IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

IBM's Project Stretch (1955-1961) lost the company some $35 million big 1960 dollars. Yet the project, a bold adventure into transistorized computers, drove into existence new technologies in circuits, packaging, memory, and I/O upon which IBM built its successful second-generation computer product lines. The architectural, instruction-pipelining, arithmetic, and software innovations were crucial ... View full abstract»

The US National Science Foundation played a key role in the history of the Internet by overseeing its transition from government to private operation. In the process, NSF was forced to balance the competing visions of scientists, politicians, and private industry. This article describes the conflicts, trade-offs, and unexpected events that led to a technical and social transformation of the Intern... View full abstract»

Fifty years ago, a major injection of government funding allowed six UK universities to purchase commercially produced computers. The funding facilitated a significant increase in computing resources for science and engineering research in the UK. Two government agencies-the University Grants Committee and the Advisory Committee on High Speed Calculating Machines-played notable roles in this proce... View full abstract»

Two almost forgotten keyboard calculators, the first by the Milanese Luigi Torchi (1834) and the second by the Florentine Tito Gonnella (1858), demonstrate technical features much ahead of their time. In particular, Torchi's calculators seems to incorporate possibly the first direct-multiplication mechanism. View full abstract»

In the late 1960s, the European Community (EC) Commission tried to develop a common industrial policy to help Europe establish a competitive position in the informatics sector. Before the middle of the 1970s, only a few of its projects were realized, and the most important were abandoned. The lack of progress appears fundamentally due to the member states' reluctance to relinquish control of this ... View full abstract»

Founded in 1957 by eight dissidents from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Fairchild Semiconductor developed some of the most important innovations in 20th century technology and sowed the seeds of the microelectronic-driven computer industry of today. This article surveys some of the key personalities who worked at the company and describes their technological and management contributions. View full abstract»