Program in the History of Computing
History of Computing research
Individual projects
Electrologica's software
Co-entrepreneurship and the emergence of a Dutch software industry
Funding agency: NWO, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, The Netherlands
Electrologica was a successful Dutch computer manufacturer, from 1958 onwards delivering its X1 machines as bare hardware. The firm did not have a software department. Instead university groups in Delft, Leiden, Utrecht and at the Amsterdam Mathematisch Centrum took the responsibility and constructed compilers (ALGOL in particular), operating systems and other programs. Curious as this situation may seem, it was the general pattern for European computer manufacturers. Indeed industry and academic computing centres were in their co-entrepreneurship creating a European space for software.
- ALGOL compilers: university-industry co-entrepreneurship
- Emulating or resisting IBM: creating European space for software (1958-1980)?
Edsger Dijkstra and Jaap Zonneveld, at the Mathematisch Centrum of Amsterdam, gained instant fame within the international ALGOL community when in August 1960 they were the first to deliver a compiler for the full language of ALGOL. A compiler is a translator: a program automatically translating from a "higher" programming language to machine code. One line of research will be to straightforwardly trace the history of the ALGOL effort. The second line of research is to exploit the fact that academic researchers were constructing compilers for a commercially available computer, Electrologica X1, that came without programs. Such cooperation, that synchronically occurred in Mainz and Munich (ALCOR group), Copenhagen (Regnecentralen's Compiler group), Grenoble (IMAG), looks like a typical European pattern of co-entrepreneurship.
"Selling a computer is selling a system" - by this sentence, the vice-president Jan Berghuis expressed the strategy of Philips Computer Industries (PCI) in the 1960s. It shows that Philips had decided to emulate Ineternational Business Machine (IBM) corporate strategy. PCI had decided to produce computers compatible with IBM, including systems software and applications written in FORTRAN.
On his part ALGOL-compiler writer Edsger Dijkstra, qualified FORTRAN as "nothing more than just an assembler language." These contrasting quotes show that the appropriation of IBM computing technologies was controversial. This project investigates the emergence of Dutch software companies like VOLMAC (an emulator of IBM), BSO-ORIGIN (resisting IBM), and software development within Philips, and within the European user group SEAS.
There is intense cooperation with the third IP in this project. Were Dutch, Finnish, French, Belgian, and Czech initiatives considered primarily to enhance national pride, or was there some European identity created at the same time, demarcating Europe from the American IBM? Was there anything inherently American to IBM?
Project Leader: Dr Gerard Alberts, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Project members:
- Dr Adrienne van den Bogaard, Delft University of Technology, Delft
- n.n. Ph D candidate, University of Amsterdam, 2007
Start October 2007
Czech(oslovak) participation in the ALGOL effort
Funding agency: GACR - Grantová agentura Ceské republiky (Czech Science Foundation)
A large proportion of the development of computing technology falls within the period of Cold War, when Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. Even though it is hardly possible to say that the Curtain was impermeable when it comes to technology and knowledge transfer, it cannot be denied that it presented a significant obstacle. As Czechoslovakia lay directly on the border drawn by the Cold War, it had first-hand experience of this divide that needs to be taken into account when discussing the shaping of post-war Europe. While relatively tight with regard to material transfer, the border seemed much more permeable with regard to institutions and discourse.
Early software efforts in Czechoslovakia seem to have followed a pattern different from the development of hardware. Initially a part of mathematics, these efforts were not under such a strong control as the calculating machines. The intellectual endeavour connected with software could thus demonstrate the pervasiveness of European ways of constructing knowledge even under the Communist Party regime. Preliminary research in the field of software and computing technology suggests different levels of control over the actual computing machines on one hand and over the spread of programming practices on the other: while there were little objections to software and programming, computers imported from the West were not welcomed by the establishment.
After the Velvet Revolution of November 1989 leading Czechoslovak intellectuals spoke of a return to Europe, to which others reacted by the geographically justified statement that Czechoslovakia had never ceased being part of Europe. The Czech part of the Software for Europe project will explore European traces in the development of Czechoslovak computer science and software.
Principal Investigator: Dr Helena Durnová, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
Using IBM in Europe to recapture the lead?
Co-constructing computer expertise in Europe and visions of European know-how through IBM and its technology
Funding Agency: Academy of Finland, Finland
The project aims to scrutinize the co-shaping of computer expertise and visions of European capabilities through the use of IBM technology in Europe during the Cold War, especially between 1950-1980.IBM Corporation and its technology had extensive influence in Europe in the era of mainframe computers. This influence is essential in understanding both European experiences in computer use, including software, and the processes in which visions of European and national computing and data processing were planned, negotiated and performed. So far, this topic has received only passing academic attention, except a few important studies on national IBM's in Europe. Instead of just adopting foreign technology and absorbing alien culture from outside, as has long been the dominant view on Europe's relation to the IBM, the question arises: did Europeans reshape and reinterpret IBM technology to fit their own purposes? Furthermore, this research offers new insights into the roles that multinational companies have played and can play in shaping Europe. The project has links with all three themes in the Inventing Europe research programme and forms a central part of the Collaborative Research Project "Software for Europe" as it studies Europe through artefact appropriation.
The use of IBM technology in shaping Europe will be analysed on several levels, the two most important ones being the European (IBM Europe) and the national level (focusing on IBM Finland). The project will draw on archival sources, critical reading of published materials, and interviews. Moreover, memories and information will also be collected via an Internet questionnaire, which suits well for an international inquiry, including both European and American respondents. Our research will be of both academic and public interest and we will actively diffuse our findings to both audiences.
Principal investigater: Professor Hannu Salmi, Department of Cultural History, University of Turku, Finland
Project member: Petri Paju, University of Turku, Finland
Start August 1, 2007