Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:05:07 -0700
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Subject: CM> History via T-SHIRTS, Buttons.
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Sender: "Bill Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> History via T-SHIRTS, Multiple Posts.

What about buttons?

I have a button from a 1976 show with the year in binary, but the binary
is wrong. I think I have buttons dating back to 1972 or maybe a little
earlier.

Bill Anderson
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:10:09 -0700
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Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: Joshua Lederberg 
Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."

<<<<<
>Sarah Stein writes
>    Can anyone tell me the origins and meaning of the phrase "ghost in the
machine," as well as some >history of its usage?
>>>>

This is the title of a book by Arthur Koestler, and refers to the
purported inadequacy of mechanistic theory to account for the
"soul".  It is equivalent to Bergson's elan vital; and the counter-
statement is nowhere pressed more forcefully than by Francis Crick in
the title of his latest book.

Koestler is also using the phrase in the context of original sin,
if I may paraphrase, that man's evolutionary heritage ensures an
irreducible propensity for violence.

CN PR6021/K78/G427
Aa Koestler, Arthur
TI The ghost in the machine.
CL 384 p.
PP New York: Macmillan.
DA 1967.

CN BF311/C928
Aa Crick, Francis
TI The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul.
CL 317 p.
PP New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
DA 1994.

I debated this with Koestler in:

177.  Lederberg, J., 1970.
      "Orthobiosis: The Perfection of Man" in Nobel Symposium XIV
      The Place of Value in a World of Facts, held in Stockholm,
      Sweden, 9/69 (Arne Tiselius and Sam Nilsson, eds.),
      John Wiley & Sons, In., New York, p.29-58.

(and see a brief essay at tail of this message.

My library has another book with an equivalent title:

CN BF367/K8601
Aa Kosslyn, Stephen Michael
TI Ghosts in the mind's machine: creating and using images in the brain.
CL 249 p.
PP New York: W. W. Norton.
DA 1983.

-------------------

Weekly Column in Washington Post: Science and Man
Dec. 28, 1968
Joshua Lederberg

   Man Can Be Called 'Machine' -- But a Most Complex One


.fi
     It is easy to find deeply ambivalent feelings about
science among intellectuals (even including some scientists),
in Congress, among alienated youths and among bewildered
citizens.  We live in a scientific age whose glories and
terrors are both credited to science.  At this level, we can
hardly deny that our ever-growing scientific mastery over the
forces of nature imposes an almost unbearable responsibility
on political authority and on a democratic electorate to learn
about, think about, plan for and use these forces for real
human benefit.

     In this climate, many people have become highly sensitized
to more ethereal questions that are raised by the scientific
study of man.  One such question is the doctrine of mechanism.
Dr. D.E. Wooldridge, a well known physicist and systems
engineer and a successful industrialist -- formerly president
of TRW (Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge) Inc. -- has written several
excellent syntheses of present day thought in biology.  His
latest work, "Mechanical Man -- the Physical Basis of Intelligent
Life," concludes "that a single body of natural laws operating
on a single set of material particles completely accounts for
the origin and properties of living organisms.  Accordingly,
man is essentially no more than a complex machine."

     A few eccentrics aside, the whole community of contemporary
science shares the view that the same laws of nature apply to
nonliving and living matter alike.  All of us who investigate
the chemistry and physics of living organisms pursue our work
as if organisms were complex machines, and we find man to
exhibit no tissues or functions that would except him from
this way of analyzing human nature.

     Nevertheless, we are or should be careful to state just
what we mean before we assert that "man is a machine," and much
more so before using the phrase "merely a machine."  The
statement that man is "a mere machine," or a mere anything,
is a needless irritant to precise communication between
scientists and laymen.  (We might better proclaim that
"man is merely the most complex product of organic evolution
on earth, the only organism whose intelligence has evolved
to the point that his culture far transcends his biological
endowment.")

     The "mere machine" phrase is usually a retort to the
claim that there are mysteries of human nature that are, in
principle, beyond the reach of scientific investigation.
Scientists would do better to save their breath quarreling
about what they can analyze in principle; in their own work,
they are mercilessly pragmatic about confining their
conclusions to what they can examine in practice.

     There are, in fact, theoretical limits to scientific
analysis that may justify men in repudiating Dr. Wooldridge's
assertion that "the concept of the machine-like nature of man
is incompatible with a long-cherished belief in human uniqueness."
There is nothing "mere" about a machine as complex as a man;
the word "machine" is just a manner of speaking about the
scientist's faith in a universe ordered by natural law.  That
faith was expressed most eloquently by the French philosopher
the Marquis de Laplace, who averred that, given complete
knowledge of the universe at one instant, the scientist could
in principle compute all of its future states in infinite
detail.

     In practice, we must now remind ourselves, the scientist
and his computers are machines that occupy space and consume
energy.  Dr. Rolf Landauer of IBM has pointed out that the
process of calculation itself soon reaches fundamental limits.
If the whole visible universe were one gigantic computer, made
of components at the theoretical lower limit of size and
energy consumption, it would still be insufficient for some
problems that are soluble "in principle."

