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Annals Hist COnpUt (1998) l&113-125

The of in the History of

MICHAEL S. MAHONEY ‘i

After surveying the current state of the literature in the , this article discusses some of the major issues addressed byI .?; recent work in the . It suggests aspects. of the *+,, -1 development of computing which are pertinent to those issues and hence for which that recent work could provide models of historical analysis. As a I new scientific technology with unique features, computing can provide new j, perspectives on the history of technology. Categories and Subject Descriptors: K.2 [Computing Milieux]: Histod of Computing. K.4.0 [ and ]: Genera/. Additional Terms: History of Technology.

Introduction and record keeping by a new industry of data processing. As a primary vehicle of com- Since World War II “” has emerged as munication over both space and time, it has come a fundamental scientific and technological con- to form the core of modern information technoI- cept applied to phenomena ranging from black ogy. What the English-speaking world refers to holes to DNA, from the of cells to as “ science” is known to the rest of. : the processes of human thought, and from the western as informutique (or Informatik or. of corporations to the allocation of informutica). Much of the concern over informa- global resources. In addition to reshaping estab- tion as a commodity and as a natural resource lished disciplines, it has stimulated the forma- derives from the computer and from computer- tion of a p%anoply of new subjects and areas of based technology.’ Hence, the inquiry concerned with its structure and its role history of the computer and of computing is cen- in nature and society (Machlup and Mansfeld tral to that of information science and technol- 1983). Theories based on the of infor- ogy, providing a thread. by which to maintain mation have so permeated modern culture that bearing while exploring the ever-growing maze it now is widely taken to characterize our times. of disciplines and subdisciplines that claim in- We live in an “,” an “age of formation as their subject. information.” Indeed, we look to models of infor- Despite the pervasive presence of computing mation processing to explain our own patterns of in modern science and technology, not to mention thought. modern society itself, the history of computing has The computer has .$ayed the central role in yet to establish a significant presence in the his- that transformation, both accommodating and tory of science and technology. Meetin& of the encouraging ever broader views of information Society and the Societyfor t&e and of how it can be transformed and commu- History of Technology in recent years ‘;have in- . nicated over time and space. Since the 1950s the duded very few =ssiom dew@+ .speci$&y!~~~,~$~., :p; _ .‘+_^ :;*,. I,: -‘,,‘ ir- ..‘_,p;>,, .; -’ computer has replaced traditional methods of ac- ,-4-c Y” “ ,, s- ,’ ‘To characterize the unprecedented capabilities of e&- duthor’s Address: in History of Science, Prince- puters linked to telecommunications, Nora and Mine (1978f ton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. (609)452-4157. coined the term k%%mfque. 1 -\

Annals of the History of Computing, Volume IO, Nut&w I .; .- M. S. Mahoney l History of Computing in the History of Technology

history of computing, and few of the thematic A few corporate have appeared, ,RQ@.’ sessions have included contributions from the notably IBM’s Early Computers (Bashe et al. 1986);“~ of computing. There is clearly an im- but they too are in-house productions. -‘ balance to be redressed here. This literature represents for the most part : This status of the history of computing within “insider” history, full of facts and firsts. While it: the history of technology surely reflects on both is firsthand and expert, it is also guided by -the: parties, but the bclk of the task of redress lies current state of and bound by the’ with the former. A look at the literature shows professional culture. That is, its authors take as that, by and large, historians of computing are givens (often technical givens) what a more crit- addressing few of the questions that historians of ical, outside viewer might see as choices. Read- technology are now asking. It is worthwhile to ing their accounts makes it difficult to see the look at what those questions are and what form alternatives, as the authors themselves lose $ouch. they might take when addressed to computing. with a time when they did not know what jthey The question is how to bring the history of com- now know. In the long run, most of this l&era- puting into line with what should be its parent ture will become primary sources, if not “of the’ discipline. Doing so will follow a two-way street, development of computing per se, then df its the history of computing using models from the emerging culture. history of technology at the same time that the From the outset, the computer attracteg the history of computing is used to test those models. attention of journalists, who by the late ’50s +vere 4 In some aspects, at least, computing poses some beginning to recount its history. The result is a T! of the major questions of the history of technol- sizable inventory of accounts having the vitiues ,j ogy in special ways. Each field has much to learn and vices of the journalist’s craft. They are vivid, T! from the other. they capture the spirit of the people and of the, .;” institutions they portray, and they have an eye for the telling anecdote. But their immediacy ‘y Computing’s Present History comes at the price of perspective. Written by peo- .I ple more qr less knowledgeable about the subject Where the current literature in the history of and about the history of technology, these&- computing is self-consciously historical, it focuses counts tend to focus on the unusual or the spec- in large part on hardware and on the prehistory tacular, be it people or lines of research, and they ‘L and early development of the computer.2 Where often cede to the self-evaluation of their subjectfi. it touches on later developments or provides a wider view, it is only incidentally historical. A major portion of the literature stems from the people involved, either through regular surveys Michael S. Mahoney is. s of the state and development of various fields (e.g., Professor of History and ,q Rosen 1987, Sammet 1969j3 and compilations of .1 History of Science at z;i seminal papers (Randell 1982; Yourdon 1979, Princeton University / $4 1982; AT&T 1987),4 or through reminiscences and ‘where he diyides his 3 retrospectives, either written directly or tran- teaching and research II ,,;j scribed from contributions to conferences and between the history qf 3 symposia.5 Biographies of men or -some the mathematical ! ..q heroic, some polemical, some both-are a prom- sciences and the history 3 inent genre, and one reads a lot about “pioneers.” of technology. He is the ,”

