Historical Resources Links
This list of websites is highly selective. Going to these links
will lead the person interested in history of computing to many
additional links.
The personal computer industry
began about 30 years ago.
One of the most important early
computers was the Apple II.
Computer
History Museum
The Museum is home to the world's largest collection of computing-related
artifacts, software, media and resources. Its website offers
thousands of primary sources and reference documents, unique
video recordings of lectures by computer pioneers, and ten on-line
exhibits on topics ranging from the Internet and Computer Chess
to Computer Marketing Brochures. CHM's "Timeline of Computing
History" is a popular research tool with students and as
a basic reference. The website also provides access to the Museum¹s
online catalog of over 50,000 objects as well as recordings of
its special events and monthly lectures.
- Information
Technology Corporate Histories Collection
A collection of historical source materials for companies
in the information technology industry. The project was funded
by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and is managed by the Computer
History Museum with advisory support from the Charles Babbage
Foundation.
Charles Babbage
Institute
This is the website of one of the leading archival and research
centers dedicated to the history of information processing. In
addition to basic information about the organization, the website
provides a number of useful resources. These include guides to
paper records and photographs in the collection, finding aids
to and in many cases transcripts of their oral histories, a small
number of papers and reports on the history of computing written
by their staff and others, and a rich set of links to other resources
about IT history that you can find on the web.
Computing
Then
Sponsored by IEEE Annals, this free site features select past
and current Annals content, podcasts, timelines, etc. on computer
history. Computing Then is the history portion of the IEEE
Computer Society's major initiative/portal "Computing Now."
- Special
Interest Group Computers, Information, and Society (SIGCIS)
Thomas Haig's annotated bibliography of resources for the
history of computing, a "one-stop place to learn about
the main electronic, institutional, and printed resources
in the field."
JAN
Lee's Web Page
This page, by a computer scientist at Virginia Tech who was very
active in the history of computing community, has not been updates
since 2002, but it still provides useful information about courses,
people, companies, machines, programming languages, calculators,
computer history organizations and museums, archives, and publications.
Tom
Haigh's Web Page
Tom is an active member of the history of computing community.
In addition to information about his teaching and research, the
site contains the individual membership list of the Society for
the History of Technology Special Interest Group in Computers
and Society. It also includes an extensive and thoughtful resources
page that includes links to relevant institutions, virtual exhibits,
primary source materials, oral histories, history of computing
courses, home pages of a number of practitioners in the history
of computing, and an excellent selective bibliography of books
and articles on the history of computing.
IEEE
History Center
The IEEE History Center is located on the campus of Rutgers University
in New Brunswick, N.J., and is run as a joint venture between
Rutgers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc. It covers the history of all electrical and electronics
technologies, including computing. On the website you will find
biographies, oral histories, Milestones (historic sites in electrical
engineering history), bibliographies, newsletters, exhibits,
and more.
IFIP Working
Group (9.7) on Computing History
This is the web site for the International Federation of Information
Processing Working Group on Computing History. The site contains
information about the Working Group, history of computing courses,
chronologies, links to other museums and historical organizations
interested in computing history, web pages on the history of
individual companies, and photographs and biographies of famous
computing practitioners.
The
Archivists Toolkit
Archives Association of British Columbia
This site provides general guidance for small and medium-sized
archives for establishing an archives, arranging and describing
collections, automation and digitalization issues, preservation
and conservation, appraisal and accessioning, reference and access,
electronic records, and other online resources.
Ready,
'Net, Go! Archival Internet Resources
Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University
This site serves as a good place to start an archival search.
It provides a meta-index of major indexes, lists, and databases
of archival resources.
The
Society of American Archivists
This is the site of the major archival professional organization
in the United States. This page provides a list of resources
offered by the SAA, including a glossary of archival terminology,
publications, newsletters, and electronic mailing lists. The
page provides links to other SAA web pages with information about
the SAA, careers, education, events, and member lists.
Computer
History Museum’s IBM 1401 Restoration Project
A huge and very complete reference page about the IBM 1401 with
links to detailed information, discussions, and a chronology
of the ongoing project to restore an IBM 1401 at the Computer
History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
Intel 4004 35th Anniversary
Project
The project looks back at the development by Intel of the 4004
chip. The site contains the exhibit story, simulators of the
chip and the Busicom calculator for which the chip was originally
developed, a lecture on the history of the 35th anniversary of
the chip, plus additional information.
The
Silicon Genesis Interviews
The Stanford University Libraries Department of Special Collections
holds a major collection of oral histories related to Stanford
and Silicon Valley. The collection also includes a documentary
on Fairchild Semiconductor. A collection of nine oral histories
concerning Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International
(SEMI) is also in the process of being added. Interviews in the
main collection include: Steve Allen, Lawrence Bender, and Richard
Steinheimer, Gil Amelio, Don Brooks, Paul Brokaw, Dennis Carter,
Wilf Corrigan, Bob Dobkin and Jim Williams, James Downey, Federico
Faggin, Jack Giffor, Paul Gray, Arlene Harris and Martin Cooper,
John Hennessy, Shawn and Kim Hailey, Bruce Halla, Richard Hodgson,
Marcian E. "Ted" Hoff, C. Lester Hogan, Dave House,
Jim Koford, Regis McKenna, Stan Mazor, William Mensch, Gordon
Moore, Jim Morgan, Gerry Parker, Arthur Rock, George Rostky,
W. "Jerry" Sanders III, Horst G. Sandfort, George Scalese,
Harry Sello, Larry Sonsini, Charley Sporck, Ray Stata, Bob Swanson,
Robert Ulrickson and John Nichols, Don Valentine, Bernard Vonderschmitt,
Rob Walker, Keisuke Yawata, and Albert Yu.
Ada
Lovelace Radio Show
The program In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 has done a 45-minute
radio program on Ada Lovelace. This high-quality show is hosted
by Melvyn Bragg, with Doron Swade, Patricia Fara, and John Fuegi
as contributors.
Donation
of Rare Books
People interested in donating their personal records are often
also interested in donating their book collection. Archival repositories
have limited capability to accept books and limited interest
in doing so. The following website provides useful information
to people interested in donating old and rare books. This site
was prepared by the Rare Books and Manuscript Section of the
Association of College and Research Libraries, which is a Division
of the American Library Association. Thanks to Arvid Nelson,
the archivist at the Charles Babbage Institute, for bringing
this site to the attention of ITHS.
Encoding Format
for Archival Descriptions
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) is the emerging standard used
to encode descriptions of archival collections such as finding
aids and catalogs. This standard is administered and maintained
jointly by the Society of American Archivists and the US Library
of Congress. The following article, by Daniel V. Pitti of the
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University
of Virginia, provides a good introduction and overview to EAD: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november99/11pitti.html.
The official EAD standards page can be found at: http://www.loc.gov/ead/
Archiving
in the UK and Ireland
The Society of Archivists is the principal professional body
for archivists, archive conservators and records managers in
the United Kingdom and Ireland. The society exists to promote
the care and preservation of archives and the better administration
of archive repositories, to advance the training of its members
and to encourage relevant research and publication.
|
