The Center of History

If we are writing real history, we are proving the worth of our efforts by answering the fundamental question of existence: "So what?" History tells us why we should care about things, why certain ideas are important and others are not. This issue contains articles on the history of computing from a conference sponsored by the Charles Babbage Institute that was organized in honor of retiring director Arthur Norberg. In addition, the issue features a second article on the development of computing at the University of Maryland.