.,” author of several studies ‘; on the development of algebra and analysis ‘See Aspray (1984) for a recent, brief survey of the state during the seventeenth century, as well as on of the field. .i 3Many of the articles in Computing Surveys, begun in 1969, ancient and medieval in general. include an historical review of the subject. While continuing this work, he is engaged in a _:.,I 4The 25th anniversary issues of the leading journals also history of computer duting tti& .?g%ls “i r_ii contain useful collections of important articles. and ‘60s. He serves as Edj& of thp‘ $&&$, ‘I i??,$,~ ‘Wexelblatt (1981), a record of the 1978 ACM Conference on the History of Programming Languages, is an excellent Series of the ACM Press and as Advisor for the example, as is a recent issue of the Annuls of the History of History Series on the ACM Conferences Board.. : Computing on the Burroughs B5000. I%

114 l Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 10, 2, 1988 ‘_-_ li,i* , -...-A” M. S. M

Thus the and artifical intelli- mentum or redirect it by external &npuls@$# gence have had the lion’s share of attention, as far does go in explaining tc their advocates have roared a succession of mil- innovation and development? How do new .t&&$$ lenia. nologies establish themselves in society, and f&$$ The journalistic accounts veer into another does society adapt to them? To what extent.+& major portion of the literature on computing, in what ways do engender new tech&@ namely what may be called %ocial impact state- ogies? what are the patterns by which tech&ii. ments.” Often difficult to distinguish from futur- ogy is transferred from one culture to anotheir? ist musing on the computer, the discussions of the What role do governments play in fostering and effects of the computer on society and its various directing technological innovation and develop- activities tend on the whole to view computing ment? These are some of the “big questions;“,& apart from the history of technology rather than George Daniels (1970) once put it. They c&I& from its perspective. History here serves the pur- broken down into smaller, more mana&&& pose of social analysis, criticism, and commen- questions, but ultimately they are the queit tary. Hence much of it comes from popular ac- for which historians of technology bear speo$ “i counts taken uncritically and episodically to responsibility within the historical community. ! support nonhistorical, often polemical, theses. They are all of them questions which can shed- 1 Some of this literature rests on a frankly politi- light on the development of computing wdile it : cal agenda; whether its models and modes of in turn elucidates them. analysis provide insight depends on whether one A few examples from recent literature must agrees with that agenda. suffice to suggest the approaches historians of Finally, there is a small body of professionally technology are taking to those questions. Each written historical work, dealing for the most part suggests by implication what might be doae?$nn-V with the origins of the computer, its invention the history of computing. A spate of studies ori 1 and early development (e.g., Stern 1981, Ceruzzi industrial research laboratories has explored the i 1982, Williams 1986). It is meant as no denigra- sources, purposes, and strategies of organized in- ,i tion of that work to note that it stops at the point novation, invention, and patenting in the late 19th *! where computing becomes a significant presence and early 20th centuries, bringing out the dy- 1 in science, technology, and society. There histo- namics of technological improvement that Rosen- rians stand before the daunting complexity of a berg (1979) suggested was a major source of ‘_ subject that has grown exponentially in size and growth in productivity. In Networks of Power variety, which looks not so much like an un- Thomas P. Hughes (1983) has provided a model ‘: charted ocean as like a trackless jungle. We pace for pursuing another suggestion by Rosenberg, i on the edge, pondering where to cut in. namely the need to treat as inter- active constituents of . Developments in one subsystem may be responses to demands in The Questions of the history of Technology others and hence have their real payoffs there. Or a breakthrough in one component of the sys- _: The state of the literature in history of comput- tern may unexpectedly create new opportunities ing emerges perhaps more clearly by comparison in the others, or even force a reorganization of (and by contrast) with what is currently appear- the itself. ing in the history of technology in general and In detailed examinations of one of the %&ly with the questions that have occupied historians big questions” of the history of American tech- of technology over the past decade or so. Those nology, Merritt Roe Smith (1977) and David A, questions derive from a cluster of seminal arti- Hounshell (1984) have traced the origins of the ” cles by George S. Datiels, Edwin T. Layton, Jr., “American System” and its evolution into mass Eugene S. Fergusoii, Nathan Rosenberg, and production and the assembly line. Both have en- Thomas P. Hughes, among others. How has the tered the workshops and factories to reveal the relationship between science and technology . . ;:“~i! changed and developed over time and place? How ‘George Daniels (1970) put the question as an, wi,-::’ <% has engineering evolved, both as an intellectual (p. 6): ‘( . . . the real effect of technical in~@vati&Q&&&$j ’ .” ‘1‘ activity and as a social role? Is technology the to help Americans do better what they had already shown a : marked inclination to do.” The seeming “social lag” in adapt- --‘, , , ;‘ creator of demand or a response to it? Put an- ing to new technology, he argued, is more likely economic in “*>_;;;.L ~,,:‘:; Fther way, does technology follow a society’s mo- nature. d < ~pj _j.

Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 10, rj- .: M. S. Mahoney l History df Computing in the History of Technology quite uneven reception and progress of that sys- The renewed emphasis on the visual has rein- tem, never so monolithic or pervasive as it seemed forced the natural ties between the historian of then or has seemed since. Daniel Nelson (1975) technology and the museum, at the same time that and Stephen Meyer (1981) have entered the fac- it has forged links between history of technology tory floor by another door to study the effects of and the study of material culture. mass production on the workers it organized. Looking at technology in other contexts, Wal- ter McDougall (1985) has anatomized the means The Tripartite Nature of Computing and motivation of government support of re- search and development since World War II, re- Before trying to translate some of the above vealing structures and patterns that extend well questions and models into forms specific to the beyond the space program. Behind his study history of computing, it may help to refle& a bit stands the ongoing history of NASA and of its on the complexity of the object of our study. The individual projects. From another perspective, computer is not one thing, but many different David F. Noble (1984) has examined the “com- things, and the same holds true of computing. mand technology” that lay behind the develop- There is about both terms a deceptive singularity ment of numerically controlled tools. At a more to which we fall victim when, as is now common, mundane level, Ruth Cowan (1983) has shown how we prematurely unite its multiple historical “progress is our most important product” often sources into a single stream, treating Charles translated into More Work fir Mother, while her Babbage’s and ’s own experiments in early’ 19th-century domestic algebra of thought as if they were conceptually technology have brought out the intimate rela- related by something other than 20th century tionship between work and family re- hindsight. Whatever ’s pre- lations. cise role in designing the “von Neumann archi- In the late 1970s Anthony F. C. Wallace (1978) tecture” that defines the computer for the period and Eugene Ferguson (1979b) recalled our atten- with which historians are properly concerned, it tion to the nonverbal modes of thought that seem is really only in van Neumann’s collaboration with more characteristic of the inventor and engineer the ENIAC team that two quite separate historical than does the language-based thinking of the sci- strands came together: the effort to achieve high- entist.7 Brooke Hindle’s (1981) study -of Morse’s speed, high-precision, automatic calculation and telegraph and Reese Jenkins’s (1987) recent work the effort to a logic capable of on the iconic patterns of Edison’s thought provide significant reasoning.9 examples of the insights historians can derive from The dual nature of the computer is reflected artifacts read as the concrete expressions of vi- in its dual origins: hardware in the sequence of sual and tactile cognition, recognizing that, as devices that stretches from the Pascaline to the’ Henry Ford once put it, ENIAC, software in the series of investigations that reaches from Leibniz’s combinatorics to Turing’s There is an immense amount to be learned sim- abstract machines. Until: the two strands come ply by tinkering with things. It is not possible to together in the computer, they belong to different learn from books how everything is made-and histories, the electronic calculator to the history a real mechanic ought to know how nearly of technology, the logic machine to the history of everything is made. Machines are to a mechanic mathematics,” and they can be unfolded sepa- what books are to a writer. He gets ideas from rately without significant loss of fullness or tex- them, and if he has any brains he will apply those ture. Though they come together in the com- ideas (Ford 1922, p. 241.’ .,‘s ‘. puter, they do not unite. The computer remains an amalgam of technological device and mathe- ‘See in particular Wallace’s “Thinking About Machinery” (Wallace 1978, pp. 237 ff). “In The Sciences of the Atii@zZ Herbert Simon (1981; cf. Newell and Simon 1976) argues forcefully for the empirical nature of computer research that underlies its mathematical ‘1 do not make this claim in ignorance of ’s trappings. The thinking of computer designers and program- Z-4 or ’s ACE, which realized roughly the same goals mers is embodied in the way their machines and programs as von Neumann’s along independent paths. Clearly the corn- work, and the languages they use to specify how things are puter was “in the air” by the 1940s. But it was the 194Os, to work are themselves artifacts. The models they use are not the 1840s. filled with images difficult or distractingly tedious to trans- “‘I am including the history of mathematical logic in the late into words; cf. Bolter (1984). history of mathematics.

116 * Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 10, Number 2. 1988 . .

