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Almost two weeks ago I was at the 24th International Congress for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM) in Manchester, England. At more than 1700 registered participants it may have been the largest gathering devoted to the history of science, technolgoy and medicine ever.

John Hollar, Computer History Museum (CHM) President and CEO, delivered a progress report on CHM activities at the January 7th IEEE Life Member meeting in Mt View, CA.  The CHM has become the leading institution that's archived computer artifacts, but is now recognized as a thought leader on the impact of computing on our society.

Four CHM areas were cited by John as being particularly successful:

Abstract

Bob Metcalfe's key points on the Ethernet Innovation Summit are summarized in this article:

http://community.comsoc.org/blogs/alanweissberger/bob-metcalfes-closing-keynote-ethernet-innovation-summit-may-23-2013-chm-mt-vi

40 years of Ethernet history discussed during day one; day two featured "movers & shakers" talking about current and future market trends and technologies.
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Metcalfe's closing keynote talk along with the Q & A session can be viewed at:

Have you been longing for a working Apple 1 computer? Or maybe a reproduction of a Pascaline?

Somehow my career has repeatedly led me into doing unexpected and wonderful things.

One such piece of serendipity has been the role I landed at the Jerusalem Science Museum as the curator of an exhibition in honor of Alan Turing. This project took a year and half, and gave me the occasion to work with some amazing people at the museum, interact with many more from around the world, and learn so much about that tragic genius, Alan Turing, of which I wrote here before.

Being the curator of the Alan Turing Year exhibition at the Jerusalem Science Museum, I was invited to sit on a panel dedicated to Turing’s legacy at the ICON Science Fiction, Imagination and The Future festival in Tel Aviv. My talk there was well received, and touches on some interesting truths, so I decided to share its content here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Introduction:

In this informative March 11, 2013 lecture at the Computer History Museum (CHM), Grady Booch asked and tried to answer this question:  "What does it take to make "sentient" devices (that can feel, sense,  think and reason) out of silicon and software?"

It's hard to imagine not being able to work at IBM if you're a woman who happens to be married, but  Gizmodo has published a memo from January 10, 1951  that discusses a "temporary modification" of IBM's personnel policy—yes, it finally allowed female employees to continue working once they were married. It says: 

Effective immediately and until further notice:

Introduction

The February 10, 2013 Stony Brook (SBU) Northern CA Alumni Association meeting featured a very informative and enlightening talk by Ike Nassi, PhD (1974 Computer Science) about what he learned at SBU, the friends he made there, and use of his social network to further his career.

As 2012 closes, so does the Turing Centenary Year. The hundredth anniversary of Alan Turing's birth prompted many events, conferences and talks dedicated to Turing. A large list of such events was compiled by the Turing Centenary website.

Today, January 25th 2011, marks the first anniversary of Herb Grosch's death.

Nikola Tesla, whose name Elon Musk chose for his electric car company, was on the cover of Time magazine in 1931 for his achievements.  Unfortunately, he died a poor man in 1943 after years devoted to projects that did not receive adequate financing.  Although the main Tesla lab building on Long Island, New York is being restored by a nonprofit foundation — the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe — the World System broadcast tower he built there was torn down for scrap to pay his hotel bill at the Waldorf Astoria in 1917.

It’s hard to imagine life without the Internet: no smart phones, tablets, PCs, Netflix, the kids without their games. Impossible, you say? Not really, because we have the Internet thanks to a series of conditions in the United States that made it possible to create it in the first place and that continue to influence its availability. There is no law that says it must stay, nor any economic reason why it should, if someone cannot make a profit from it.

PC World recently ran an interesting piece about vintage DP equipment still being used on a daily basis, for practical purposes. They even found someone using punched card accounting equipment.

On 11/13/2015 the NY Times printed the obituary of Eugene Amdahl, which prompted this recollection of him. His revolutionary attack on IBM with plug-compatible high-end computers  occurred at the time I was most involved in industry forecasting for AD Little.

An obituary in a recent Washington Post brought back a flood of memories for me, and reminded me of a topic I had been meaning to discuss but had put aside. Samuel S.

While in the just-over hectic fortnight spent at pre-preparing for a project proposal with the FNRS, the Belgian funding agency for scientific research, I got the sad news that Nicolas Rouche, one of the Belgian pioneers who had helped our research on the Machine Mathématique IRSIA-FNRS had died une

There are many measures of success; wealth, power and fame are the most common.