The Shift CTRL (#shiftCTRL)—New Perspectives on Computing and New Media conference was held at Stanford University Humanities on Friday & Saturday, 6–7 May 2016, organized by Thomas S. Mullaney (@tsmullaney). This gathering was a follow-on to the American History Association 2016 Annual Meeting (@AHAhistorians) session Shift Ctrl: Computing and New Media beyond the US and Europe that Tom chaired on 10 January 2016, 11am–1pm EST, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Each session topic included two to three presentations, giving a glimpse into the papers the participants had shared among themselves ahead of time. Afterwards, the presenters gathered at a table to answer grouped questions from the audience. As the discussions happened, the participants found unexpected connections between different areas of work. Some of that is what can happen when presentations are combined like that. A great conference.
My notes were minimal, though I enjoyed all the talks. Squeezing this writing in between my type design work means this trip report will also be minimal with raw notes and links as opposed to nice prose.
One of the challenges of an independent researcher like myself is getting access to resources while being unaffliated with a university. It’s still possible but sometimes requires a bit more effort. This conference reminded me of some of the things I like about a good research community. I will also be looking for funding sources for projects on:
- the oral history of some type designers related to my past research, and
- typeface design to support preserving endangered languages and minority languages.
The Shift CTRL conference aligned well with my background in technology development and history. My type design work includes research into history for each script & language, but also for technology used in printing and writing. Some of that research was included in the talks I gave on Resurrecting Type of the IBM 1403 about the mainframe line printer, its use around the world (Iceland’s first computers, Vietnamese land titles & first legal documents printed on computer), and the development of my resultant 1403 Vintage Mono Pro typeface.
The Special Interest Group for Computers, Information, and Society (@SIGCIS) Workshop 2016: Convergence & Divergence on 26 June 2016 in Singapore may also be of interest.
Ecologies
- Nathan Ensmenger (@NEnsmenger), Indiana University — Dirty Bits: An Environmental History of Computing.
- Read more about Nathan’s project on an environmental history of computing.
- Jenna Burrell (@jennaburrell), UC Berkeley — What Do Electronic Waste Narratives Make Visible?
- Ghana — Purpose is computer import not e-waste import. 12.5% tax on computer imports, no tax classification on e-waste.
- Jenna’s blog post on The Importance of Secondhand Computers and the Dilemma of Electronic Waste includes useful links to her research in Ghana and the Agbogbloshie scrap metal recycling area, along with related updates and stories.
- QAMP (@qampnet)— Agbogbloshie Makerspace Project, including an effort to change perceptions and the economy of the site in Accra, Ghana, Africa (@AccraMetropolis).
- Adam Minter’s (@AdamMinter) Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) piece on The Burning Truth Behind an E-Waste Dump in Africa also highlights the work of the QAMP (@qampnet) makerspace in Agbogbloshie.
Languages & Logics
- Ben Allen, Stanford University, Modern Thought & Literature — Common Language: COBOL and the Legibility of Programming
- While talking about COBOL, Ben mentioned the 1978 ACM (@TheOfficialACM) SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL-Ⅰ) conference and Grace Hopper’s keynote. In Communications of the ACM, Vol. 50, No. 5, pages 69–74 is A history of the history of programming languages by Thomas J. Bergin about the HOPL conferences.
- French, German versions of language keywords or management desire that not possible
- Mention of English only. Though not the same, common language for air traffic control is English. So, all pilots need to know English. Think it would be okay to have programming language with keywords based in another language. The issue comes when one wants to involve others who may not speak that language. Same issue with English-based programming languages.
- There have been programming languages that were not based in English. If I had more time, I would dig up references. For now, here’s the Wikipedia page on Non-English-based programming languages.
- Thomas S. Mullaney [personal] (@tsmullaney), Stanford University, Department of History — The Alphabet, Open-Sourced: Chinese Computing in the Age of Input
- Check out Tom’s exhibit on The Chinese Typewriter: The Design and Science of East Asian Information Technology at the Stanford East Asia Library (@StanfordLibs), 5 January 2016 through 10 September 2016.
- The Chinese Typewriter in Silicon Valley [1-hour video] Google Tech Talk, 5 December 2011.
- The Moveable Typewriter: How Chinese Typists Developed Predictive Text during the Height of Maoism, Technology and Culture, Volume 53, Number 4, October 2012, pp. 777–814.
- Noah Wardrip-Fruin (@noahwf), UC Santa Cruz Center for Games and Playable Media (@playableUCSC) — Beyond Shooting and Eating: Passage, Dys4ia, and the Meanings of Collision
- Games.
- Assumptions built into development tools, based on past major games and structure.
- New meanings to familiar core elements, e.g., collision.
- Jason Rohrer’s (@jasonrohrer) Passage — Two others attending the conference wrote about it, also.
- Nick Montfort wrote about Portal & Passage.
- Who was the other?
- Mainichi — an experiment in sharing a personal experience through a game system.
- Dys4ia — spatial and conversation.
- layoff and carry(??) life
- My own note: Are these types of games becoming more common, now, or are we just seeing them more often because of greater connection?