M. S. Maho!w l History of Computing in the History of Techn~ _ “,_’ 1I, ,, matical concept, which retain separate identities the design and implementation of Earge, ~rnp$$$,~:$ despite their influence on one another. systems, and the driving forces are cost and SB-~ -,” Thus the computer in itself embodies one of liability. ;: the central problems of the history of technology, namely the relation of science and technology.” Computing as an enterprise deepens the prob- History of Computing as History of lem. For not only are finite automata or deno- Technology tational independent of integrated cir- cuits, they are also linked in only the most tenuous Consider, then, the history of computing in light’ and uncertain way to programs and program- of current history of technology. Several lines 5f ming, that is, to software and its production. Since inquiry seem particularly promising.. Studi& such 1 the mid-1960s experience in this realm has re- as those cited above offer a panoply of mod&$ &g,’ vealed a third strand in the nature of the com- tracing the patterns of growth and pro@?&4 @(: 1’: puter. Between the mathematics that makes the computing as a technology. It is worth ~~~~~~o~,~ ;f device theoretically possible and the example, whether the computing indtite ih&““: that makes it practically feasible lies the pro- moved forward more by big advances of rad]ical gramming that makes it intellectually, econom- innovation or by small steps of improvement: &a ically, and socially useful. Unlike the extremes, it followed the process described by Nathan ‘&- the middle remains a craft, technical rather than senberg, whereby “. . . technological improve- technological, mathematical only in appearance. ment not only enters the structure of the econ- It poses the question of the relation of science and omy through the main entrance, as when it takes technology in a very special form. the highly visible form of major patentable tech- That tripartite structure shows up in the three nological breakthroughs, but that it also employs , .” .i distinct disciplines that are concerned with the numerous and less visible side and rear &n- computer: electrical , computer sci- trances where its arrival is unobtrusive, unan- ence, and . Of these, the first nounced, unobserved, and uncelebrated” (Rosen- is the most well established, since it predates the berg 1979, p. 26)? To determine whether that is computer, even though its current focus on mi- the case will require changes in the history of croelectronics reflects its basic orientation to- computing as it is currently practiced. It will mean ward the device. began to take looking beyond “firsts” to the revisions and rn& shape during the 196Os, as it brought together ifications that made products work and that a+ -Y: common concerns from mathematical logic (au- count for their real impact. Given the corpora&$ ,l,.: tomata, proof theory, recursive theory), collaborative structure of modern R&D, histori- mathematical , and numerical analy- ans of computing must follow the admonition once sis (, computational complexity), add- made to historians of technology to stop “substi- ing to them questions of the organization of in- tuting biography for careful analysis of social formation (data structures) and the relation of processes.” Without denigrating the role of he- computer to patterns of computa- roes and pioneers, we need more knowledge of tion. Software engineering, conceived as a delib- computing’s equivaleht bf “shop prrictices, [and erately provocative term in 1967 (Naur and Ran- ofl the activities of lower-level technicians in fac- dell 19691, has developed more as a set of tories” (Daniels 1970, p_ 11). The question is how techniques than as a body of learning. Except for to pursue that inquiry across the variegated ra&ge a few university centers, such as Carnegie-Mel- of the emerging industry. lon University, University of North Carolina, Viewing computing both as a system in it&f Berkeley, and Oxfor& it remains primarily a and as a component of a variety of larger systems concern of military and industrial R&D aimed at may provide important insights into the dynam- ics of its development and may help to distin- guish between its internal and its external his- tory. For example, it suggests an approach to the “It should sharpen the question for the history of science as well, if only by giving special force to the reciprocal influ- question of the relation between &a&v&&~&&l i’.$,._ ence of scientific theory and scientific instrumentation. But software, often couched in the antagu&$&&~ t 7. < up to now at least it has not attracted the same attention. of one driving the other, a form which see& to The computer may well change that as the shaping of sci- entific and the pursuit of scientific inquiry come to assume that the two are relatively independent depend on the state of computer technology. of one another. #y contrast, linking theti in s ( ,_.

Annals of the History of Computing, Volume lO,_N M. S. Mahoney l History 9f Computing in the History of Technology

system emphasizes their mutual dependence. One puter in forging new links of interdependence expects of a system that the relationship among among universities, government, and industry its internal components and their relationships after World War II. to external components will vary over time and Arguing in “The Big Questions” that creators place but that they will do so in a way that main- of the machinery underpinning the American tains a certain equilibrium or homeostasis, even system worked from a knowledge of the entire as the system itself evolves. Seen in that light, sequence of operations in production,12 Daniels the relation between hardware and software is a (1970) pointed to Peter Drucker’s suggestion that question not so much of driving forces, or of stim- “the organization of work be used as a unifying ulus and response, as of constraints and degrees concept in the history of technology.” The recent of freedom. While in principle all computers have volume by Charles Bashe et al. (1986) on IBM’s the same capacities as universal Turing ma- EUFZY Computers illustrates the potential fruit- chines, in practice different are fulness of that suggestion for the history of. com- conducive to different forms of computing. Cer- puting. In tracing IBM’s adaptation to the com- tain architectures have technical thresholds (e.g., puter, they bring out the corporate tensions and VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) is a prereq- adjustments introduced into IBM by the need to uisite to massively ), others keep abreast of fast-breaking developments in reflect conscious choices among equally feasible science and technology and in turn to share its alternatives; some have been influenced by the research with others.13 The computer reshaped needs and concerns of software production, oth- R&D at IBM, defining new relations between ers by the special purposes of customers. Early marketing and research, introducing a new breed on, programming had to conform to the narrow of scientific personnel with new ways of doing limits of speed and set by things, and creating new roles, in particular that circuitry. As largely exogenous factors in the of the programmer. Whether the same holds true electronics industry made it possible to expand of, say, Bell Laboratories or G.E. Research Lab- those limits, and at the same time drastically oratories remains to be studied, as does the lowered the cost of hardware, programming could structure of the R&D institutions established by take practical advantage of research into pro- the many new firms that constituted the growing gramming languages and compilers. Research- computer industry of the ‘5Os, ‘6Os, and ’70s. Tracy ers’ ideas of multiuser systems, interactive pro- Kidder’s (1981) frankly journalistic account of gramming, or virtual memory required advances development at Data General has given us a tan- in hardware at the same time that they drew out talizing glimpse of the patterns we may find. the full power of a new generation of machines. Equally important will be studies of the emer- ~ Just as new architectures have challenged estab- gence of the data processing shop, whether as an lished forms of programming, so too theoretical independent computer service or as a new ele- advances in computation and &-tificial intelli- ment in establishing institutions.‘4 More than one gence have suggested new ways of organizing company found that the computer reorganized de processors (e.g., Backus 1977). facto the lines of effective managerial power. At present, the evolution of computing as a The computer seems dn obvious place, to look system and of its interfaces with other systems for insight into the question of whether new tech- of thought and action has yet to be traced. In- nologies respond to need or create it. Clearly, the deed, it is not clear how many identifiable sys- first computers responded to the felt need for high- tems constitute computing itself, given the di- speed, automatic calculation, and that remained verse contexts in which it has developed. We speak the justification for their early development dur- of the computer industry ad; if it were a monolith rather than a network of interdependent indus- ‘*Elting E. Morison (1974) has pursued this point along slightly different but equally revealing lines. tries with separate interests and concerns. In ad- 13Lundstrom (1987) has recently chronicled the failure of dition to historically more analytical studies of some companies to make the requisite adjustments. individual firms, both large and small, we need 14The obvious citations here are Kraft (1977) and Green- baum (1979), but both works are concerned more with politics analyses of their interaction and interdepen- than with computing, and the focus of their political con- dence. The same holds for government and aca- cerns, the “deskilling” of programmers through the imposi- demia, neither of which has spoken with one voice tion of methods of structured programming, has proved ephemeral, as subsequent experience and data show that pro- on matters of computing. Of particular interest grammers have made the transition with no significant loss here may be the system-building role of the com- of control over their work; compare Boehm (1981).

