ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Experimenting with Data. Innovation, Hacks and Failures Before Standards

• In Event: CTRL ALT SHIFT. Expériences, Knowledge, Activism, Methods - 1

English Abstract

Managing data in early computer projects was very physical, localized and contextualized: data was stored, moved, and interpreted differently on a case-by-case basis. Input/output devices were often the slowest, least reliable, and most experimental parts of a computer system; rarely compatible, programs and data were tied to each machine’s architecture, they were not standardized, e.g. each machine had its own word size and codes; programmers, operators and engineers had to use their own ingenuity to optimize every process due to the physical and technological limitations in capability and size. Data was fed manually, punched on paper tape and cards, or recorded on magnetic tapes and usually prepared offline; the lack of industry standards (and of a proper large scale industry) meant each system or series of machines had unique physical structures and interfaces. Experimentation thrived precisely because of such lack of standards, and a lot of early ideas were either based on developments in the sciences in a mutual circulation of knowledge, skills and solutions but also bound to design and commercial failures. Each company experimented with the established pre-computing data processing in the way they thought would be more precise, efficient, and appealing to their customers: magnetic tape carousels, squared holes, early optical mark recognition systems, but also experimental ways of interacting with computers. Based on archival material, oral histories, and preserved artifacts in museums and collections, the talk will provide examples from a variety of computer projects and companies in the early European computer scene; and it will show how these instances, failed experiments, or successes contributed on the one hand to a thriving intellectual community of scientists, engineers and researchers; and on the other to the establishment of the ECMA, the European Computers Manufacturers Association in 1961.

Author

• Elisabetta Mori, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona