility provide instances of models of computing professionals dealing with ethical implications. Students gain appreciation for concrete examples of the connections between knowledge and practice. Throughout, the course considers the problematic relationship between theorizing about computing and computing practices. For instance, mathematician John von Neumann is widely credited with inventing the "stored-program concept" (which made electronic calculating machines into general-purpose computers) but close inspection of the ENIAC and EDVAC projects strongly suggests that shop-floor practice has already developed such a concept, later popularized and made famous by his high-profile report. Debates on artificial intelligence, including pattern and word-recognition, networking, and programming languages are further instances where interplay between knowledge and practice can be explored. The course topics naturally lead students to a stronger sense of their roles as active historical agents, since a central theme "emphasized during the entire course" is the important role played in the evolution of computing by consumers, citizens, and government agencies and not only by inventors or computer scientists. Rich examples are developed, discussed, and evaluated throughout the course. Email is one extremely good example of a now-pervasive technology that was not foreseen by the early Internet's designers but was devised by a active set of users who demanded and develop methods for sending email messages. Personal computing, social networking sites, as well as multi-player game environments are other "spaces" in which users seem to have driven major developments in computing technologies and practices. Plagiarism -- turning in someone else's work as your own -- is the most serious offense a student can commit. Copying notes, quizzes, papers, or exams from another student -- in whole or in part -- is plagiarism. The U's policy identifies "scholastic dishonesty as a disciplinary offense actionable by the University" in this stern statement. Please talk to me, anytime, if you have any questions or concerns about plagiarism. For helpful tips, see "Preventing Plagiarism." 1: Invention of the computer 1. 9/2 Computers Changing History Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray xiii-xviii; Paul Edwards "Making History" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23 #1 (Jan.-Mar. 2001): 86-87 <www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/makinghistory.pdf> GRAD: Misa, "Understanding 'How Computing Has Changed the World'." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2007): 52-63. 2. 9/9 The Mechanical Vision (1830s-1900s) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "When computers were people" 3-21, "Mechanical office" 23-44 GRAD: J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 notes" Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2003): 16- 26; Doron Swade, "The construction of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2" Annals of the History of Computing 27 #3 (July-Sept. 2005): 70-88. 3. 9/16 The Analog Era (1920-50s) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Babbage's dream" 45-65; Frank Preston, "Vannevar Bush's network analyzer at MIT" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25 #1 (Jan-Mar 2003): 75-78. GRAD: Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 63-95 JSTOR. 4. 9/23 The Digital Divide (1935-55) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Inventing the computer" 69-91; Larry Owens, "Where are we going Phil Morse?" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18 # 4 (1996): 34-41. GRAD: B. Longo, "Edmund Berkeley, computers, and modern methods of thinking" Annals of the History of Computing 26 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2004): 4-18 2: Computers for calculation and control 5. 