118 * Annals of the History of Computing, Voiume 10. Number 2, !988 ing the late ’40s. Indeed, the numerical analysts Depending for their sensitivity on computati&i~ ; : <;fi evidently considered the computer to be their baby ally intensive algorithms and large volumes ‘cif ’ and resented its adoption by “computerologists” data, those models required the power of the _ in the late ’50s and early ’60s (Wilkinson 1971). computer. But it, seems equally clear that the computer be- It seems crucial for the development of the came the core of an emergent data processing in- computer industry that the business communiti dustry more by creating demand than by re- accepted the joint claims of OR and the computir sponding to it.. Much as Henry Ford taught the long before either could validate them by, say, nation how to use an automobile, IBM and its cost-benefit analysis. The decision to adopt the competitors taught the nation’s businesses (and new methods of “rational decision making? seep its government) how to use the computer. How itself to have been less than fully rational: -. , much of the technical development of the com- puter originated in the marketing division re- As business managers we are revolutionizing the mains an untold story central to an understand- procedures of our factories and offices with au-,* i, ing of modern technology.f5 Kidder’s Soul of a New tomation, but what about our decision making? : Machine again offers a glimpse of what that story In other words, isn’t there a danger that our may reveal. thought processes will be left in the horse-and- i One major factor in the creation of demand buggy stage while our operations are being run j seems to have been the alliance between the com- in the age of nucleonics, electronics, and jet pro- puter and the nascent field of operations re- pulsion? , . . Are the engineering and scientific searchjmanagement science. As the pages of the symbols of our age significant indicators of a need for change? (Hurni 1955, p. 49) Harvard Business Review for 1953 show, the i .s computer and operations research (OR) hit the ’ ,.t, business stage together, each a new and untried Even at this early stage, the computer had ac- tool of management, both clothed in the mantle quired symbolic force in the business community of science. Against the fanciful backdrop of Croe- and in society at large. We need to know the sus’ defeat by camel-riding Persians, an IBM ad- sources of that force and how it worked to weave vertisement proclaimed that “Yesterday . . . ‘The the computer into the economic and social fab- Fates’ Decided. Today . . . Facts Are What ric.l” Count.” Appealing to fact-based strides in “mil- The government has played a determining role itary science, pure science, commerce, and indus- in at least four areas of computing: microelec- try,” the advertisement pointed beyond data pro- tronics; interactive, real-time systems; artificial cessing to ” ‘mathematical models’ of specific intelligence; and software engineering. None of processes, products, or situations, [by which] man these stories has been told by an historian, al- today can predetermine probable results, mini- though each promises deep insight into the is- mize risks ahd costs”. In less vivid terms, Cyril sues raised above. Modern weapons systems and C. Herrmann of MIT and John F. Magee of Ar- the space program placed a premium on minia- thur D. Little introduced readers of HBR to turization of circuits. Given the costs of, research, ” ‘Operations Research’ for Management” (1953), development, and tooling for production, +t is hard and John Diebold (1953) proclaimed “Automa- to imagine that the and the mi- tion-The New Technology.” As Herbert Simon croprocessor would have emerged-at least q (1960, p. 14) later pointed out, operations re- quickly as they did-without government sulj- search was both old and new, with roots going port. As Frank Rose (1984) put it in Into the Heart back to and Frederick W. Tay- of the Mind, “The computerization of society. . . lor. Its novelty_,lay pre&sely in its claim to pro- has essentially been a side effect of the comput- vide ‘mathematical mo‘dels’ of business opera- erization of war” (p. 36). More is involved than tions as a basis for rational decision making. smaller computers. Architecture and software

%ce, for example, Burke (1970): “Thus technological in- 16Along these lines, historians of computing would do welJX, novation is not the product of society as a whole but ema- to remember that a line of writings on the naMre&p@$; ~ nates rather from certain segments within or outside of it; and even history of computing stretching fmm :E%+&@?: .‘. i:,‘: the men or institutions responsible for the innovation. to be Berkeley’s (1949) Giant Brains through John l%%&‘s’~_’ ‘“““. successful, must ‘sell’ it to the general public; and innovation era1 volumes to Edward Feigenbaum’s and Pam& MC- &es have the effect of creating broad social change.” CD. 23) Corduck’s (1983) The Fifth Genemtiun stems from people .%&a Ferguson (1979a) has made a gimilar observation\boii sell- a product to sell, whetfir management consulting or e-9. ._S,‘“,.‘. _I ing new technology. systems. . i’1 ._

