IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

In the late 1960s, attorneys and programmers used the term "embodying software"' in reference to a patent-drafting technique for software inventions. This strategy consisted of claiming a computer in which a program served as the control system instead of claiming the program itself. If the application was successful, this machine would receive patent protection in lieu of the program. This articl... View full abstract»

As part of a two-part series, this article explores the development of the early history of information technologies from the 1940s to the present. Looking at how historians wrestled with the history of computing is a useful modern case that can offer tactical recommendations for those in other fields of technology. View full abstract»

Before World War II electric utilities adopted analog computing apparatus for various power system calculations and controls, but many made a slow transition to digital computing for particular problems after the war. During a period of heightened interest in the high-tech, real-time data management and application challenges of increasingly complex power networks, users looked for both explicit a... View full abstract»

In the early days of digital computing (1929-1949), the computation of a list of primes was often used as a test or demonstration problem. The idea to use electronic machinery to produce a list of primes originated with Derrick H. Lehmer, but it was later taken up by Claude E. Shannon and recurred as computations on the ENIAC and EDSAC. The historical sequence of computing prime numbers is marked ... View full abstract»

These reminiscences relate to the period that Brian Randell spent between 1964 and 1966 first at IBM Research working on Project Y and then in the IBM Systems Development Division on the resulting ACS Project--then-secret projects that aimed to build a supercomputer that would be 100 times faster than Stretch. Randell's account is based in part on his memory, but also makes extensive use of the sm... View full abstract»