- Jenna mentioned the May 2016 White House report on transparency of algorithmic systems [PDF report]. Cathy O’Neil (@mathbabedotorg) wrote a blog post about it.
Identities
- Marie Hicks (@histoftech), Illinois Institute of Technology (@digihistorylab at @illinoistech) — Not Science Fiction: The Making of a Feminized Machine Underclass at the Dawn of the Electronic Age in Britain, 1948–1965
- For some background, read her pieces:
- Only the Clothes Changed: Women Operators in British Computing and Advertising, 1950–1970, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 32, no. 2 (October-December 2010).
- Meritocracy and Feminization in Conflict: Computerization in the British Government, Chapter 5 from Gender Codes: Why Women are Leaving Computing.
- Unrelated to the conference, read her blog post Pieces of History on the Durham, North Carolina Brontosaurus dinosaur sculpture in the woods.
- Janet Abbate (@JanetAbbateVT), Virginia Tech — Code Switch: Rethinking Computer Expertise as Empowerment
- How and why we teach computer science is important.
- mentioned Anita Borg Institute (@anitaborg_org) re: diversity and inclusion. I worked with Anita at the DEC research laboratories back in the 1990s.
- code.org (@codeorg) — but noted focus on coding and diversity in PR materials, then videos mostly from older white guys. Not getting into what one could do other than program, be successful. (My simplification of her more clear statements.)
- #YesWeCode (@yeswecode) — founded by Van Jones and musician Prince.
- Someone mentioned the early Indian PC, but I didn’t write down more details and forgot the reference. Perhaps they were referring to Hindustan Computers Limited’s HCL 8C.
- Liza Loop (@LizaLoopED), just attending. Teaching coding since 1972. History of Computing in Learning and Education (HCLE) nonprofit (blog).
- On 7 June 2016, Liza will be part of an Oral History Workshop on How Education Made Computers Personal with Lee Felsenstein (@lfelsenstein) and Howard Rheingold (@hrheingold). The event organized with the Complexity & Control? Paradigms for sustainable development project will be streamed online, 6–11am PDT (3-8pm CET).
- Check out Lee’s AndOrBit education project.
- One lady asking a question of Marie and Janet noted that her 1st computer class was 50 years ago (~1966).
Authorities & Truths
- Eden Medina (@edenmedina), Indiana University — “I Felt Absolutely Convinced That It Was Him”: Computers, Identification, and the Making of Truth in Chile
- On the identification of bodies using morphology techniques during the 1990s in Chile’s Patio 29 common grave from the 1973 coup and the subsequent DNA testing in 2005 identifying errors in those initial results.
- Some detail about this work was written up in:
Eden Medina & Ilan Sandberg Wiener, Science and Harm in Human Rights Cases: Preventing the Revictimization of Families of the Disappeared, 125 Yale L.J. F. 331 (2016)
- Honghong Tinn, Earlham College — Econometric Models and Computers: Manufacturing Economic-Planning Projects in Taiwan
- “explores the early use of mainframe computers to assist in econometric-knowledge production and economic-project planning in Taiwan in the 1960s.
… Specifically, this paper explores the computer-assisted production of inter-industrial input-output analysis in Taiwan. Harvard economist Wassily Leontief developed the method in 1941.
In the case of Taiwan, a Cornell University Professor, Ta-Chung Liu, visited the country in 1964 to help form an economic-planning project. Liu helped a Taiwanese government agency to produce inter-industry input-output analyses of Taiwanese industries with the IBM 1620 computer. The limited capacity of the IBM computer however, hindered the process of producing such analysis. The Taiwanese team, thus, had to reconfigure economic data to accommodate the capacity of the computer. By using Taiwan as an example, this paper reveals the underlying historical tensions and contingencies in visualizing, representing, and making sense of economic activities during the Cold War.” - Taiwan 1964–1969
- Cold War
- IBM 1620
- Ta-Chung Liu’s “A Macro-Econometric Model for Taiwan’s Economy,” CIECD, 1965.
- The Econometric Practice of Ta-Chung Liu [PDF] by Hsiang-Ke Chao and Chao-Hsi Huang, 2010.
- Andrea Stanton (@andrealstanton), University of Denver (@uofdenver) — Bid`a or Merely Tasweer? Emoticons and Religious Authority in Sunni Islam
- Smiley origin — My personal note: emoticons started with a monospace origin. There’s also some minimal relation to ASCII art.
- short codes for Arabic emoticons were used in forums on Islam.
- Andrea has a related chapter titled 5. Islamic Emoticons: Pious Sociability and Community Building in Online Muslim Communities in the 2014 book Internet and Emotions.
- Meant to send a note about the history of Emoji and how it came from Japanese phones and standards there.
- Colin M. Ford published a 3-part piece on Making Faces (and Other Emoji), covering Emoji: A Lovely History (Part 1), Emoji: Looking Good (Part 2), … in preparation for the his Making Faces (and Other Emoji) workshop 13–14 June 2016 at the Typographics conference (@TypographicsNYC) in New York City, New York, USA.
Power
- Fred Turner (@fturner), Stanford University — Millenarian Thinking: The Puritan Roots of the Maker Movement
- FabLearn Lab (formerly FabLab@Schools)
- MAKE magazine (@make).
