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A couple of months ago, when I was asked to become a contributor to this blog, my first reaction was, "Right. What's a Blog?" For many years I had been following the writings and software ideas of Dave Winer, who I believe was the "inventor" of the blog. I remember, years ago, when he first described the idea (he called it a "weblog.").  I recall being puzzled by it. Now, here I am doing one.  Winer says a blog is simply a way for an individual to express his or her take on things.

When recently I got contacted about the opportunity to contribute to this blog, I thought as a first post to report on the panels on the history of computing of the 6th Three Societies Meeting .

The Computer History Museum rececntly hosted a forum with John Gertner, the author of a new book about Bell Labs. Here is the link.

Gertner discusses the many world-changing inventions and innovations that came out of the Labs, especially during its peak years of innovation from the late 1920s through the 1980s.

This month is the 47th anniversary of IBM's introduction of the System/360.  In other words, the birthday of the modern mainframe architecture as a computing platform.   

A handful of former Shockley Semiconductor Labs employees recently got together at the Computer History Museum in Mt View, CA to tour a semiconductor exhibit on silicon.  

http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1956-Silicon.html

1. Here's the reunion story from today's San Jose Mercury:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mike-cassidy/ci_21854588/cassidy-shockley-semiconductor-alumni-remember-where-silicon-valley

2. Oral history is at:  http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102658033

Back in a previous century — when I was a doctoral student and aspiring academic — I met some interesting researchers who were then trying to contradict (or at least temper) some of the wild claims made about the first mover advantage. Anyone knows the computer industry knows that IBM didn’t invent the mainframe, Sun the workstation or Apple† the PC, but all nonetheless became market leaders.

Recently I bought a new laptop. Since then, I have been in heavenly misery.

The 25th anniversary of Invention & Technology (from American Heritage) is marked by a list of the “top twenty five revolutionary inventions in the United States.” At least that is how it’s reported by IT economist (and sometime historian) Shane Greenstein in his blog, Virulent Word of Mouse. (I was unable to find the article for free on the website.)

Last week Palm introduced a new smartphone, designed to compete with Apple's  iPhone.  It is an amazing device, with all sorts of features that you could hardly imagine could fit on something that small.

In an earlier post (March 20), I discussed Moore’s Law and its relation to the history of computing. Once again I feel compelled to return to the topic—this time, to discuss its impact, not on computer science and technology, but on its historians. Put simply, historians of technology, including me, find Moore’s Law unnerving.