     Far short of the complexity represented by a human being,
some mere machines called computers nevertheless have already
reached the point where their actual behavior is predictable
only to a rough approximation, and we must be careful to
program internal checks to detect when these highly individualized
robots deviate from their intended instructions.

---
_900428  Note La Mettrie (1709-1751), L'homme machine, 1748
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:12:19 -0700
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Subject: CM> Memories of ENIAC and "computers."
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Sender: "Michael R. Williams" 
Subject: Re: CM> Memories of ENIAC and "computers."

At 11:44 PM 7/5/96 -0700, you wrote:
>[Moderator's note: here is a transcript of an email discussion I had with
>William A. Reitwiesner, whose mother worked first as a human "computer"
>then on ENIAC, witnessing the transition from human computers to digital
>computers (the word "computer" used to describe a human job.)  Hopefully
>she too will send us a description of her experience.

If readers will look in the Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 18,
Num. 1, (First issue of 1996) they will find a good description of the ENIAC
and the people that created it (good early biographies of J. Presper Eckert
and John Mauchly) and other ENIAC related items.

If they will wait about 2 weeks, they can look in Annals Vol 18, Number 3
(due in the mail soon) and there will be a very good description of the
women who worked on ENIAC -- including a lot of materail by Home'
Reitwiesner -- put together by Barkley Fritz (a supervisor of ENIAC) who
knew and worked with all these women.  This issue of Annals is a special
issue about "women in computing" and will be of interest to anyone who wants
to know something of the human side of the subject.

Mike Williams

---------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael R. Williams
Editor-in-Chief, Annals of the History of Computing
Department of Computer Science
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta
Canada      T2N 1N4

Ph:  (403) 220-6781
Fax: (403) 284-4707
email: williams@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:17:38 -0700
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Subject: CM> Poitner to Net Timeline
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Sender: "Robert H'obbes' Zakon" 
Subject: Re: Net Timeline

Hobbes' Internet Timeline:
        http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:21:04 -0700
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From: Ronda Hauben 
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Subject: CM> Mailing lists & earliest copies of Human-Nets
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Sender: Ronda Hauben 
Subject: Re: CM> Mailing lists & earliest copies of Human-Nets

On Wed, 26 Jun 1996 nmk@mail.telepac.pt wrote:

>
> Sender: nmk@mail.telepac.pt
> Subject: Mailing lists & mail problem?
>
> [~snip~]
>
> Introduction & Question: I'm working (for my dissertation degree in
> Sociology) on the dynamics of the mailing lists, and am particularly
> interested in the communication and relationships process, so if you think
> of interest to debate such a topic I'd like to know your opinions and
> experiences about the possible categorization of mailing lists, in what
> ways can we speek about community, and, in an historical perspective, what
> were the first mailing lists like.
>
> manuela
>

Manuel,

Good to see that you are working on Mailing lists and the dynamics
and value of them. I have begun to do some work on the early
mailing lists that were on Usenet in 1981-82 and have a draft
paper folks may be interested in called "Hello Usenet: Broadsides
of Our Day"  I began to look at the discussion on some of the early
newsgroups and mailing lists like sf-lovers and FA.space and found
it to be broad ranging and valuable.

I am also interested in more information about early mailing lists
and am particularly interested in knowing if anyone has access to
the earliest Human-Nets Mailing Lists so would appreciate any
leads anyone may have about when Human-Nets began and if the
first year or two are available anywhere.




> [Moderator: The "historical perspective" is a good subject.  Does anyone
> know what was the first mailing list?  I hear it might have been SF-LOVERS
> (science-fiction lovers) on ARPANET.  Is this true?  Did you participate?]

Was Human-Nets one of the first mailing lists?

Ronda

ronda@columbia.edu
au329@cleveland.freenet.edu

--------------------
                      Netizens: On the History and Impact
                        B   of Usenet and the Internet
                    http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: Coop 
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Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: Coop 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."

At 11:32 PM 7/5/96 -0700, Hari Kunzru wrote:

>. . ., though I have a vague memory that the phrase might have been
>coined by an Oxford philosopher writing a critique of Descartes slightly
>earlier than Koestler's book.
>

I think the philosopher you have in mind is Gilbert Ryle.  Ryle was perhaps
one of the most interesting of the Oxford types- writing predominately in
response to issues raised by the perennial "mind-body" problem.  His views-
although anti-cognitivist- revealed a profound sympathy for Cartesian reasoning.

If your interested, pick up a copy of:

Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson & Company.

An example of his anti-cognitivist line of thinking follows:

  According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently,
  his act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a
  regulative proposition appropriate to his practical problem. [...] Must we
  then say that for the hero's reflections how to act to be intelligent he must
  first reflect how best to reflect how to act?  The endlessness of this implied
  regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the
  occurrence of a process of considering this criterion. (from p.31 of the
above)

Randolph Cooper

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            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:26:43 -0700
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From: "Laurence I. Press" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Hacker 1 Conference.
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> Larry -- assuming you went to Hackers 1, could you send the list a
> description of what you saw/what it was like?