9/30 Business Machines (1946-59) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Computer becomes a business machine" 93-115; Cheryl Malone, "Imagining Information Retrieval in the Library: Desk Set in Historical Context" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (July-Sept. 2002): 14-22. GRAD: James W. Cortada, "Studying the Role of IT in the Evolution of American Business Practices" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2007): 28-39; Alice Burks, Who Invented the Computer?: The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History (2002); see review 6. 10/7 IBM and the Mainframe (1959-70s) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Maturing of the mainframe" 117-37; Glenn E. Meyers, "IBM Field Engineering Experiences" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 21 #4 (1999): 72-76. GRAD: Steven Usselman, "Learning the Hard Way: IBM and the Sources of Innovation in Early Computing," Financing Innovation in the United States, 1870 to Present, edited by Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff (MIT Press 2007): 317-64. 7. 10/14 Computing, Control, and Cold War (1943-60s) special class visit to CBI archive Tues. 10/14 Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Real Time" 141-62; Paul Edwards, "SAGE" (ch3) in The Closed World (MIT 1996) GRAD: David A. Mindell, Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (MIT Press 2008) 8. 10/21 MIDTERM Thurs. 10/23 Reading: no (additional) reading assigned 3: Software, chips, and the PC 9. 10/28 Software, Chips, and Change (1949-75) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Software" 163-84; "New modes" 185-204; Peter Eckstein, "Jack Kilby (1923-2005)" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #1 (Jan.-March 2007): 90-95. GRAD: special issues of Annals on software products 24 #1, word-processing 28 #4, spreadsheets 29 #3 10. 11/4 Advent of the PC (1972-80s) Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Shaping of the personal computer" 207-29; "Broadening the appeal" 231-39 [only]; PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" 1 \| 2 [YouTube] GRAD: James Sumner, "What Makes a PC? Thoughts on Computing Platforms, Standards, and Compatibility" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #2 (April-June 2007): 88. 11. 11/11 The Macintosh Moment (c.1984) Reading: "Broadening the appeal" 240-53 + Steven Levy's Insanely Great chap 4; Th Jef Raskin's history + PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" part 3 [YouTube] + Ted Friedman "Apple's 1984: The Introduction of the Macintosh" GRAD: Fred Guterl. "Design Case History: Apple's Macintosh" IEEE Spectrum (Dec. 1984): 34-43. <WWW>. 4: Networked World 12. 11/18 The Internet Emerges (1960s-80s) Reading: C. Partridge and S. Blumenthal, "Data Networking at BBN" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #1 (Jan.-March 2006): 56- 71; Andrew Russell, "'Rough Consensus and Running Code' and the Internet-OSI Standards War" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #3 (July-Sept. 2006): 48-61. GRAD: Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (MIT 1999). 13. 11/25 Rise of Moore's Law (c. 1975-90s) Thanksgiving no class Thurs. 11/27 Reading: Paul E. Ceruzzi, "Moore's Law and Technological Determinism" Technology and Culture 46 #3 (2005) 584-593 [MUSE]; Ethan Mollick, "Establishing Moore's Law" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #3 (July-Sept. 2006): 62-75. 14. 12/2 The Internet and the Wider World (1980s-1990s) Reading: Craig Partridge, "The Technical Development of Internet Email" Annals of the History of Computing 30 #2 (April-June 2008): 3-29; D.A. Grier and M. Campbell, "A social history of Bitnet and Listserv, 1985-1991" Annals of the History of Computing 22 #2 (Apr-Jun 2000): 32-41. GRAD: William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, eds. The Internet and American Business (MIT 2008). 15. 12/9 World Wide Web (1990s-present) last class meeting Tues. 12/9 Reading: Tim Berners-Lee: 1996 Technology Review interview + 1997 Sci Am profile [local copies] GRAD: Phil Frana, "Before the Web there was Gopher" Annals of the History of Computing 26 #1 (Jan-Mar 2004): 20-41. Old: <no text provided>

