KDI: Building a Future for Software History

随着计算机在社会中变得无处不在，计算机的历史记录了机器的发展。然而，它在很大程度上忽略了机器中的幽灵——创建和限制其操作的软件。虽然在过去的二十年里，在计算的历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，但还没有类似的学者讨论软件开发的很大程度上不可见的演变。新的软件程序建立在过去的软件之上，并且常常在某些方面受到它们的限制，就像珊瑚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，很难找到。随着第二次世界大战后早期软件开发人员和实践者年龄的增长，收集、开发和使用主要资源来撰写软件技术历史的机会将日益减少。这项资助——授予查尔斯巴贝奇研究所（CBI）——支持多方面的努力，利用基于网络的技术收集和传播有关软件历史的信息，以扩大对这一领域的理解，促进高质量的学术研究。CBI正在通过一系列计划来实现这一目标，这些计划涉及软件从20世纪40年代后期的起源到现在的历史。这些包括软件技术和术语的历史词典，采访先驱软件开发人员的口述历史倡议，以及软件历史的在线期刊。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，以生产词典的组成部分。这个网络将把技术实践者、管理人员、历史学家和档案保管员结合起来，并作为发展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.