- Nick Montfort (@nickmofo), Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Shifting to Free Software
- Think argument could be made stronger. Focusing on longevity of access to information (archival and beyond).
- Same for all tech and archiving.
- Note that there’s also a risk that free software stops being maintained or requires more work than one is able to put to be able to use again.
Infrastructures & Economies
- Paul N. Edwards (@AVastMachine), University of Michigan — On Infrastructure Time: Software, Speed, and Second-Order Systems in Africa
- Safaricom M-pesa cash
- Kenya, Africa $$ payment
- ~60% Kenyan GDP goes through M-Pesa
- Go outside financial system → becomes platform → then banks connect in.
- On Paul’s page on Reviews & Essays, check out his Pedagogical Essays:
- How to Give an Academy Talk [PDF]
- How to Read a Book [PDF]
- Benjamin Peters (@bjpeters), University of Tulsa — The Soviet Internet: The All-State Automated System, 1959–1989
- Soviet Internet history.
- Check out his new book How Not To Network A Nation — The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (2016).
- Enjoyed the topic and talk; wish I had written more notes. I’ll return to Moscow for a wedding later this year.
- One may also be interested in Nicholas Lewis’ piece Peering through the Curtain: Soviet Computing through the Eyes of Western Experts [PDF] in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 38:1 (January–March 2016): 34–47.
- From unrelated recent research, I recently was reminded of the Soviet BESM-6 mainframe computer and the ACPU-128 printer used with it (image of sample characters). The printer sounds similar to the IBM 1403 mainframe line printer that inspired my 1403 Vintage Mono Pro typeface. Look forward to digging up more information and printouts. The BESM-6 is included in the latest beta of the SIMH computer history simulator.
- Kavita Philip, UC Irvine — Pirate Copying, Jugaad Economics: Postcolonial Technologies and Developmental Leapfrogging
- 17th Century children of pyrates [sic] considered pirate copies of English citizens.
- Here’s a video of a longer 1.5 hour talk she gave on Pirate Copying, Jugaad Economics: Postcolonial Tech and Developmental Leapfrogging at the Center for 21st Century Studies (@center21), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on 6 March 2015.
Liza Loop (@LizaLoopED) mentioned that in 1987 that the way they had copies of a book made in Russia was retyping because copy machines were so regulated. Meant to ask if same for printing presses. I assume so?
For some reason, I had a note “to Fred Turner: Critical Systems Interdependency & Failure Modes Failure Analysis” referring to the Clinton Presidential Commission Report in the late 1990s. Alas, I do not recall why I wrote that down. So, I’ll just leave a link to PDD-63 on Critical Infrastructure Protection, 22 May 1998.
Final Discussions and Computer History Museum Tour
Some random quotes during the fabulous Revolution Exhibit tour at the Computer History Museum (@ComputerHistory)…
- Both Jenna (@jennaburrell) & Janet (@JanetAbbateVT) asked “where’s the Discourse key?” when looking at lovely old computer keyboards. 😉
- “Innovation under constraints”—Jenna (@jennaburrell)
- “My Drunk Computer History”—Tom (@tsmullaney)
During the Computer History Museum tour, there was only time to explore the Revolution Exhibit. Next time, check out the demo labs:
- PDP-1 Demo Lab with working demonstrations of the DEC PDP-1 and the Spacewar! game on 1st & 3rd Saturdays, 2:30pm & 3:15pm. Learn about the PDP-1 and restoration and the Spacewar! game.
- IBM 1401 Demo Lab with working demonstrations of the IBM 1401 mainframe and the IBM 1403 line printer that inspired my 1403 Vintage Mono Pro typeface. Demonstrations in the lab are on Wednesdays at 3pm and Saturdays at 11am. A custom version of my font to more closely match the original printer chain was used in the short film 6EQUJ5, directed by Trevor Brymer, New Zealand. Coincidentally, I worked at both IBM and DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) research laboratories.
The shiftCTRL conference brought together a great group. It sounds like there will be a longer-term publication to bring their ideas together in some cohesive form. One of the goals seems to be to encourage more discourse and research. Some of the things that could be done to foster continuing conversations include:
- Book, journal of the papers with commentary added to encourage more discussion. An important aspect of the Shift CTRL conference: the discussions that happened after the talks, connecting and exploring the topics presented.
- Periodic articles, blog posts, etc. in shorter form. Perhaps all linking with the #shiftCTRL as a connector keyword. Note that shiftCTRL may be used for other topics.
- Continually updated collection of related publications, posts, resources.
- I believe there was mention of considering ACM Interactions (@interactionsmag). Perhaps Communications of the ACM (@CACMmag) would also be appropriate.
- Also, perhaps consider IEEE Computer Society’s (@ComputerSociety) Annals of the History of Computing (@computingnow).
Other posts about the ShiftCTRL Conference
- Marie Hicks’ (@histoftech) Storify of tweets from the conference.
- Liza Loop’s (@LizaLoopED) blog post on ShiftCTRL—Scholarship made relevant.
Slanted Hall blog 