Effective Term:

New: 1109 - Fall 2010
Old: 1089 - Fall 2008

Years most
frequently offered:

New: Even years only
Old: Other frequency

Proposal Changes:

New: LE proposal for Fall 2010:
CORE: Historical Perspectives
THEME: Technology and Society

Old: <no text provided>

History Information:

New:
Split from multiple course offering for Fall 2005.
6/07 Update years/terms offered.
Jan 2010- Update to match HSci 4321 which is its cross-listed course.
Old:
Split from multiple course offering for Fall 2005.
6/07 Update years/terms offered.

Faculty
Sponsor Name:

New: Tom Misa & Phil Barry
Old:

Faculty
Sponsor E-mail Address:

New: barry@cs.umn.edu
Old:

Student Learning Outcomes:

* Student in the course:

- Can identify, define, and solve problems

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Assessing any of the classic historical processes (industrialization, urbanization, post-industrialization) requires identifying what the process is, defining the relevant data and appropriate bounds of the inquiry, and addressing how evidence (often varied and sometimes conflicting) bears on the central phenomenon or process, or solving the analytical problem of how and whether the given evidence is relevant to a certain historical observation. A key historical theme in the class is the profoundly different types of computers and computing applications that evolved historically. Students read materials and engage in discussion to understand the differences between (e.g.) calculation, control of manufacturing processes, business or government data processing, and communication.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Students' learning related to this outcome is assessed through quizzes and papers that describe and discuss the distinct types of computing as well as a final exam that is comprehensive and comparative. Example from Quiz #1: "Choose TWO of the following. Write a PARAGRAPH explaining how they helped pioneer large-scale 'information processing' in the 1800s. DISCUSS specific examples. Astronomers, Surveyors and map-makers, Nautical Almanac, Insurance companies, Bank/railway clearing houses, Central telegraph offices, Government census efforts." A question from the midterm exam is this: "CHOOSE two of the following [historical-computing] periods. For each, write a PARAGRAPH [a] that describes how computers were used for existing problems in calculation, tabulation and/or large-scale information processing; and [b] that identifies new engineering or industrial problems, scientific questions, or information-processing demands that spurred new developments in computing. Analog Era (1920-50s), Digital Divide (1935-55), Business Machines (1946-59), Computing, Control, and Cold War (1943-60s)."

Old: unselected

- Can locate and critically evaluate information

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Locating and critically evaluating relevant information is a crucial activity for historical analysis. Historians always need to assess not only whether the information is accurate, but also whether it is relevant to the question, hypothesis, or observation at hand -- as well as how it is relevant.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Learning related to this outcome can be assess through quiz questions and papers that ask students to FIND and IDENTIFY relevant documents, observation or data illustrating course themes. Students do a visitation to the archival facility at the University's Charles Babbage Institute. Students' learning is evaluated through an open-ended quiz question: "In 3-4 sentences, explain what you learned this week by examining the documents at CBI. You should address one or more of the 'document workshop' questions: When was your document written/published? Who is the author? What does the document tell you about him/her? or the company/institution? For what purpose what the document written? What does this document tell you about the historical period? What other information would you like to know about the document/its author? How might you get that information?" Similarly, the final exam is open-ended and asks students to identify and explain the significance of material learned across the course. One final exam question was this: "CREATE a picture-and-text 'timeline map' for personal computing networked computing. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Identify influences or consequential models with arrows."

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- Can communicate effectively

New:

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Students communicate verbally in large-group (cross-class) question-and-answer sessions as well as in small-group discussions; discussions are centered on a set of 5-7 questions prepared by instructor and given to students to prepare for the upcoming week. Students communicate in written form through bi-weekly quizzes, a midterm exams, and a comprehensive final exam. All quizzes and exams are essay-type requiring full sentences (or paragraphs) and students expressing their ideas in written form.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Instructor makes regular weekly assessments of the readiness and the value of students oral participation, often eliciting or drawing out students' ideas and calling on individual students (with due allowance and understanding if a student happens to be less than perfectly prepared). Written communication is assessed when evaluating the quizzes and exams, with feedback on written communication frequently offered. Fully 20% of the student's course grade is composed by the student's in-class participation.

Old: unselected

Requirement
this course fulfills:

New: TS - TS Technology and Society
Old:

Other requirement
this course fulfills:

New: HIS - HIS Historical Perspectives
Old:

Criteria for
Core Courses:

Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed core requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or method.

Core courses must meet the following requirements:

They explicitly help students understand what liberal education is, how the content and the substance of this course enhance a liberal education, and what this means for them as students and as citizens

They employ teaching and learning strategies that engage students with doing the work of the field, not just reading about it.

They include small group experiences (such as discussion sections or labs) and use writing as appropriate to the discipline to help students learn and reflect on their learning.

They do not (except in rare and clearly justified cases) have prerequisites beyond the University�s entrance requirements.

They are offered on a regular schedule.

They are taught by regular faculty or under exceptional circumstances by instructors on continuing appointments. Departments proposing instructors other than regular faculty must provide documentation of how such instructors will be trained and supervised to ensure consistency and continuity in courses.

