History of Computing - Computer Ethics & Professional Responsibility - Edited by Terrell Ward Bynum & Simon Rogerson

RCCS Home > Textbook Home >
History of Computing

The history of computing is a long and fascinating story that includes many different thinkers from a variety of countries and regions of the world. Today’s sophisticated computers are the results of an incremental process that unfolded over a number of centuries. Although the first electronic computer was created in the 1940s during the Second World War, there were many other important developments prior to that time, which are significant aspects of the history of computing. Indeed, one can look as far back into history as the Fourth Century BC to ancient Babylonia (now part of Iraq) where the abacus was invented. The abacus used physical objects like stones, sticks, beads or even lines drawn in sand to represent entities like sheep or other objects of trade – and eventually numbers. These “symbols” (representatives of objects other than themselves) were manipulated by moving them on a line or shaft or string. The position of the symbols in the overall symbol array became important and began to represent not only individual items or numbers, but also sets of items or numbers of a specified magnitude. Important computing concepts, therefore – like symbolic representation, symbol manipulation and positional notation – already were developed and applied thousands of years ago. Over the centuries, many more computing concepts had to be developed or discovered, and various physical or mechanical devices had to be invented, before today’s electronic computers could be created.

The web sites cited below provide a wealth of information about people, concepts, and physical devices that played a significant role in the history of computing. Several of these sites provide useful “timelines,” and many offer helpful photographs or diagrams. The sites are divided into three categories:

History of Computing Overall
History of the Internet
History of Computer Ethics

At the end of this page is a list of suggested paper topics that teachers may assign to their students, or students may choose to write about. Please check back often as this list will grow over time.

Computer History Museum
www.computerhistory.org
This is the web site of the Computer History Museum, whose home page contains the following invitation: “It’s not just a museum. It’s one of the largest collections of computer-related artifacts, documents, film, and photographs in the world. Here [on our web site], you can explore our online archives, browse the exhibits, or learn more about preserving this living history of the information age.”

Charles Babbage Institute: Center for the History of Information Technology
www.cbi.umn.edu/resources/websites.html
The Charles Babbage Institute is an historical archives and research center of the University of Minnesota. CBI is dedicated to promoting the study of the history of information technology and information processing and their impacts on society. CBI preserves relevant historical documentation in all media, conducts and fosters research in history and archival methods, offers graduate fellowships, and sponsors symposia, conferences, and publications.
The CBI History web page says the following: “There are hundreds of Web sites on numerous aspects of the history of computing, far too many to link to here. This page will feature a periodically changing sampling of sites, arranged in no particular order. We selected these sites for the following reasons:

they provide reliable information
they are frequently updated
they function as gateways to other history of computing sites
they cover a range of areas in the history of computing.”

Virginia Tech History of Computing Web Site
ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/
This collection of materials relating to the history of computing is provided courtesy of the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and is sponsored in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (CDA-9312611) – a rich and rewarding resource!

Virtual Museum of Computing
vmoc.museophile.com
This virtual museum includes an eclectic collection of World Wide Web (WWW) hyperlinks connected with the history of computing and on-line computer-based exhibits available both locally and around the world.

“Triumph of the Nerds”
www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/
This is a web site associated with the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) TV series on the history of computing entitled “The Triumph of the Nerds.”

A History of Computers
www.maxmon.com/history.htm
This is a superb timeline computer-history site with much information and many links to other resources. Highly recommended!

Elsop History of Computing Links
www.elsop.com/wrc/h_comput.htm
This is the Electronic Software Publishing Corporation’s (Elsop) links page for the History of Computing.

Elsop History of Computer Companies Links
www.elsop.com/wrc/h_compan.htm
This is the Electronic Software Publishing Corporation’s (Elsop) links page for the History of Computer Companies.

Top

Hobbes’ Internet Timeline
[Copyright © 1993–2003 by Robert H. Zakon]
www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
This is a rich and useful timeline on the history of the Internet, with many links to other related materials.

Nerds 2.0.1 – A Brief History of the Internet
www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/
This is a web site associated with the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) TV series on the history of the Internet entitled “Nerds 2.0.1 – A Brief History of the Internet.”

A Brief History of the Internet
www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
In this history, which appears on the web site of the Internet Society, several of the people involved in the development and evolution of the Internet share their views of its origins and history.

[Very, Very] Brief History of the Internet and Related Networks
www.isoc.org/internet/history/cerf.shtml
This is a sketch of Internet history by Vint Cerf. It also appears on the web site of the Internet Society.

Top

A Very Short History of Computer Ethics
www.computerethics.org/resources/research/introduction/bynum_shrt_hist.html
This is an article by Terrell Ward Bynum on the web site of the Research Center on Computing & Society. Originally published in the Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing of the American Philosophical Association.

Computer Ethics: Basic Concepts and Historical Overview
plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-computer/
This is an article by Terrell Ward Bynum in Stanford University’s online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which changes and grows over time). It provides a general introduction to computer ethics, as well as some of the history of computer ethics. [In summer 2003, there is some overlap with materials in Bynum and Rogerson’s textbook Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility. As the encyclopedia article changes and grows, this overlap will diminish.]

Top

In the history of computing, new ideas or concepts often were developed or “discovered” before anyone had created a physical object or a physical process that actually made use of the new ideas. For example, Napier discovered logarithms, and Oughtred used them to invent the slide rule. Write a paper in which you clearly and carefully explain three to five such ideas, plus the circumstances in which they first became known, and finally the circumstances in which they first were successfully incorporated into a physical object or process.
Select five important developments in the history of logic and reasoning – for example, Boolean logic (Boole, 1847 ) or logical quantification theory (Frege, 1879) then describe at least one way in which these developments eventually were incorporated into computers and computing.

Top

Back to the Main Textbook Site