David,

My impressions/insights are not all that strong.  (I only went to one
other Hacker's conf, so I guess it did not seem so important to me).
I recall that Lee Flesenstein moderated a "random access" session, a
la the Homebrew Computer Club.  I recall that several Apple folks with
low serial numbers were there -- including Steve Wosniak.  I think Dan
Bricklin from Visicalc was also.  Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog
was the organizer.  It was held at a sort of summer camp, and we slept
in bunk beds.  My roomie was Bob Albrecht of People's Computer
Company.  Lots of M&Ms and soft drinks, and little sleep.  It says
something that I recall more the form than the substance.  Was anyone
else from the list there?

The T-shirt was designed by Scott Kim, and I will take a snapshot of
it.  (should we wear the t-shirts in the photos)?  I also came across
a t-shirt from the Southern California Computer Society, which predated
Homebrew (by a little), and had a short, stormy history.  I also had
one from the first INET conference, but cannot seem to find it.  (I
assume that only "first" t-shirts are worthy of submission).

Lar
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:11:15 -0700
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From: mwl4@psu.edu (Mark Laskowski)
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Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: mwl4@psu.edu (Mark Laskowski)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."

Mr. Bennahum, Moderator:

        There's a thread on the origins of the phrase "ghost in the
machine".  What I know about computers, you could fit on the head of a pin.
But the origins of words and phrases intrigues me.  I couldn't shake the
feeling that Nabokov had coined or used heavily the phrase in question.
But I wasn't sure, so I called my neighbor, Benjamin Pryor, into the
thread.  Both Peter Martin and Hari Kunzru were on the right track.  The
former with the idea that there was a connection to Ryle and the latter
with his idea that the phrase comes from a book criticizing Descartes.
Here's what Ben has to say:


Mark:

Here's your answer:  Gilbert Ryle coined the phrase in his 1949 _The
Concept of Mind_.  His index has 17 references to the phrase.  Here's the
first in which he introduces it:

"...I shall often speak [of the official theory of the relation between the
mind and the body] with deliberate abusiveness, as 'the dogma of the Ghost
in the Machine'.  I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not
in detail but in principle....It represents the facts of mental life as if
they belonged to one logical type or category...when they actually belong
to another."

There you have it.  I know of no earlier reference to the phrase, and it is
not at all a perversion of 'deus ex machina'.  Now the Nabakov connection
may not be innacurate, but if he said it he probably said it in "Pale Fire"
somewhere, and that wasn't written until after '49.....I THINK.  I can't
find my copy of pale fire.  I can't find any Nabakov, for that matter.  But
I'll put my money on Ryle as the origin of the phrase.

Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Barnes and Noble, 1949).

See ya.

Mark Laskowski
Assitant Director of Station Development
Penn State Public Broadcasting
814.863.2606     voice
814.865.3145     fax
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:28:16 -0700
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Subject: CM> Government/Net article
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: Government/Net article

Folks,

I just drafted a column for CACM on the role of the government in
network development.  It summarizes the history of the SAGE, arpanet,
csnet, nsfnet, and NSF connectivity projects, and their payoffs.  If
anyone would be willing to give me feedback before I send it in
(soon), let me know and I will email you a copy.

Lar
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:41:44 -0700
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Subject: CM> An earlier "news group" ?
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Sender:  (Peter Capek)
Subject: An earlier "news group" ?

For the record, on May 2, 1977, I created what we would today call a
moderated newsgroup (digest) on the IBM internal network.  (This is
quite a bit earlier than any of the other similar activities for which
I've seen dates.)  Its topic area was the use and enhancement of
VM/370, a popular interactive operating system of the time.  In what
is perhaps the reverse of the usual style for doing this, I wrote
some, and solicited others, of the items in the first issue, sort of
to get the ball rolling, and sent it to about 20-30 people.  By the
end of the week, the word had spread and I had a distribution list of
over 100, and submissions/contributions full to overflowing.  Various
efforts to judge the readership were not very conclusive, but it seems
fairly clear that within a year it was in excess of 10,000 readers,
with at least a quarter of them outside North America.

This activity went on for about 6 years, until the need for it had been
largely assumed by unmoderated conferences using something like "mailer"
technology.

One key distinction from most of today's conferences, including the
moderated ones (no slight intended to the present venue!)  was that I
decided from the outset that it would be best to "edit" fairly
strongly the content.  I felt this was appropriate for the following
reasons:

 -- Because by editing the writing, information could be conveyed more
    accurately, less ambiguously, and more clearly.  Further, I felt
    that one should plan for success, and if the venture was
    successful, my time spent editing would save the time of many
    readers.

 -- Because by editing the content, the reliability of the information
    presented would be higher, and the effort would create a trusted
    source, making it more valuable to the readers than if every
    submission were distributed.  In fact, it was necessary only
    fairly rarely to absolutely refuse to publish something.