New:
This course amply satisfies the general requirements for Core courses. It is designed to give all University students -- and not only computer science majors -- an understanding of how and where and why computing technologies, practices, and institutions have emerged as well as how computing has shaped our modern economy, society, political system, and entertainment patterns. The course uses a blend of traditional lectures, class-wide question-and-answer sessions, and in-class small-group discussions, as well as quizzes, exams and necessary class participation, to engage students with readings and exercises that develop the course's topics and themes. The course does not have prerequisites; and in fact has been successfully taken by students from across the University; it is offered on a regular schedule (usually in the fall) and taught by regular full-time faculty (Misa) in the HST program or by CSE department Assistant Professor Phillip Barry (course is cross-listed as CS 4921).

Historical Perspectives Core:
Students gain insight into how people have created computers and how they have changed the world in the past two centuries. Students explore four broad comparative themes -- invention of computer(s); calculation and control; software, chips, and the PC; and networked world -- that together deal with roughly the past 200 years through the present day. Students gain knowledge about the profound changes in computing in specific historical contexts, including governmental, railroad, insurance, and banking offices; scientific and technological research; military applications and agencies; international standards setting; and networked organizations.
Students assess long-term transformations in how and why societies generated distinct demands for different types of computing. For example, computing artifacts and practices were invented and developed to respond to the needs of the 20th century bureaucratic state (for census tabulation, welfare state administration, and economic regulation) as well as the perceived imperatives of the Cold War for command-and-control of military, space, and surveillance systems. In turn, the possibility of large-scale databases fostered the perceived feasibility of large, complex bureaucratic systems. Computers created the modern state, but also the modern state in the 20th century created a huge market for IBM and other computer companies. Similarly, there is a complex relationship between the "counterculture" of the 1960s and the emerging anti-establishment personal-computing movement, soon to become an immense industry. Beliefs, practices, relationships, networks, and institutions both shaped computing artifacts and practices as well as were profoundly shaped by these artifacts and practices, as can be seen in the Whole Earth catalog and Wired magazine. "Cyberculture" is an especially slippery concept: it seems pervasive today, and seems "caused by" pervasive networked computing. Yet a powerful image of cyberculture recall William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) clearly preceded the widespread social and cultural practices.

Methods and conceptual frameworks for evaluating primary sources--including photographic images of computers in (different) uses, selected examples of accessible computer code, advertisements and promotional materials (including video), and varied diagrams and pictograms of communications networks are emphasized in lectures, large-group discussion, and small-group discussion sections. The active creative work needed to interpret images, diagrams, and even computer programming languages gives students active experiences with the methods and practices in producing historical knowledge as well as insight into the strengths and limits of such methods.

Comparative historical analysis is used throughout. Course compares/contrasts the changing needs of and demands for computers for (e.g.) solving scientific or technical equations, creating or cracking encrypted messages, storing large amounts of business or governmental data, and real-time control applications. Contrasts of the changing means of support and promotion that have shaped the evolution of computing, such as businesses, government agencies, NGOs, and consumers. Course also examines the different uses and modes of computing in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as the limited accessibility of computing in Africa and many countries in Latin America. A comprehensive final exam gives students the opportunity to reflect on the longer-term questions about how computing practices, institutions, and visions of the future have changed across time.
Old:
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Criteria for
Theme Courses:

Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed theme requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or methods.

Theme courses have the common goal of cultivating in students a number of habits of mind:

thinking ethically about important challenges facing our society and world;
reflecting on the shared sense of responsibility required to build and maintain community;
connecting knowledge and practice;
fostering a stronger sense of our roles as historical agents.