Annals of the History of Computing, Vo+ne !p, ,_ ._ -

M. S. Mahoney l History’ of Computing in the History of Technology change in response to speed of processor and size movement addressed directly to the problems of’ of memory. As a result, the rapid pace of minia- programming as a form of production.” ..:.‘.. 1 turization tended to place already inadequate Central to the is the sense methods of software production under the pres- of “crisis” that emerged in the late ’60s aa one : sure of rising expectations. By the early 19’70s large project after another ran behind schedule, the Department of Defense, as the nation’s single over budget, and below specifications. Though largest procurer of software, had declared a ma- pervasive throughout the industry, it posed enough jor stake in the development of software engi- of a strategic threat for the NATO Science Corn- ‘1 neering as a body of methods and tools for re- mittee to convene an international conference in ducing the costs and increasing the reliability of 1968 to address it. To emphasize the need for a large programs. concerted effort along new lines, the committee As Howard Bheingold (1985) has described in coined the term “software engineering,” reflect- Tools fir Thought the government was quick to ing the view that the problem required the com- seize on the interest of computer scientists at MIT bination of science and management thought in developing the computer as an enhancement characteristic of engineering. Efforts to define that and extension of human intellectual capabilities. combination and to develop the corresponding In general, that interest coincided with the needs methods constitute much of the history of com- of national defense in the form of interactive puting during the 19709, at least in the realm of computing, visual displays of both text and large systems, and it is the essential background graphics, multiuser systems, and intercomputer to the story of Ada in the 1980s. It also reveals networks. The Advanced Research Projects Agency apparently fundamental differences between the (later DABPA), soon became a source of almost formal, mathematical orientation of European unlimited funding for research in these areas, a computer scientists and the practical, industrial source that bypassed the usual procedures of sci- focus of their American counterparts. Historians entific funding, in particular, peer review. Much of science and technology have seen those differ- of the early research in de- ences in the past and have sought to explain them. rived its funding from the same source, and its Can historians of computing use those explana- development as a field of computer science surely tions and in turn help to articulate them? reflects that independence from the agenda of the The effort to give meaning to “software engi- .discipline as a whole. neering” as a discipline and to define a place for Although we commonly speak of hardware and it in the training of computer professionals should software in tandem, it is worth noting that in a call the historian’s attention to the constellation strict sense the notion of software is an artifact of questions contained under the heading of “dis- of computing in the business and government cipline formation and professionalization.” In 1950 sectors during the ‘50s. Only when the computer computing consisted of a handful of specially de- left the research laboratory and the hands of the signed machines and a handful of specially trained scientists and engineers did the writing of pro- programmers. By 1955 some 1,000 general-pur- grams become a question of production. It is in pose computers required the services. of some that light that we may most fruitfully view the 10,000 programmers. By 1960, the number of de- development of programming languages, pro- vices had increased fivefold, the number of pro- gramming systems, operating systems, data base grammers sixfold. And so the growth continued. and file management systems, and communica- With it came associations, societies, journals, tions and networks, all of them aimed at facili- magazines, and claims to professional and aca- tating the work of programmers, maintaining demic standing. The development of these insti- managerial control over them, and assuring the tutions is an essential part of the reliability of their programs. The Babel of pro- of computing as a technological enterprise. Again, gramming languages in the ’60s tends to distract attention from the fact that three of the most ‘rAn effort at international cooperation in establishing a commonly used languages today are also among standard programming language, ALGOL from ita inception in 1956 to its final (and, some argued, over-refined) form in 1966 the oldest: FORTRAN for scientific computing, provides a multileveled view of computing in the ’60s. While COBOL for data processing, and LISP for artificial contributing richly to the conceptual development of pro- intelligence. ALGOL might have remained a lab- gramming languages, it also has a which carries down to the present in differing directions of research, oratory language had it and its offspring not be- both in computer science and, perhaps most clearly, in soft- come the vehicles of structured programming, a ware engineering.