 -- Because by editing the style, the vagaries for the reader of reading
    material written by many different writers (including many whose
    native language was not English) would be minimimized, if not
    eliminated.

Of course, an important effect of this editing and digesting process
was that significant time could elapse until the next "issue", so that
immediacy was sacrificed.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:55:18 -0700
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From: rhallock@micron.net (rhallock)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> History of FTP?
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Sender: rhallock@micron.net (rhallock)
Subject: History of FTP?

I'm taking a class thru' Virutal University on FTP and Telnet.  My
classmates and I have tracked FTP down to M.I.T in '71.  Does anyone have
anymore information than that--like the specific who, when, where, etc.


Thanks!
Rina Hallock

Rina Hallock
Caldwell, ID 83605
rhallock@micron.net

"Our task is to provide an education for the kinds of kids
 we have, not the kinds of kids we used to have, or want
 to have, or the kids that exist in our dreams."
                                        --K.P. Gerlack
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 13:09:09 -0700
Reply-To: cowan@locke.ccil.org
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From: John Cowan 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: John Cowan 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."

Peter Martin wrote:

> The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives "The dogma of the Ghost in the
> machine." from *The Concept of Mind" by Gilbert Ryle.
>
> Ryle was (1900-1976) an English philosopher. Since the word "dogma" turns
> up in the quote, and since he capitalized Ghost, I suspect he was much more
> likely to be talking about Christianity than about computers.
>
> But short of reading Ryle's book, I can't be sure. And I don't think I'll
> read the book, at least not today; I have only the vaguest recollection of
> Ryle's role in 20th century philosophy, only recall from long-gone undergrad
> days that he was difficult.
>
> Maybe the reference is not the Holy Spirit. Maybe it's the human soul?

Ryle was sardonically referring to Cartesian dualism, a doctrine of Descartes
whereby the body and the mind (more reasonable translation of \`esprit in this
context) are separate entities that interact only through a single point, the
apparently-non-functional pineal gland.  (Hail Eris!)

The "ghost", therefore, is the mind, apparently free, and the "machine" is
the body, deterministically obeying the laws of nature.

ObCompHist: One of my back-burner projects is constructing a portable
simulator (in C) for the IBM 1620.  Persons with information not contained
in Basic Programming Concepts and the IBM 1620 Computer, which
is my bible for this project, are urged to contact me at the address below.
In addition, any actual running (so to speak) software for the 1620 that
can be released under Copyleft or to the public domain would be greatly
appreciated.

--
John Cowan                                              cowan@ccil.org
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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From: deyoung@rpcp.mit.edu (Tice DeYoung)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Explanation of term "Bitways."
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Sender: deyoung@rpcp.mit.edu (Tice DeYoung)
Subject: ORIGIN OF TERM "BITWAYS"

The term 'bitways' arose during an ARPA-Computings Systems Technology
Office during Stephen Squires tenure as Director of that office.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:11:37 -0700
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From: "Peter H. Salus" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: "Peter H. Salus" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."


The very last line of Lederberg's essay introduces LaMettrie,
in whom I have long had an interest.  LaMettrie was (with
Condillac) one of the French disciples of Locke and Hume.  He
is, in some sense, the first behaviorist, perhaps better
``physicalist.''  Berlin noted that ``La Mettrie conceives
the true philosopher as a kind of engineer who can take to
pieces the apparatus that is the human mind.''

Born in 1709, Julien Offray de la Mettrie was a trained physician
patronized by Fredrick the Great of Prussia (who wrote the eloge
on La Mettrie's death at 41).  La Mettrie's ``L'homme Machine''
appeared in Leiden in 1748.  The first English edition appeared
in 1749.  The second, 1750.  A more recent translation appeared
in 1912.

Counter essays appeared almost immediately (Frantzen's Denial of
Man a Machine [Leipzig 1749], Tralles' On Man's Machine and Soul
[Leipzig 1749], Hollmann's Refutation... [Berlin 1750]).  That this
``controversy'' did not just go away until Ryle and Koestler
can be seen from Rignano's Man not a Machine (London, 1926) and
the response to it by none other than Joseph Needham, Man a
Machine:  In answer to a romantical and unscientific treatise
written by Sig. Eugenio Rignano... (New York 1928).

Not wanting to excruciate this list, I'll end this here with a brief
line from La Mettrie:  ``Man is a machine so compounded that it is
at first impossible to form a clear idea of it...  [I]t is only
a posteriori or by seeking to unravel the soul, as it were, via the
organs of the body, that one can ... attain to the highest degree
of probability possible on this topic [human nature itself].''

Peter

-----------------------------------------------------------
Peter H. Salus  #3303  4 Longfellow Place  Boston, MA 02114
        peter@pedant.com         +1 617 723 3092
-----------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:12:47 -0700
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From:  (Peter Capek)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> First Hackers Conference, on PBS.
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Sender:  (Peter Capek)
Subject: First Hackers Conference

There was a documentary made about the first Hackers' conference.  It
was shown on Public TV shortly thereafter.  I don't recall the name,
but it might still be accessible through PBS.