New: For the Technology and Society Theme, this course meetings the following specific requirements:
(1)     students think critically and contextually about the ethical implications of specific technologies. Students can clearly see that the US-based computer scientists who standardized the ASCII format for storing letters in effect (and possibly unwittingly) created an "English" artifact that was hostile to European languages needing diacritical marks, let alone Asian ones. Many of the current problems with Internet security can be traced to its origins in relatively open computer-science networks among trusted colleagues, so that security provisions were not considered from the start (as might have been done). Students also explore the gender implications of computing, and try to understand the unusually low (and proportionately shrinking) number of women in the computing profession and computing workforce.
(2)     Students gain insight into their shared sense of responsibility to build community when assessing the role of computing in creating professional communities of computer scientists, activist communities for privacy rights, and civic communities through the presence (or absence) of digital networked technologies today. Historical examples of the Association for Computing Machinery as well as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility provide instances of models of computing professionals dealing with ethical implications.
(3)     Students gain appreciation for concrete examples of the connections between knowledge and practice. Throughout, the course considers the problematic relationship between theorizing about computing and computing practices. For instance, mathematician John von Neumann is widely credited with inventing the "stored-program concept" (which made electronic calculating machines into general-purpose computers) but close inspection of the ENIAC and EDVAC projects strongly suggests that shop-floor practice has already developed such a concept, later popularized and made famous by his high-profile report. Debates on artificial intelligence, including pattern and word-recognition, networking, and programming languages are further instances where interplay between knowledge and practice can be explored.
(4)     The course topics naturally lead students to a stronger sense of their roles as active historical agents, since a central theme "emphasized during the entire course" is the important role played in the evolution of computing by consumers, citizens, and government agencies and not only by inventors or computer scientists. Rich examples are developed, discussed, and evaluated throughout the course. Email is one extremely good example of a now-pervasive technology that was not foreseen by the early Internet's designers but was devised by a active set of users who demanded and develop methods for sending email messages. Personal computing, social networking sites, as well as multi-player game environments are other "spaces" in which users seem to have driven major developments in computing technologies and practices.

Technology and Society Theme: Students examine and assess the technological foundations of contemporary information society through a historical and contextual methodology. The course examines specific computing technologies that clearly have shaped historical developments, including code-breaking during WWII, atomic bomb calculations, air- and missile-defense systems as well as the data-processing capabilities that were necessary to create modern bureaucratic governments and businesses, including the welfare state and the computerized financial markets. Multiple actor viewpoints are considered throughout, from political elites and military agencies, leading inventors and computer scientists and mathematicians, workers in offices using spreadsheets and/or word-processing, as well a divergent perspective. Through evaluating divergent perspectives on security, privacy, and so-called digital divides students gain insight into understanding of technology and society for contemporary debates and controversies.
Old: <no text provided>

Provisional
Syllabus:

Please provide a provisional syllabus for new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed that include the following information: course goals and description; format/structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (texts, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated.

The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/semestercon.html . Provisional course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification, This provisional course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester.

New: Web Address for complete syllabus:
https://netfiles.umn.edu/users/tmisa/www/courses/4321/syllabus_4321.html

History of Computing
HSci 4321 / CSci 4921
for AY 2009-10
Time and place -- TBA

Thomas J. Misa <www.umn.edu/~tmisa> | email: tmisa [at] umn [dot] edu

Charles Babbage Institute <www.cbi.umn.edu>
Program in History of Science, Technology & Medicine <www.hstm.umn.edu>
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering <www.ece.umn.edu>

This course addresses the question "how do technologies change the world?" through examining the history of computing. Readings and discussions on the people, technologies, ideas, and institutions of modern computing; and the uses of computers in computation, control, simulation, communication, and recreation. Developments in last 150 years: evolution of hardware and software; growth of computer and semiconductor industries and their relations to other businesses; changing relationships resulting from new data-gathering and analysis techniques; automation; social and ethical issues.

REQUIRED READINGS are [1] Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Westview 2004; 2nd ed.) -- available at the bookstore; and [2] required readings linked to this syllabus -- see the links [] and/or the needed issues of Annals of the History of Computing available on-line through the University Library. For GRAD credit, students should read the extra assignments and consult my bibliography.

