[SPG_Active_Members] Re: [1401_interest] Fwd: [1401_founders]
First computer literacy class?
Paul Lasewicz
lasewicp at us.ibm.com
Fri Jan 6 13:16:07 PST 2012
Generally I keep my yap shut, preferring to soak up to the stunning
collective knowledge y'all bring to the table in these dialogues. But I
would be remiss if we didn't place the discussion of computer literacy in
the larger context of IBM's efforts to raise academic and public awareness
of how computers worked, and how they could be applied not to crushing
mankind beneath cold, uncaring metal robotic feet, but as tools to serve
man in the pursuit of knowledge, corporate wealth, and easier ways to do
things. It's a continuous theme at IBM from the very beginning of the
tabulating business (IBM's education program started in 1916 specifically
to capture and spread knowledge of established, new, and potential EAM
applications in various industries). But that's far afield from the
original conversation about PC literacy classes in the 1980s.
Still, closer to computer era, you can easily thread from the Watson Lab
at Columbia in the mid-1930s, to the pro bono use of the SSEC at 590
Madison and the scientific calculation classes at Columbia and the hosting
of computer symposiums in the late 1940s, to the support of user groups
and the film linked below and Arthur Samuel's appearance on the Today show
with his checker-playing program and Fred's ski lessons in the 1950s, to
exhibits like Mathematica and the IBM Pavilion at the NY World Fair in the
1960s, and so on right up to Watson on Jeopardy. This was a consistent
company effort to portray computers to academics and the public as forces
for good with real life relevance. And oh, by the way, as an interesting
career for those with skills in math, science, and engineering. Which of
course, y'all know already. :-) Enjoy the film!
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/36736/the-eames-ibm-and-the-dawn-of-computing/
P~
Paul C. Lasewicz
IBM Corporate Archivist
914/766-0611
lasewicp at us.ibm.com
Find IBM History online at www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history
"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But
what most people think of as history is its end product, myth." E. L.
Doctorow
From: Peter Capek <capek at ieee.org>
To: Rick Dill <rdill at cyburban.com>
Cc: Robert B Garner/Almaden/IBM at IBMUS, scc_active at computerhistory.org,
1401_all at computerhistory.org, JHMcCarthy at aol.com,
mcclure at computerhistory.org, davebradley at nc.rr.com, jon.pearce at sjsu.edu,
franklin.stan at gmail.com, ted at designworlds.com
Date: 01/06/2012 02:52 PM
Subject: [SPG_Active_Members] Re: [1401_interest] Fwd:
[1401_founders] First computer literacy class?
Sent by: scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org
Rick -- My recollection -- and I think I may have something which
documents it -- is that IBM was teaching its customers
about computers earlier than the mid-70s. I think mid-60s is a closer
estimate. I presume it was all in the service of
sales, but I think Ken Powell was involved.
Fred - I'm curious whether you can recall any discussion with the IBM
execs about issues other than the mechanics of computers
and assembler programming. For example, were the issues of what is
computable, or what an algorithm is, or in what directions
languages and compilers might evolve, ever raised? By your estimate
this would have been after FORTRAN had
been delivered and met with some success, but before COBOL and Algol 60
were under way, so I'm curious whether that would have
entered into the discussions. (And I fully realize that this was A Long
time ago....)
Peter
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Rick Dill <rdill at cyburban.com> wrote:
On the business end, the first "computer literacy" courses I know of were
led by Ken Powell, who worked for IBM Education. Ken was very much a
self-starter. In the mid 1970's he put together a team to teach computer
literacy to IBM executives. This was before there was a real IBM PC
project. He engaged any executive for whatever time he could get (from a
couple of hours to multiple days)
It started with simple exercises .. writing instructions on paper and
handing them around to illustrate the concepts of a program .. and went on
from there. IBM execs at the time knew about selling computers, but had
no clue about how they worked. It ended up (if there was time)
programming a KIM. I think it helped soften up management to allow the PC
to proceed.
I was aware of this because the the other three on the team worked for me
and I gave them time from their research to do it. At that time, my
department focus was on display technology, but we had number of
interesting computer projects including a WYSIG display that could produce
a full page of formatted text, far in advance of the LISA.
Ken earlier put together a project to get "personal computers" into the
hands of people at home and see what they did. I signed up and he got a
few of us Sphere computers. I couldn't get the memory in mine to remember
long enough to get much done, but others had better success.
Rick .. who spent 45 years in IBM .. mostly, but not all technology
p.s. my first computer literacy course came in the summer of 1954 when I
was a summer student at IBM in Poughkeepsie. At that time, the company
took its vacation together and the new employees and summer students spent
three weeks in class learning about IBM. R. K. Richards taught a course
on computers (701 era) using the pre-prints from a book he was writing.
That was an era when they handed out boolean minimization problems to
groups of people to see who could come up with the best solution.
On 1/5/2012 5:46 PM, JHMcCarthy at aol.com wrote:
Ron: I cannot personally attest to knowing any college level classes
before 1982, but I am sending your inquiry to Dr Dave Bradley for his
input. Regards ---- Jud
Justin (Jud) McCarthy
251 SW 9th Ave
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Home (561)391-1422 Cell: (561)504-7048
[snip]
[
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