           Peter Capek
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:14:24 -0700
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From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> First PC, MITS, Altair, 1995 reunion.
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Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM: Something to stir other recollections

        The following item (slightly edited) was published in The ABQ
Correspondent a few months ago, after the MITS reunion. Maybe it will
bring some other thoughts to mind among readers of the CM posts.
        The subject of the third paragraph seems to stir passions, while
reinforcing the thesis that "History is just people doing things."

THE REUNION
As planned, a passel of oldtimers gathered in Albuquerque in June [1995] to
celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the first personal computer, produced here
by a company oddly called MITS. Most of the key people were among the host,
as they were at the 10th anniversary. Ed Roberts (the Fearless Leader of
MITS, who came up with the Altair computer), Eddie Currie (Ed's friend and
lieutenant, still a figure in the industry), Paul Allen (partner in
Microsoft), and David Bunnell (who has published a series of blockbuster
computer magazines -- Personal Computing, PC Magazine, PC WORLD, MAC WORLD,
and now New Media) were there, but Bill Gates didn't make it.

David thought Bill had written Currie a note saying he'd be glad to see
folks...but Ed Roberts is still mad at him, and he didn't want to spend an
uncomfortable evening with him. "Ed *is* still mad, isn't he?" I said.
"Oh yes!" said David. (Ed had argued in court that the Microsoft software
was developed as work-for-hire while the fellows were employed by MITS. Bill
and Paul argued that Microsoft was licensing the work product to MITS. Bill
and Paul won...and this is being typed on a computer using Microsoft DOS and
Windows, not MITS DOS and Windows.)

David made a point worth remembering: commentators often discount the MITS
role in creating the personal computer, pointing to the years of visionary
work done at PARC, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. "The fact is, " said
David, "we didn't know anything about that. We just hauled off and made a
computer that an ordinary person could buy and use. It seems to me that one
absolutely essential feature of a personal computer is that a person is able
to get one. MITS produced the first computer an ordinary person could buy."

Dar Scott was startled to find a display of 18-20 year old MITS artifacts
that included a board he'd designed...and was even more excited to see an
operating computer that contained another of those boards...still chugging
away, with about 20kb of RAM and a mass memory cassette holding 72kb. Wow.
One looks forward to 2005.

--Nels Winkless
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:15:38 -0700
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From: rab@WELL.COM
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Hacker 1 Conference.
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Sender: rab@well.com
Subject: Re:  CM> Hacker 1 Conference.


Regarding the original Hackers conference (it wasn't called "1" as we didn't
add the numbers until the idea of reviving the conference got serious), a
very nice 1-hour PBS special was made of it; I have a U-Matic copy of this
(given to me by Fabrice Florin, who created it) and assuming the very likely
permission from him I'm sure copies can be made available.

The shirts were in fact designed by Scott Kim, and he continued to do them
for several more years, until the conference chair decided to start doing
the designs himself.....  The Hackers 10 shirt was basically an embroidered
reprise of the original shirt also.

I have lots and lots of lore to share about the Hackers conferences.  Even
though I wasn't at the original, I can share a lot of info about that one
as well from what I picked up from people who were there.  E.g., it was
held in Marin at some old buildings that used to belong to the Army, and
there was a mad scramble at one point to try to find a generator when the
power went out during a storm.  And so on.

[Moderator: Maybe you could begin by explaning what the point of the first
conference was, who organized it, and what happened.]

--
 Robert Bickford      "A Hacker is any person who derives joy from
  rab@well.com        discovering ways to circumvent limitations." rab'86
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"I recognize that a class of criminals and juvenile delinquents has
taken to calling themselves 'hackers', but I consider them irrelevant
to the true meaning of the word; just as the Mafia calls themselves
'businessmen' but nobody pays that fact any attention."            rab'90
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:16:45 -0700
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From: darrahs@BUCKS.EDU (SUSAN DARRAH)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Lists, WINE...WINOS?
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Sender: darrahs@bucks.edu (SUSAN DARRAH)
Subject: WINE...WINOS?

I just have to ask one question:  what was (is?) discussed on the list
WINE (or is it WINOS?) -- the merits of California Chardonnay v. French
Chablis?  Or what?

And, well, maybe I have more than one question.  Who
started the list?  Why?  Who joined?  What really was discussed?  What
year was it started?  Was it really started before S-F Lovers?  What
was the *first* list?

This, if I can take a little more time, leads me to a more general question
about lists:  how soon after lists became more common did subscribers
begin to think that email was different from other forms of written
communication, with its own developing protocol/etiquette?