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS: six quizzes [45% of course grade]; in-class discussion participation [20%]; mid-term exam [15%]; comprehensive final exam [20%]. Quizzes draw heavily on questions from weekly handouts.   There will be six quizzes, each 20-minutes long, held in class on the Thursdays of weeks 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 14. Quizzes will be short-answer and short-essay format, on lectures and readings. Your lowest quiz score will be dropped. Quizzes and exams are closed book.

Supplemental Credit available for attending and submitting a one-page write-up (250 words) on sessions from CBI's lecture series "Minnesota's Hidden History in Computing." [Fall 2008] The hour-long open public talks will be at 7.00 pm (Andersen Library 120) on 17 Sept., 8 Oct., 19 Nov., and 17 Dec. (2 write-ups = 1 quiz).

REGULAR ATTENDANCE is necessary. Bring the day's reading -- printing out WWW readings -- to each class meeting.

OFFICE HOURS: by appointment (612/624-5050) in my West Bank office (Andersen Library 211) or anytime in the hour after class on East Bank. I try to respond promptly to email.

Historical Perspectives Core: Students gain insight into how people have created computers and how they have changed the world in the past two centuries. Students explore four broad comparative themes -- invention of computer(s); calculation and control; software, chips, and the PC; and networked world -- that together deal with roughly the past 200 years through the present day. Students gain knowledge about the profound changes in computing in specific historical contexts, including governmental, railroad, insurance, and banking offices; scientific and technological research; military applications and agencies; international standards setting; and networked organizations. Students assess long-term transformations in how and why societies generated distinct demands for different types of computing. For example, computing artifacts and practices were invented and developed to respond to the needs of the 20th century bureaucratic state (for census tabulation, welfare state administration, and economic regulation) as well as the perceived imperatives of the Cold War for command-and-control of military, space, and surveillance systems. In turn, the possibility of large-scale databases fostered the perceived feasibility of large, complex bureaucratic systems. We also examine the complex relationship between the "counterculture" of the 1960s and the emerging anti-establishment personal-computing movement, soon to become an immense industry. Beliefs, practices, relationships, networks, and institutions both shaped computing artifacts and practices as well as were profoundly shaped by these artifacts and practices, as can be seen in the Whole Earth catalog and Wired magazine. "Cyberculture" is an especially slippery concept: it seems pervasive today, and seems "caused by" pervasive networked computing. Yet a powerful image of "cyberculture" recall William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) clearly preceded the widespread social and cultural practices. Methods and conceptual frameworks for evaluating primary sources -- including photographic images of computers in (different) uses, selected examples of accessible computer code, advertisements and promotional materials (including video), and varied diagrams and pictograms of communications networks are emphasized in lectures, large-group discussion, and small-group discussion sections. Students do visitation at Charles Babbage Institute to gain hands-on experience with primary-source documents. The active creative work needed to interpret images, diagrams, and even computer programming languages gives students direct experience with the methods and practices in producing historical knowledge as well as insight into the strengths and limits of such methods. Comparative historical analysis is used throughout. Course compares/contrasts the very different needs and demands of computers for (e.g.) solving scientific or technical equations, creating or cracking encrypted messages, storing large amounts of business or governmental data, and real-time control applications. Contrasts of the varied supports and patrons that have shaped the evolution of computing, such as businesses, government agencies, NGOs, and consumers. Course also examines the different uses and modes of computing in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as the limited accessibility of computing in Africa and many countries in Latin America. A comprehensive final exam gives students the opportunity to reflect on the longer-term questions about how computing practices, institutions, and visions of the future have changed across time.