120 l Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 10, Number 2, 1988 ,, -_) one may ask to what extent that development has something happen. What, then, captmq ~&$$+%$ followed historical patterns of institutionaliza- ware for the historical record? How do we do& ‘ff tion and to what extent it has created its own. ment and preserve an historically signif5cant ‘. The question of sources illustrates particu- compiler, operating system, or ? Corn- 1“ larly well how recent work in the history of tech- puter scientists have pointed to the limitations of : i nology may provide important guidance to the the static program text as a basis for determining history of computing, at the same time that the the program’s dynamic behavior, and a provoca- ir latter adds new perspectives to that work. As noted tive article (DeMillo et al. 1979) has questioned above, historians of technology have focused new how much the written record of programming .w ‘.I attention on the nonverbal expressions of engi- tell us about the behavior of programmers, Y& neering practice. Of the three main strands of Gerald M. Weinberg (1971, Chapter 1) haa gi$&. ‘. computing, only theoretical computer science is an example of how programs may be retid t&e essentially verbal in nature. Its sources come in veal the machines and people behind t$$+ + a the form most familiar to historians of science, sense, historians of computing enf2ount+r .fropp * II, *: namely books, articles, and other less formal pieces opposite direction the problem faced by thi3 soft- of writing, which by and large encompass the ware industry: what constitutes an adequate &nd thinking behind them. We know pretty well how reliable surrogate for an actually running q*’ ’ to read them, even for what they do not say ex- gram? How, in particular, does the historian ire- plicitly. Similarly, at the level of institutional and capture, or the producer anticipate, the compo- social history, we seem to be on familiar ground, nent that is always missing from the static record suffering largely from an embarrassment of of software, namely the user for whom it is writ- wealth unwinnowed by time. ten and whose behavior is an essential part of it? But the computers themselves and the pro- Placing the history of computing in.the ~7 grams that were written for them constitute a text of the history of technology promises a -pe- quite different range of sources and thus pose the culiarly recursive benefit. Although computation challenge of determining how to read them. As by machines has a long history, computing in the artifacts, computers present the problem of all sense I have been using here did not exist before electrical and electronic devices. They are ma- the late 1940s. There were no computers, no pro- chines without moving parts. Even when they are grammers, no computer scientists, no computer \ running, they display no internal action to ex- managers. Hence, those who invented and irni plain their outward behavior, Yet, Tracy Kid- proved the computer, those who determined ‘how der’s (1981) portrait of Tom West sneaking a look to program it, those who defined its scientific at the boards of the new Vax to see how DEC had foundations, those who established it as an in- gone about its work reminds us that the actual dustry in itself and introduced it into business machines may hold tales untold by manuals, and industry all came to computing from some technical reports, and engineering drawings. Those other background. With no inherent precedefits sources too’demand our attention. When imagi- for their work, they had to find their own prece- natively read, they promise to throw light not only dents. Much of the @tory of computing, cer- on the designers but also on those for whom they tainly for the first genertition, but prbbably also were designing. Through the hardware and its for the second and third, derives from the prece- attendant sources one can follow the changing dents these people drew from their past expeyi- physiognomy of computers as they made their way ence. In that sense, the history of technoI&y from the laboratories and large installations to shaped the history of computing, and the history the office and the home. Today’s prototypical of computing must turn to the history of tech- computer iconically links television to type- nology for initial bearings. writer. How that fom:$tierged from a roomful A specific example may help to illustrate the of tubes ‘and’ switches is a matter of both tech- point. Daniels (1970) stated zis one of the really nical and . big questions the development of the “American Though hard to interpret, the hardware is at System” and its culmination in mass product@+ least tangible. Software by contrast is elusively It is perhaps the central fact of t+chp@gy$@~~: :-’ I: ;‘ intangible. In essence, it is the behavior of the century America, and every historian df%h&?siixC ‘_“ machines when running. It is what converts their ject must grapple with it. So too, though &n&$a architecture to action, and it is constructed with did not make the point, must historians of 20th action in mind; the programmer aims to make century technologJFs! For mass production has be- ,I,,. j 1

Annals of the History of Computing, Volume .;

M. S. Mahoney l History of Computing in the History of Technology

come an historical touchstone for modern engi- historian of computing is why McIlroy chose the neers, in the area of software as well as else- model of mass production as that precdent. Pre- where. cisely what model of mass production did he have For instance, in one of the major invited pa- in mind, why did he think it appropriate or ap- pers at the NATO Software Engineering Confer- plicable to software, why did he think his audi- ence of 1968, M.D. McIlroy of Bell Telephone ence would respond well to the proposal, and so Laboratories looked forward to the end of a on? The history of technology provides a critical “preindustrial era” in programming. His meta- context for evaluating the answers, indeed for phors and similes harked back to the machine tool shaping the questions. For historians, too, the industry and its methods of production. evolving techniques of mass production in the 19th century constitute a model, or prototype, of tech- We undoubtedly produce software by backward nological development. Whether it is one model techniques. We undoubtedly get the short end of or a set of closely related models is a matter of the stick in confrontations with hardware people &-rent scholarly debate, but some features seem because they are the industrialists and we are clear. As a system it rested on foundations es- the crofters. Software production today appears tablished in the early and mid-19th century, in the scale of industrialization somewhere be- among them in particular the development of the low the more backward construction industries. I think its proper place is considerably higher, machine tool industry, which, as Nathan Rosen- and would like to investigate the prospects for berg (1963) has shown, itself followed a charac- mass-production techniques in software. (Mc- teristic and revealing pattern of innovation and Ilroy, 1969) diffusion of new techniques. Even with the req- uisite precision machinery, methods of mass pro- What McIlroy had in mind was not replication in duction did not transfer directly or easily &om large , which is trivial for the computer, one industry to another, and its introduction often but rather programmed modules that might serve took place in stages peculiar to the production as standardized, interchangeable parts to be drawn process involved (Hounshell 1984). Software pro- from the shelf and inserted in larger pro- duction may prove to be the latest variation of duction programs. A quotation from McIlroy’s pa- the model, or critical history of technology may per served as Zeitmotiu to the first part of Peter show how it has not fit. Wegner’s series on “Capital Intensive Software Technology” in the July 1984 number of IEEE Software, which was richly illustrated by photo- Conclusion: The Real Computer Revolution graphs of capital industry in the 1930s” and in- cluded insets on the history of technology. By then We can take this example a step farther. From Mcllroy’s equivalent to interchangeable parts had various perspectives, people have been drawn to become “reusable software” and software engi- compare the computer to the automobile. Apple, neers had developed more sophisticated tools for Atari, and others have. boasted of creiting the producing it. Whether they were (or now are) any Model T of , clearly intending to closer to the goal is less important to the histo- convey the image of a car in every garage, an rian than the continuing strength of the model. automobile that everyone could drive, a machine It reveals historical self-consciousness. that reshaped American life. The software engi- We should appreciate that self-consciousness neers who invoke the image of mass production at the same time that wet view it critically, re- have it inseparably linked in their minds to the sisting the temptation ta-accept the comparisons automobile and its interchangeable variations on as valid. An activity’s choice of historical models a standard theme. is itself part of the history of the activity. Mc- The two analogies serve different aims within Ilroy was not describing the state or even the di- the computer industry, the first looking to the rection of software in 1968. Rather, he was pro- microcomputer as an object of mass consumption, posing an historical precedent on which to base the second to software systems as objects of mass its future development. What is of interest to the production. But they share the vision of a society radically altered by a new technology. Beneath the comparison lies the conviction that the com- 180ne has to wonder about an article on software engi- neering that envisions progress on an industrial model and puter is bringing about a revolution as profound uses taken from the Great Depression. as that triggered by the automobile. The com-