Thanks,
Susan Darrah
darrahs@bucks.edu
Writing Center Director
Bucks County Community College
Newtown, PA 18926
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 23:05:19 -0700
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From: "Woody Franke" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> IBM accounting machines, FARGO.
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Sender: "Woody Franke" 
Subject: cpsr-history posting

My programming experience began in 1964 on what was then called "unit record"
equipment.  Remember the IBM 402 and 407 accounting machines?  Or the card
sorters, 80-80 gang punch, and collators?  I began programming the IBM 1401
then as well.  Does anyone remember what the acronym FARGO stood for?  I wrote
code in it as well as Autocoder and Easycoder, a similar language for the
Honeywell 200.  In those days T-shirts were Fruit-of-the-Loom underwear; not
advertising billboards.
                                    Woody Franke
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 23:10:53 -0700
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From: David Fiedler 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Usenet ASCII Maps
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Sender: David Fiedler 
Subject: Usenet ASCII Maps

My first Unix machine was connected to Usenet via UUCP in 1983 or so. At
that time, topology maps were posted as ASCII, with lines drawn between
computers to indicate connections. Would anyone out there have a copy of one
of those maps for reminiscence purposes, especially if it has the node
"infopro" on it? Thanks in advance.
--
                     David Fiedler, InfoBahn Warrior
               Editor-in-Chief, Web Developer Magazine
      PO Box 220, Rescue CA 95672 Phone: 916/677-5870
david@webdeveloper.com <--> http://www.webdeveloper.com/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 23:07:03 -0700
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From: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Hacker 1 Conference.
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Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> Hacker 1 Conference.

>[Moderator: Maybe you could begin by explaning what the point of the first
>conference was, who organized it, and what happened.]

An excellent suggestion!

The nice folks at the Point Foundation and Whole Earth Review got very
interested in the collection of personalities presented in Steven Levy's
book _Hackers: The Heroes of the Computer Revolution_.  The way that
Matthew McClure once described it to me, they wanted to "get these folks
together for a weekend and see what happened".  While there were many
folks involved in organizing the event, other than Matthew the only names
that I am certain of are Levi Thomas, who was working for Whole Earth at
the time, and Lee Felsenstein: I know that both helped organize the event.
We would do well to get Matthew on this list, if he's willing (mmc@well.com)
or of course one of the others, for a more first-person account.

Beyond just bringing together a couple hundred very smart people for a
weekend and then standing back and watching  ;-)  I don't think that the
Point / Whole Earth people had any "point" in mind.

I frequently space on the name of the location, but assuming I'm not doing
that now, it was Fort Baker.  In any case, I know *where* it was: inside
the GGNRA in southern Marin County (CA).  One of the neater pictures that
I saw of the conference was of the people setting up the chow line on some
tables outdoors; I believe the building in the background of that picture
was one of the old Army barracks.

One of the cooler things done as part of the conference itself was this
multi-player "PONG" game setup where the paddles were "summed".  A brief
shot of this made it into the PBS video that Fabrice created (which I
mentioned in my previous email).

Beyond that, and the power outage followed by a frantic search for a
generator which I already mentioned, it seems to me that everything else
of interest was various conversations that were repeated to me, and I'm
realizing now that those would be much better gotten from first-person
memories rather than mine.  So perhaps I have less to contribute about
the first conference than I thought.......

--
  Robert Bickford          rab@well.com
  http://www.well.com/user/rab/
______________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________
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From: John Oliver 
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Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud
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Sender: John Oliver 
Subject: Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud

In recent years, as histories of the early days of personal computing have
been presented in various magazines, I have watched in vain for any mention
of Wayne Green.  My memory is not precise but I recall the advent of
Kilobaud ... for some time my preferred info source (until replaced in my
heart by Creative Computing).  I vaugely recall that Wanye had been
associated in some fashion with the creation of Byte, but separated from
Byte for some reason, and (after being denied the use of "Kilobyte") started
Kilobaud.  This is probably all muddled ... can someone contribute more info?
--
John Oliver http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver
 ... keeper of the [Netscape Navigator] UFAQ
     http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/faq/
______________________________________________________________________
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From: Home Reitwiesner 
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Subject: CM> Pronunciation of ENIAC
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Sender: Home Reitwiesner 
Subject: Pronunciation of ENIAC

When I went to the 50th anniversary of ENIAC in Philadelphia in February
1996, I was surprised by the pronunciation of the name ENIAC - they said
it as if the E was the E in DENY.  Those of us who worked on ENIAC almost
50 years ago said it with the E as in ENJOY.  I asked Kay (McNulty), the
widow of John Mauchley, and she was as confused as I.

Home McAllister Reitwiesner (hreitwie@capaccess.org)
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From: Ersatzzz@aol.com
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: Ersatzzz@aol.com
Subject: VaporWHERE?


  I'm just starting to research an article for a New York
  weekly about the history and practice of vaporware.
  I suspect it also might be a interesting topic of
  discussion for the (dis)assembled multitudes here on
  CommMem.

  Clearly, the tactic of announcing a non-existant product
  (or armament, for that matter) to either discourage
  the competition, or force them to divert precious
  resources toward an unproductive goal, is not an
  invention of the computer industry. I'm interested,
  though, both in early examples of vaporware, as
  well as more recent examples. Generally, it seems
  Microsoft is often the company pointed to as a repeat
  offender in this area, but this is obv. an industry-wide
  problem.