Technology and Society Theme: Students examine and assess the technological foundations of contemporary information society through a historical and contextual methodology. The course examines specific computing technologies that clearly have shaped historical developments, including code-breaking during WWII, atomic bomb calculations, air- and missile-defense systems as well as the data-processing capabilities that were necessary to create modern bureaucratic governments and businesses, including the welfare state and the computerized financial markets. Multiple actor viewpoints are considered throughout, from political elites and military agencies, leading inventors and computer scientists and mathematicians, workers in offices using spreadsheets and/or word-processing, as well a divergent perspective. Through evaluating divergent perspectives on security, privacy, and so-called digital divides students gain insight into understanding of technology and society for contemporary debates and controversies.
  Students think critically and contextually about the ethical implications of specific technologies. US-based computer scientists who standardized the ASCII format for storing letters in effect (and possibly unwittingly) created an "English" artifact that was hostile to European languages needing diacritical marks, let alone Asian ones. Many of the current problems with Internet security can be traced to its origins in relatively open computer-science networks among trusted colleagues, so that security provisions were not considered from the start (as might have been done). Students also explore the gender implications of computing, and try to understand the unusually low (and proportionately shrinking) number of women in the computing profession and computing workforce.
Students gain insight into their shared sense of responsibility to build community when assessing the role of computing in creating professional communities of computer scientists, activist communities for privacy rights, and civic communities through the presence (or absence) of digital networked technologies today. Historical examples of the Association for Computing Machinery as well as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility provide instances of models of computing professionals dealing with ethical implications.

Students gain appreciation for concrete examples of the connections between knowledge and practice. Throughout, the course considers the problematic relationship between theorizing about computing and computing practices. For instance, mathematician John von Neumann is widely credited with inventing the "stored-program concept" (which made electronic calculating machines into general-purpose computers) but close inspection of the ENIAC and EDVAC projects strongly suggests that shop-floor practice has already developed such a concept, later popularized and made famous by his high-profile report. Debates on artificial intelligence, including pattern and word-recognition, networking, and programming languages are further instances where interplay between knowledge and practice can be explored.
  The course topics naturally lead students to a stronger sense of their roles as active historical agents, since a central theme "emphasized during the entire course" is the important role played in the evolution of computing by consumers, citizens, and government agencies and not only by inventors or computer scientists. Rich examples are developed, discussed, and evaluated throughout the course. Email is one extremely good example of a now-pervasive technology that was not foreseen by the early Internet's designers but was devised by a active set of users who demanded and develop methods for sending email messages. Personal computing, social networking sites, as well as multi-player game environments are other "spaces" in which users seem to have driven major developments in computing technologies and practices.
Plagiarism -- turning in someone else's work as your own -- is the most serious offense a student can commit. Copying notes, quizzes, papers, or exams from another student -- in whole or in part -- is plagiarism. The U's policy identifies "scholastic dishonesty as a disciplinary offense actionable by the University" in this stern statement. Please talk to me, anytime, if you have any questions or concerns about plagiarism. For helpful tips, see "Preventing Plagiarism."

1: Invention of the computer
1. 9/2   Computers Changing History

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray xiii-xviii; Paul Edwards "Making History" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23 #1 (Jan.-Mar. 2001): 86-87 <www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/makinghistory.pdf>
  GRAD: Misa, "Understanding 'How Computing Has Changed the World'." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2007): 52-63.

2. 9/9   The Mechanical Vision (1830s-1900s)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "When computers were people" 3-21, "Mechanical office" 23-44
  GRAD: J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 notes" Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2003): 16- 26; Doron Swade, "The construction of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2" Annals of the History of Computing 27 #3 (July-Sept. 2005): 70-88.

3. 9/16   The Analog Era (1920-50s)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Babbage's dream" 45-65; Frank Preston, "Vannevar Bush's network analyzer at MIT" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 25 #1 (Jan-Mar 2003): 75-78.
  GRAD: Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 63-95 JSTOR.