122 * Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 70. Number 2. 1988 parison between the machines is fascinating in linked the history of computing to their own his-, itself. Just how does one weigh the PC against tories, which in turn reflected the presence of a the PT (personal transporter)?lg For that matter, fundamentally new resource. which PC is the Model T: the Apple II, the IBM, What is truly revolutionary about the corn- the Atari ST, the ? Yet the question is puter will become clear only when computing ac- deeper than that. What would it mean for a mi- quires a proper history, one that ties it to other crocomputer to play the role of the Model T in technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that determining new social, economic, and political make its innovations significant. Pursued within patterns? The historical term in that comparison the larger enterprise of the history of technology, is not the Model T, but Middletown (Lynd and the history of computing will acquire the context Lynd 19291, where in less than 40 years “high- of place and time that gives history meaning. speed steel and Ford cars” had fundamentally changed the nature of work and the lives of the workers. Where is the Middletown of today, sim- Acknowledgments ilarly transformed by the presence of the micro- ** ,/I computer? Where would one look? How would one This article is a slightly revised version of a po- identify the changes? What patterns of social and sition paper prepared for the Seminar on Infor- intellectual behavior mark such transformation? mation Technologies in Historical Context, held 1 In short, how does one compare technological so- at the National Museum of American History, 11 cieties? That is one of the “big questions” for his- September 1987. It benefitted at that time from torians of technology, and it is only in the con- the critical comments of David K. Allison, Wil- text of the history of technology that it will be liam Aspray, I. Bernard Cohen, and Arthur Nor- answered for the computer. berg. The research from which it stems has been _. ” From the very beginning, the computer has generously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. borne the label “revolutionary.” Even as the first Foundation under its New Liberal Arts Program. commercial machines were being delivered, com- mentators were extolling or fretting over the rad- ical changes the widespread use of computers References would entail, and few doubted their use would be widespread. The computer directed people’s eyes Aspray, W. 1984. “Literature and Institutions in the toward the future, and a few thousand bytes of History of Computing.” ISIS, 75, pp. 162-170. memory seemed space enough for the solution of AT&T Bell Laboratories. 1987. UNIX System Read- almost any problem. On that both enthusiasts and ings and Applications. 2 ~01s. Englewood Cliffs, NJ., critics could agree. Computing meant unprece- Prentice-Hall. dented power for science, industry, and business, Backus, J. 1977. “Can Programming Be Liberated from and with the power came difficulties and dangers the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its that seemed equally unprecedented. By its na- Algebra of Programs.” (ACM Lecture for 1977). Communications of the ACM, 21, 8, pp. ture as well as by its youth, the computer ap- 613-641. peared to have no history. Bashe, C. J., L. R. Johnson, J. H. Palmer, and, E. W. Yet, “revolution” is an essentially historical Pugh. 1986. IBM’s Early Computers. Cambridge, concept (Cohen 1986). Even when turning things Mass., MIT Press. on their head, one can only define what is new Berkeley, E. C. 1949. Giant Brains or Machines That by what is old, and innovation, however imagi- Think. New York, John Wiley & Sons. native, can only proceed from what exists. The Bolter, J. D. 1984. Turing’s Man. Chapel Hill, Uni- computer had a history out of which it emerged versity of North Carolina Press. as a new device, and comp&ng took shape from Boehm, Barry. 1981. Software . other, continuing activities, each with its own Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall. historical momentum. As the world of the com- Burke, J. G. 1970. ‘Comment: The complex nature of explanation in the historiography of technology.” puter acquired its own form, it remained embed- Technology and Culture, 11, pp. 22-26. ded in the worlds of science, technology, indus- Buxton, J. N. and B. Randell (eds.). 1970. Sofimre try, and business which structured computing even Engineering Techniques: Report on a co~f~x+n&s as they changed in response to it. In doing so they sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Rome, -- Italy, 27th to 31st October 1969. Brussels, Scientific “The latter designation stems from Frand (1983). Affairs Department, T&TO. Cf. Naur et al. (1976). _~.I . ‘; “.&.i XI .:’3