       Sam Pratt (Esquire magazine, et al.)
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From: Frank McConnell 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud
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Sender: Frank McConnell 
Subject: Re: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud

John Oliver  asked about the beginnings of Kilobaud.
I wasn't there, but below is the story I recall being told (copied from an
article I posted to alt.folklore.computers a couple of weeks ago).
Corrections would of course be welcome.

Keith Morgan - Imonics Corporation  wrote:
>[...] aax@ix.netcom.com(ANDREW GRYGUS ) writes:
>> If I recall correctly, it was originally named "Kilobyte", the result
>> of a bitter divorce in which the "other half" kept Byte magazine.
>> Cooler heads prevailed and the name was changed.
>
>Nope, both Byte & Kilobyte were in publication at the same time.  The name was
>changed after Byte's lawyers started threatening trademark violation lawsuits,
>saying Kilobyte was a bit too close to Byte.

As I recall, the story went something like this: Wayne Green started
Byte, but arranged that his wife Virginia owned it in order to
reduce the tax liability.  They divorced; she kept the magazine and
seemed to be making a go of it.  Wayne was not happy about this, and
started soliciting for his new magazine "Kilobyte".  Byte ran a filler
comic with this title to establish the name as their trademark.
(The comic appeared as Kil O'Byte in the table of contents but had the
title KILOBYTE(TM), started in the October 1976 issue on page 106, and
continued into at least the first two issues of 1977 -- it was a
pun-filled Star Trek parody, among other things, and I simply don't
have the stomach to look further.)  And when Wayne's new magazine
appeared, it was with the title "Kilobaud" and cover date January
1977.

-Frank McConnell
 
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: Carl Ellison 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Poitner to Net Timeline, correction.
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Sender: Carl Ellison 
Subject: Re: CM> Poitner to Net Timeline

At 11:16 PM 7/8/96 -0700, Robert H'obbes' Zakon wrote:
>
>Sender: "Robert H'obbes' Zakon" 
>Subject: Re: Net Timeline
>
>Hobbes' Internet Timeline:
>        http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html

Good stuff.

I have a correction, however.

Our node at the U of Utah, when it first came up on the net, was running a
DEC 10 system prior to TENEX.  I forget the name of the OS, but it was DEC's
plain vanilla PDP-10 time sharing OS, as modified by us.  We did network
code development on that system.  I don't believe we got a copy of TENEX
before 1971.

[My piece of that network code on the original PDP-10 system was the
interprocess communication mechanism and pseudo-ttys.]

 - Carl

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison          cme@cybercash.com   http://www.clark.net/pub/cme |
|CyberCash, Inc., Suite 430                   http://www.cybercash.com/    |
|2100 Reston Parkway           PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 |
|Reston, VA 22091              Tel: (703) 620-4200                         |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 23:28:05 -0700
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From: Richard Brodie 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware", Esther Dyson?
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Sender: Richard Brodie 
Subject: RE: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

I believe "vaporware" was coined by Esther Dyson in her industry
newsletter RELease 1.0 to describe Microsoft Windows, which was
announced before a line of code was written and shipped 3 years later
(to the day, it was my birthday Nov 10!).

Richard Brodie  RBrodie@brodietech.com  +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA USA
http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is? http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 23:31:47 -0700
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From: "christopher f. chiesa" 
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: "christopher f. chiesa" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."



On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 Ersatzzz@aol.com wrote:

>   I'm just starting to research an article for a New York
>   weekly about the history and practice of vaporware.
>   [...]
>   Microsoft is often the company pointed to as a repeat
>   offender in this area, but this is obv. an industry-wide
>   problem.

Five to ten years ago, at least in the circles in which _I_ moved, Atari
and Digital Equipment Corporation were both frequently cited for repeated
"vaporware" announcements...  "Cited," meaning that their names came up
frequently in the context of frustrated conversations among users
anticipating products which never appeared...

Chris Chiesa
______________________________________________________________________
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 23:34:04 -0700
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From: FringeWare News Network 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> producer of the famous Cap'n Crunch whistle?
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Hi...here's a note from FringeWare that might be appropirate for CM....
  --A.J. Wright//meds002@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Sent from: boris@well.com (Boris Groendahl)

Hi,

I hope this query will find its way into the FringeWare mailing list.

I luckily purchased one of the famous Cap'n Crunch whistles for an
exhibition about hacker culture in the museum I am working for. Now I
have to write an object description for this whistle.

The description of its alternative functionality is quite well
documented. But there is still a blank field on my card: the field where
producer, location of the producer, year of production of the described
item have to be filled in.

Quaker Oats, the producer of Cap'n Crunch cereals, proved extremely
uncooperative on this issue. Their PR manager told me he didn't want to
stir this thing up, given the criticism they received back in the
seventies. I don't buy they received any criticism for that reason, but
anyway.

Who produced this whistle?

Any ideas?

TIA,

Boris.

