ACM History Committee Mary Hall Computer Science and ISI Univ. of Southern California Michael S. Mahoney History of Science Princeton University.

ACM History Committee

Mary HallComputer Science and ISIUniv. of Southern California

Michael S. MahoneyHistory of SciencePrinceton University

August, 2005, SGB Meeting

ACM History Committee Charter

The ACM History Committee fosterspreservation and interpretation of thehistory of the ACM and its role in thedevelopment of computing.

To this end,the Committee providesguidance within the Association and carries out activities independently

andin collaboration with other groups.


ACM History Committee Members

Co-Chairs:Richard Snodgrass, Computer Science, University of Arizona, [email protected] David S. Wise, Computer Science, Indiana University, [email protected]

Historians:William Aspray, Informatics, Indiana University, [email protected] S. Mahoney, History, Princeton University, [email protected]

SIG Governing Board Liaison:Mary Hall, USC Information Sciences Institute, [email protected]

Publications Board Liaison:Carol Hutchins, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Library, [email protected]

ACM HQ Representative:Patricia Ryan, Deputy Executive Director, ACM, [email protected]

Len Shustek, Chair, Board of Trustees, Computer History Museum, [email protected]

Webmaster Joseph A. November, History, Princeton University, [email protected]

ACM Staff contact for logistics: Monique Chang, Human Resources Director, ACM, [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]










OUTLINE

• Motivation• Activities of the History Committee• Archiving SIG History• History of Computing • Possible SIG Contributions


Why a History Committee?

• Created in July 2004• Why now?

– ACM will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2007.– Few of those present at the founding of ACM

are still with us.– In the past two years, four Turing Award

winners have died.– There are ACM conferences for which no

printed proceedings can be located.


Because we don’t know our history.

• What was the impetus for the 18 transactions and 8 journals?

• What was the genesis of the 24 SIGs? What was the arc of those that no longer exist?

• Where did early and middle leaders see the field going? How did their vision shape it? In what ways were they prescient and what did they not foresee?


The History of ACM is Important!

• ACM, as the first society of computing, should not only contribute to the future of information technology, but should document its past.

• What does the last fifty+ years of ACM tell us about the next ten years, the next fifty years, both of ACM and of computing in general?


History Committee Activities:Oral Histories

• Collecting, and (co-)sponsoring oral histories– Turing award winners

• Richard Karp, Robert Tarjan • Also, SIGMOD sponsored Charles Bachman oral history

– Former ACM presidents• Franz Alt, Bernie Galler, Walter Carlson and Anthony

Ralston (co-sponsored by SIAM)

• Identifying potential interviewees– 46 Turing award winners– 20 former ACM presidents– 6 former ACM executive directors– 10 early staff members and influential ACM leaders


History Committee Activities:Turing Award web site

• Initiated by ACM Publications

• Now edited by Thomas J. Bergin, Jr., co-editor of History of Programming Languages II, and former editor of Annals of History of Computing

http://www.acm.org/awards/recipients.html


Other History Committee Activities

• ACM History website– This will allow us to link to historical information and

SIG activities

• ACM Archive Project– Archiving files as ACM moves its headquarters

• National Museum of American History Digitization– Transcripts of ACM Presidents Franz Alt, Herb Grosch,

Alton Householder, Harry Huskey, and John Mauchly, and ACM influential leader Paul Armer, along with a round-table discussion at an ACM conference in 1967.


SIG Activities to Preserve History:Technical Conferences

• Consistent record-keeping of conferences– Program committee– Keynotes– Schedule and session chairs– Submission breakdown by country– Acceptance/rejection rates by sub-topic

• Most of this information is known by the program chair, some is not preserved


Example: from SIGPLAN PLDI 2005 ConferenceCoverage, According to Area (1 of 2)

0 10 20 30 40

Novel

Prog. Repr.

Language

Compiler/arch.

Object-oriented

Debugging

Mem. Mgmt.

Domain-specific

Model and theorem

DynamicA

reas

% of papers

AcceptedSubmitted

Categories from submission, most papers provided multiple categories. Average = 3


SIG Activities to Preserve History:Archives and Web sites

• Track program committee members, authors, SIG organization, awards

• Some portions strictly for organizational purposes, others visible to ACM community

• Examples?


SIG Activities to Preserve History:Retrospectives

• Retrospective Conferences– SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages– SIGGRAPH Pioneer Day

• Published Retrospectives– 20 Years of PLDI (SIGPLAN)

• SIG History Committee (SIGMOD)• Awards

– Awards for service and technical achievement– PLDI Most Influential Paper (10 year retrospective)– ICSE Most Influential Paper (10 year retrospective)

Disclaimer: Apologies for over-emphasis on SIGPLAN activities, which I know more about. Tell us what other SIGs are doing!


History of Computing: Institutions

• IEEE Annals of the History of Computing– http://www.computer.org/annals/

• Charles Babbage Institute– http://www.cbi.umn.edu/

• Software History Center– http://www.softwarehistory.org/

• Computer History Museum – http://www.net.org/index.html

• National Archive for the History of Computing (UK)– http://www.chstm.man.ac.uk/nahc/

• ...


History of Computing on the Web

• Tom Haigh’s Computer File• JAN Lee’s site at Virginia Tech• Tim Bergin’s Computing History

Museum• Computer History Museum• Charles Babbage Institute• ACM Portal• Multics, …


History of Computing: Issues

• Until recently, focus on hardware• Now shifting to software

– Systems software– Applications software

• Last done from perspective of domains of application– Histories of computing(s)

• e.g. Cortada, Agar, Haigh,


ENIAC

EDVAC, EDSAC and others

Business, Industry& Government

files and accountstabulation

organization of production

management

Design & maintenanceof large systems

electricitytelecommunications

Technology & Science

mathematical calculation

mechanicallogic

EDP

OR/MS

automationrobotics

ESS

Computer Science

scientific computation

computational science

theorysystems

AI & human augmentation

mainframesminismicro

Internet/WWW

©2004 msm

Convergent History


ENIAC

EDVAC

Business, Industry& Government

data processing organization of production

management design & maintenanceof large systems

electricitytelecommunications

Technology & Science

mathematical calculation

mechanicallogic

EDP OR/MS automationrobotics ESS

scientific computation

computational science

Computer Science

theorysystems

human augmentation

military C&C

SAGEWWCCS

C3I

c o m p u t e r s

artificial intelligenceartificial life

©2004 msm

Communities of Computing


SIG-sponsored History

• PLAN – HOPLs I (1978), II (1993), III (2006)

• GRAPH – Milestones in Computer Graphics (1989)

• SOFT – Impact Project http://www.sigsoft.org/impact/index.htm


SIG-sponsored HOx?

• Operating Systems• Databases• Graphics• Communications• Computer Science• Software Engineering• Computer-Human Interface• ...


UPCOMING ACTIVITY!

• 2007 CACM Special Issue on ACM History to coincide with 60th anniversary

• Open to suggestions from SIGs– How do you want your SIG represented?– Do you have specific historical activities

we should highlight?– Volunteers?


Summary

• We are a resource for the SIGs– Let us know of your historical activities and we

will help publicize them!– If you would like to start new activities, let us

know how we can help!

• The SIGs can help us– Tell us how you are preserving your history so

perhaps other SIGs can follow your lead.– Help ACM collect and preserve information in

your area.– Co-sponsor oral histories for luminaries in your

area.

ACM History Committee Mary Hall Computer Science and ISI Univ. of Southern California Michael S. Mahoney History of Science Princeton University.

Documents

history of acm

years of acm

acm conferences

acm publications

acm staff

coeditor of history

founding of acm

computer history museum