4. 9/23    The Digital Divide (1935-55)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Inventing the computer" 69-91; Larry Owens, "Where are we going Phil Morse?" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18 # 4 (1996): 34-41.
  GRAD: B. Longo, "Edmund Berkeley, computers, and modern methods of thinking" Annals of the History of Computing 26 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2004): 4-18

2: Computers for calculation and control
5. 9/30    Business Machines (1946-59)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Computer becomes a business machine" 93-115; Cheryl Malone, "Imagining Information Retrieval in the Library: Desk Set in Historical Context" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (July-Sept. 2002): 14-22.
  GRAD: James W. Cortada, "Studying the Role of IT in the Evolution of American Business Practices" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #4 (Oct.-Dec. 2007): 28-39; Alice Burks, Who Invented the Computer?: The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History (2002); see review
6. 10/7    IBM and the Mainframe (1959-70s)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Maturing of the mainframe" 117-37; Glenn E. Meyers, "IBM Field Engineering Experiences" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 21 #4 (1999): 72-76.
  GRAD: Steven Usselman, "Learning the Hard Way: IBM and the Sources of Innovation in Early Computing," Financing Innovation in the United States, 1870 to Present, edited by Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Kenneth L. Sokoloff (MIT Press 2007): 317-64.

7. 10/14    Computing, Control, and Cold War (1943-60s) special class visit to CBI archive Tues. 10/14

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Real Time" 141-62; Paul Edwards, "SAGE" (ch3) in The Closed World (MIT 1996)
  GRAD: David A. Mindell, Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight (MIT Press 2008)

8. 10/21   ** MIDTERM Thurs. 10/23 **

  Reading: no (additional) reading assigned

3: Software, chips, and the PC
9. 10/28   Software, Chips, and Change (1949-75)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Software" 163-84; "New modes" 185-204; Peter Eckstein, "Jack Kilby (1923-2005)" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #1 (Jan.-March 2007): 90-95.
  GRAD: special issues of Annals on software products 24 #1, word-processing 28 #4, spreadsheets 29 #3

10. 11/4   Advent of the PC (1972-80s)

  Reading: Campbell-Kelly & Aspray "Shaping of the personal computer" 207-29; "Broadening the appeal" 231-39 [only]; PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" 1 | 2 [YouTube]
  GRAD: James Sumner, "What Makes a PC? Thoughts on Computing Platforms, Standards, and Compatibility" Annals of the History of Computing 29 #2 (April-June 2007): 88.

11. 11/11   The Macintosh Moment (c.1984)

  Reading: "Broadening the appeal" 240-53 + Steven Levy's Insanely Great chap 4; Th Jef Raskin's history + PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" part 3 [YouTube] + Ted Friedman "Apple's 1984: The Introduction of the Macintosh"
  GRAD: Fred Guterl. "Design Case History: Apple's Macintosh" IEEE Spectrum (Dec. 1984): 34-43. <WWW>.

4: Networked World
12. 11/18   The Internet Emerges (1960s-80s)

  Reading: C. Partridge and S. Blumenthal, "Data Networking at BBN" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #1 (Jan.-March 2006): 56- 71; Andrew Russell, "'Rough Consensus and Running Code' and the Internet-OSI Standards War" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #3 (July-Sept. 2006): 48-61.
  GRAD: Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (MIT 1999).

13. 11/25     Rise of Moore's Law (c. 1975-90s)   Thanksgiving no class Thurs. 11/27

  Reading: Paul E. Ceruzzi, "Moore's Law and Technological Determinism" Technology and Culture 46 #3 (2005) 584-593 [MUSE]; Ethan Mollick, "Establishing Moore's Law" Annals of the History of Computing 28 #3 (July-Sept. 2006): 62-75.

14. 12/2     The Internet and the Wider World (1980s-1990s)

  Reading: Craig Partridge, "The Technical Development of Internet Email" Annals of the History of Computing 30 #2 (April-June 2008): 3-29; D.A. Grier and M. Campbell, "A social history of Bitnet and Listserv, 1985-1991" Annals of the History of Computing 22 #2 (Apr-Jun 2000): 32-41.
  GRAD: William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, eds. The Internet and American Business (MIT 2008).

15. 12/9   World Wide Web (1990s-present) last class meeting Tues. 12/9

  Reading: Tim Berners-Lee: 1996 Technology Review interview + 1997 Sci Am profile [local copies]
  GRAD: Phil Frana, "Before the Web there was Gopher" Annals of the History of Computing 26 #1 (Jan-Mar 2004): 20-41.
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