-+----+------------------- Boris Groendahl
-----+----+-+------++----- Texte Und Konzepte Fuer Medien
-+------------------------ boris@well.com
---------------------+---- voice +49-30-68 83 43 58
-----+-------------------- facsimile +49-30-68 83 43 57
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 23:24:37 -0700
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From: John Clark 
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: John Clark 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."



On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 Ersatzzz@aol.com wrote:

> I'm interested,
>   though, both in early examples of vaporware, as
>   well as more recent examples.


I've worked in telecomm startup's my whole career. In this
business, until recently, you had three clients, The Telephone Co.,
Banks and the Gov. so there's lots of room for deception. The usual grand
stunt I've seen pulled, is the affair, in which boxes are built with
blinking lights, and passed off as working product. This is common practice,
mostly the software works (sort of) but the hardware doesn't, so you get
another platform (like a PC) run the target code on it, and use a carefully
hidden connector to do the switcheroo. The cool product gos on top of the
display and the PC is under the table, or in a back room somewhere.
Once i saw this done with a cool ISDN video phone that was basically
brain dead. The real engine was a haywire board inside a monster PC.
The thing was so hot you could fry an egg on it! But no one ever
looked under the table and the trade show was a big success. In another
life i saw a small company saved by giving a realistic demo of a
sophisticated data link protocol, with real end user equipment that
actually required  the protocol to operate. The whole thing was a complete
hoax, but the investors bought into it, and the company is still in business
today.

P.S. The data link protocol, finally, really did get developed and
is a standard and everything, can anyone guess?

>Generally, it seems  Microsoft is often the company pointed to as a
>repeat   offender in this area,

Jonny come lately's if you ask me.

> but this is obv. an industry-wide
>   problem.

I'm not sure it's a problem. Look, what we have here is a very
innovative industry. We move very fast and thats how we stay ahead.
Sometimes its necessary, and desirable to release things prematurely
to see if there is really a market.

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 23:20:20 -0700
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From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud.
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Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: Re: Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud

        John Oliver's curiosity about the absence of Wayne Greene (gee, I
automatically added an "e" after the "n," and maybe that's right) from the
list matches my own. I haven't communicated with Wayne in at least ten
years, and have no idea what, if anything, he's up to.
        With luck, our moderator will drop or cut this post if more reliable
information comes in, but as I understand it from stories that came to me
casually...
        Wayne was big on ham radio, and for some years produced a magazine
for radio amateurs, becoming well established as a publisher.
        Carl Helmers was an early personal computer fancier who, in 1975,
with the advent of the MITS Altair, produced a technical newsletter for the
new field of personal computers. The newsletter reportedly developed a
following, and it seemed to hold promise as the basis for a full-fledged
magazine.
        Somehow, Carl and Wayne got together to create the magazine from the
newsletter, and BYTE came upon the scene with Carl as editor. (Don't know
whether this preceeded or followed David Ahl's CREATIVE COMPUTING...which
was originally based on the small DEC PDP systems, not yet quite "personal
computers," and don't know whether the BYTE name was already established
with the newslatter, or came with the magazine.) BYTE was a hot property,
and grew rapidly.
        By some time in 1976, things had grown awkward in the little
publishing family there in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and there was a
great out between Wayne and Carl. Somehow, Wayne was out of BYTE, but his
wife Virginia was the new publisher, and Carl remained editor.
        Not to take this lying down, Wayne began to publish a competitive
magazine, called KILOBYTE, nominally a thousand times better than BYTE. That
caused a major hassle, and Wayne was prevented from using the name, so he
called tha magazine KILOBAUD.
        David Bunnell commented once that it must be fun to stand around the
lobby of the post office in little Peterborough, watching the warring
factions confront each other as they came in to pick up the mail.
        KILOBAUD stayed in publication for some years, but faded as BYTE
flourished, and became part of the McGraw Hill publishing empire. (I've more
than once heard BYTE described as the best technical journal ever published.)
        Wayne did a series of magazines of various kinds, all, I think, in
that odd four-columns-per-page format to which he was attached, believing
studies that said the narrow columns had been proved easiest to read. His
contribution to popular technology has been significant and colorful.
        One story said that when he'd set up KILOBYTE, he promoted the new
venture by running without charge all the of the ads that had run in the
most recent issue of BYTE, hoping to win the hearts and business of those
advertisers. Unluckily, the business was even then changing so fast that
much of the information in the ads was incorrect, just two months later, and
the advertisers had to straighten out a lot of confusion. Some were
indignant, and complained to Wayne. To make them feel better (the
unconfirmed story goes), he
gave them another freebie, running the ads without charge again, and
compounding the confusion mightily.
        Wayne's ham radio activities made him a celebrity worldwide in
amateur radio circles, and last time we communicated, he was traveling
around China, hobnobbing with high level folks who happened also to be hams.
        Again, I'd have to dig through old notebooks and artefacts to find
the names of people who should also be identified here. They're on the tip
of my tongue, but...

--Nels Winkless

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
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______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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