KDI: Building a Future for Software History

随着计算机在社会中变得无处不在，计算的历史记录了机器的发展。然而，它在很大程度上忽视了机器中的幽灵--创建和限制其操作的软件。在过去的20年里，计算机史上出现了一小群学者，他们发表了分析硬件技术的重要著作，但还没有类似的学术研究来探讨软件开发的基本上不可见的演变。新的软件程序建立在过去的软件程序之上，而且往往在某些方面受到它们的限制，就像珊瑚礁的生长受到珊瑚礁的限制一样。这些发展的历史记录仍然存在，但分散，无组织，难以找到。随着第二次世界大战后早期的软件开发者和从业者年龄的增长，收集、开发、使用原始资源来编写软件技术的历史将越来越少。这项授予查尔斯巴贝奇研究所（CBI）的资助支持多个多方面的努力，利用基于网络的技术，收集和传播有关软件历史的信息，以扩大了解，促进这一领域的高质量学术研究。CBI正在通过一系列举措来实现这一目标，以解决软件从20世纪40年代末到现在的历史。其中包括软件技术和术语的历史词典，采访软件开发先驱的口述历史计划，以及软件历史的在线杂志。CBI将在万维网上发布词典、期刊和口头采访记录。查尔斯·巴贝奇研究所还将建立一个研究网络和审查程序，以制作词典组件。该网络将整合技术从业人员、管理人员、历史学家和档案管理员，并作为开发和传播技术和科学史资源的典范。

As computers have become ubiquitous in society, the history of computing has chronicled the development of machines. It has largely overlooked, however, the ghost in the machine - the software that creates and restricts its operations. While a small group of scholars has emerged over the past two decades in the history of computing that has published important works analyzing hardware technologies, there has been no comparable scholarship addressing the largely invisible evolution of software development.New software programs build upon those from the past, and often are constrained by them in certain ways, much as the growth of coral is limited by the coral reef. Historical records of these developments still exist, but are dispersed, unorganized, and difficult to find. As the software developers and practitioners of the early post-World War II era advance in age, the opportunity for collecting, developing, and using primary resources to write the history of software technology will increasingly diminish.This grant - awarded to the Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) - supports a multi-faceted effort using webbased technologies to collect and disseminate information on the history of software to expand understanding and facilitate quality scholarship in this field. CBI is accomplishing this goal through a series of initiatives to address the history of software from its origins in the late-1940s to the present. These include an historical dictionary of software technology and terminology, an oral history initiative to interview pioneering software developers, and an on-line journal of software history. CBI will publish the dictionary, journal, and oral interview transcripts on the World Wide Web.The Charles Babbage Institute will also establish a research network and review process to produce the dictionary component. This network will integrate technical practitioners, managers, historians, and archivists and serve as a model for developing and disseminating resources in the history of technology and science.