The Computer Boys Take Over History of Computing William Aspray, editor John Agar The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer William Aspray John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing William Aspray and Paul E. Ceruzzi, editors The Internet and American Business Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and Emerson W. Pugh IBM ’ s Early Computers Martin Campbell-Kelly From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry Paul E. Ceruzzi A History of Modern Computing I. Bernard Cohen Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer I. Bernard Cohen and Gregory W. Welch, editors Makin ’ Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer Nathan Ensmenger The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise John Hendry Innovating for Failure: Government Policy and the Early British Computer Industry Michael Lindgren Glory and Failure: The Difference Engines of Johann M ü ller, Charles Babbage, and Georg and Edvard Scheutz David E. Lundstrom A Few Good Men from Univac Ren é Moreau The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware, and the Software Arthur L. Norberg Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946 – 1957 Emerson W. Pugh Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology Emerson W. Pugh Memories That Shaped an Industry Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer IBM ’ s 360 and Early 370 Systems Kent C. Redmond and Thomas M. Smith From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R & D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer Alex Roland with Philip Shiman Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983 – 1993 Ra ú l Rojas and Ulf Hashagen, editors The First Computers: History and Architectures Dorothy Stein Ada: A Life and a Legacy John Vardalas The Computer Revolution in Canada: Building National Technological Competence, 1945 – 1980 Maurice V. Wilkes Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer The Computer Boys Take Over Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise Nathan Ensmenger The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email special_sales @mitpress.mit.edu This book was set in Sabon by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ensmenger, Nathan, 1972 – The computer boys take over : computers, programmers, and the politics of technical expertise / Nathan Ensmenger. p. cm. — (History of computing) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-05093-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Computer programming. 2. Computer programmers. 3. Software engineering — History. 4. Computer software — Development — Social aspects. I. Title. QA76.6.E58 2010 005.1 — dc22 2009052638 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Deborah and the boys Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction: Computer Revolutionaries 1 2 The Black Art of Programming 27 3 Chess Players, Music Lovers, and Mathematicians 51 4 Tower of Babel 83 5 The Rise of Computer Science 111 6 The Cosa Nostra of the Data Processing Industry 137 7 The Professionalization of Programming 163 8 Engineering a Solution 195 9 Conclusions: Visible Technicians 223 Notes 245 Bibliography 287 Index 315 Acknowledgments This book represents the culmination of a long period of research, writing, and intellectual exchange that has benefi ted enormously from the contributions of numerous historians from around the globe. The history of the computing community, although small in number, is great in spirit, and is as welcoming a collection of scholars as I have ever encountered. Two of the senior members of this community have proven particu- larly supportive of me and my work. William Aspray has served as an adviser and mentor from almost the beginning of my career, and has been unfailingly generous in his time, energy, and encouragement. The late Michael Mahoney, whose wit and erudition will be sorely missed by the community, also served as a model of unselfi sh scholarship. It would be impossible to detail the many ways in which both of these scholars have informed, and continue to inform, my own thinking and scholarship. This book started as a dissertation, and owes much to the friends and advisers who guided it through its earliest incarnations. Emily Thompson, Robert Kohler, and Walter Licht served as patient readers of many, many early drafts, and without their kind and enlightened counsel this project would never have made it past its infancy. Josh Buhs, Thomas Haigh, Atsushi Akera, and the rest of my graduate school cohort listened for years to my vague musings on the eccentricities of early computer pro- grammers, and their feedback helped refi ne my thoughts and arguments. Edward Bell and the rest of the crew at E. J. Bell and Associates, by providing me with frequent opportunities to pick up consulting work, made it possible for me to fi nish graduate school without going under fi nancially. My colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have been patient and gracious sounding boards and mentors. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, who x Acknowledgments served as the chair of the department for most of the formative years of this manuscript, allowed me time and space to balance my research and teaching. Susan Lindee has continued that tradition. Both of them have provided much support and encouragement. Janet Tighe has served as a fount of wisdom and sanity for almost a decade. John Tresch and Beth Linker have struggled alongside me in the trenches as my fellow junior faculty members. My other senior colleagues have been endlessly giving of their advice and solicitude. I appreciate all of them greatly. There are far too many archivists, librarians, and fellow historians who contributed to this project to identify them individually here. The Charles Babbage Institute, however, cannot go unmentioned. Not only does the Babbage hold the vast majority of the source material used to construct this history but also it serves as the center of gravity of the entire history of the computing community. It also provided generous funding in the form of the Tomash Fellowship in the History of Information Processing. Tom Misa, Jeff Yost, and Arthur Norberg have all served as trusted friends and advisers. Finally, like most academic book projects, this one has absorbed more than its share of my time and energy outside the offi ce. Many thanks to all of my family. My parents, Elisabeth and Stephen, made possible so many opportunities in my life. My wife, Deborah, has been a constant companion and source of loving support, and has been endlessly forgiv- ing of my need to stretch the project out with “ just one more ” revision. My three sons, Asher, Tate, and Tucker, made the process bearable by providing joy, motivation, and strength each day. 1 Introduction: Computer Revolutionaries To be a good programmer today is as much a privilege as it was to be a literate man in the sixteenth century. This privilege leads the programmer to expect rec- ognition and respect on the part of society. Unfortunately, such recognition is not always realized. — Andrei Ershov, Aesthetics and the Human Factor in Programming , 1972 The Computer People Chances are that you or someone close to you makes their living “ working with computers. ” In the decades since the 1950s, the technical spe- cialists most directly associated with the electronic digital computer— computer programmers, systems analysts, and network and database administrators — have assumed an increasingly active and visible role in the shaping of our modern information society. All but the smallest organizations now have their own information technology departments fi lled with such specialists, and in many cases they represent some of the organization ’ s most valued — or at least most highly paid — employees. In the United States alone there are more than three million professional computer experts; the total worldwide estimate is nearly thirty-fi ve million. 1 There are now more people working in computing than in all of the other fi elds of engineering and architecture combined. In recent years, “ computer people ” have become some of our wealthiest citizens, most important business leaders and philanthropists, and most recog- nized celebrities. It is likely, however, that unless you yourself are one of these com- puter people, you have at best a vague notion of what it actually means to work with computers. Even compared to other esoteric scientifi c or technical disciplines, the work of computer specialists is opaque to out- siders. Their activities are often regarded by nonpractitioners as being at 2 Chapter 1 once too diffi cult and technical to be understood by mere mortals, and too trivial and tedious to be worth the effort. The specialists themselves talk about what they do as being a mysterious blend of art and science, high tech and black magic. Many of the colloquial terms that are fre- quently used to describe these experts — “ hackers, ” “ wizards, ” “ cowboys, ” or “ gurus ” — refl ect the ambivalent fusion of wonder, awe, and suspicion with which they are generally regarded. 2 That so many of these computer specialists seem unwilling (or unable) to communicate to others what it is they do or how they do it only exacerbates the apparent impenetrabil- ity of their discipline. But while you might not know much about what it is that these com- puter specialists do, you probably can at least imagine what they look like: the stereotype of the scruffy, bearded, long-haired programmer, wearing (inappropriately) sandals and a T-shirt, has been a staple of popular culture since at least the early 1960s.