History of Computing
Steve Maurer, UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy
Geoff Voelker, UCSD Computer Science & Engineering
Final Project
Version of 10/25
For your final project, we would like you to form teams of between 2 and 5 students, explore in depth a topic of your choice related to the History of Computing, and submit a report of between 15 and 25 pages. In keeping with the spirit of the course, your report should explore the “why” as well as the “what,” and should attempt to distill lessons of broad applicability. Attempt to consider factors such as markets, consumer preferences, government policies, and other dynamics that aren’t solely technological.
An ideal project would be sufficiently original that you would produce a Wikipedia entry on your topic (or significantly augment an existing Wikipedia entry) which you would turn in along with your report.
It would be great to do some “oral history” – interview a participant, and provide detailed notes along with your writeup.
The choice of topic is entirely up to you and your team members. (Some ideas are listed below.) It is entirely legit to build upon your “You Be The Expert” topic. The choice of team members is entirely up to you, although we would like to encourage multi-campus collaborations.
Important dates
By Monday November 6 at midnight: submit (to the three instructors and the TA) a list of team members (with their institutional affiliations), your topic title, and a one-paragraph description of the topic. (5% of project grade)
By Monday November 20 at midnight: submit (to the three instructors and the TA) a 5-page detailed outline of your report, and clearly describe the division of responsibilities among the team members. (10% of project grade)
By Wednesday December 6 at midnight: submit (to the three instructors and the TA) your final report. (85% of project grade)
Some possible
topics
1.
Study the history of
the use of computing in a particular application domain – banking, Wall Street,
aircraft design, etc.
2.
Study the impact of
computing on a particular aspect of society (e.g., entertainment, medicine,
trade and commerce, politics, etc.).
3.
Study a specific
system or technology or event and its impact/legacy: ENIAC, System/360, the commercialization of the
Internet, the x86 instruction set, the mouse, Xerox PARC, etc.
4.
Study the impact on
computing of some major event (WW II, terrorism, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, etc.).
5.
Study a failed
product, service, or prediction in computing.
For example, what caused the “Internet bubble” and what were its
short-term and long-term implications?
6.
Describe a potential
alternate history if some event had not influenced computing (e.g., WW II), if
some company had behaved differently (if IBM had closed the PC platform or
purchased MS/DOS; if Microsoft had not attempted to integrate the browser with
the operating system), if competition had turned out differently (e.g., if the
Mac had dominated the IBM PC), or if some
device/algorithm/application/discovery had not occurred (e.g., the spreadsheet,
the Web browser (ftp remains dominant)).
7.
Write a simulator for
an early computer or computing device.
8.
Study the use of abaci for
computation. Consider: Why didn't mechanical computation
emerge in
9.
Study the history of
word lengths and byte lengths; the relationship to binary/decimal; the
relationship to business/scientific. (For
this and all subsequent topics, be sure not to be 100% “techhy.”
Seek a “puzzle” – something that could
equally have well gone the other way.)
10. Study the history of display technologies. Vector vs. bitmap. Portrait vs. landscape. Color vs. grayscale.
11. Study the history of digital typography.