class .03

computer history – SAGE and ARPAnet

23.09.2009

#01: time context

-- atomic bomb

-- post war time

-- Cold War

----- former allies become enemies

----- arms race

----- perpetual escalation to keep peace

----- mutually assured destruction (MAD)

-- WW2 over, technology developed, world split in two, threat of the nuclear bomb, arms race between the US and USSR → Cold War→ negative image of technology

-- also the time when new technologies reached everyday life → World Fair in NY in 1939 and 1964 (→ see also: Brussels 1958 → Xenakis/LeCorbusier/Varese; Gsellmann)→ positive image of technology

-- video: “Duck and Cover”, 1951

-- video: “A is for Atom”, 1953

#02: the SAGE system

-- url to MITRE: http://www.mitre.org/about/photo_archives/sage_photo.html

-- predecessor: Whirlwind

----- Navy contracted MIT to develop flight simulator to train their bombers

----- realtime

----- very expensive --> Navy lost interest

----- proposal for use in air-defense

----- radar labs

----- feasibility study (“Project Charles”, 1949)

-- start of the MIT's Lincoln Labs (1954, director: J.C.R.Licklider)

----- http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2008/07/mits-lincoln-labs.html

-- SAGE = Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

----- video + info: http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2008/07/sage-project.html

----- how it worked:

------- each of the SAGE site connected to radar stations

------- radar signal transmitted via telephone lines and modems to computer

------- tracking data displayed on CRT as icons

------- lightpen to interact with icons

---------- lightpen: see Ivan Sutherland: Sketchpad

---------- video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOZqRJzE8xg

------- response

----- first site operational in 1957

----- when system was fully operational, it was outdated already (--> Soviets had switcherd to missiles)

----- most expensive project + largest computer ever built (AN/FSQ-7, built by IBM)

----- incredibly important steps in the development of computer graphics:

------- realtime output on monitor (CRT)

------- lightpen as interaction device

------- backup computer as “dual processor”

------- memory

------- system included long distance communication via telephone lines + modems

#03: ARPAnet

-- 1957: launch of Sputnik (USSR), means “companion”

-- 1958 → ARPA: Advanced Research Projects Agency, space tech; renamed DARPA, then again ARPA, then again DARPA

-- “DARPA’s original mission, established in 1958, was to prevent technological surprise like the launch of Sputnik, which signaled that the Soviets had beaten the U.S. into space. The mission statement has evolved over time. Today, DARPA’s mission is still to prevent technological surprise to the US, but also to create technological surprise for our enemies.”

-- from 1960 on, all space related research was transferred to the newly created NASA (1958)

-- ARPA only occupied with computer science, information processing, behavioural sciences (→ cybernetics) → see R.Barbrook, “Imaginary Futures” about the national spendings on social sciences around this time!

-- cooperation with MIT/Lincoln Labs, Bell Labs and General Electrics

-- connecting computers at universities, which had a common protocol to communicate

-- first internet (started 1969)

----- J.C.R. Licklider at MIT's Lincoln Labs

------- first head of the computer research program at DARPA (his successor was Ivan Sutherland; Sutherland's brother Burt was one of the main developers of the TX-2 computers, btw, → Whirlwind)

------- “Man-Computer Symbiosis”, 1960; http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2009/09/man-computer-symbiosis-jcr-licklider.html

------- series of memos in 1962

----- TX-2 at MIT connected to computer in California → first “internet” (1965)

------- http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2008/07/tx-0-and-tx-2.html

----- dial-up telephone line, circuit switched system → replaced by packet switching

------- packet switches called IMP = Interface Message Processor (concept from MIT, NPL (GB) and Paul Baran's group at RAND → for military, 1964)

----- each server in this network was called a node

------- Kleinrock's institute at UCLA was the first

------- second node at SRI (Douglas Engelbart → inventor of the mouse:

---------- SRI: http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2008/07/sri-international.html

---------- video: “mother of all demos”: http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2009/09/mother-of-all-demos-douglas-engelbart.html

------- third and fourth at UCSB and U of Utah (→ Ivan Sutherland, who worked there at 3d vis.)

----- in 1969: first host comp connected

----- brief history of the beginning of the internet: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml

-- ideas can be traced back to Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think”, 1945

----- first published in the Atlantic Monthly

----- memex (memory + index) = concept of hypertext

------- components: cameras, readers, storage (= microfilm), desk (→ desktop computer)

------- tech. progress to make knowledge more accessible

---------- "Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified."

---------- a link in a memex could be extended + adapted for your own purposes → shared, but also personal → see: Walden's Path project

------- what became of V.Bush's ideas?: “associative trails” --> hypertext, new encyclopedias (→ wikipedia, 2001), semantic web; PCs/desktop, speech recognition, paperless future office

------- inspired the inventors of the internet (selection):

---------- J.C.R. Licklider, MIT, “Man-Computer Symbiosis”, 1960

---------- Ted Nelson, “Project Xanadu”, early 60s, “computer Lib/Dream Machine”

---------- Doug Engelbart, “NLS”, SRI, 1968

---------- Tim Berners-Lee, “World Wide Web”, CERN, 1989/90

---------- video: Hyperland”, Douglas Adams, BBC2, 1990, http://prehysteries.blogspot.com/2009/09/hyperland-douglas-adams-1990.html

#03b: "The Net", Lutz Dammbeck, 2003/04

-- topics include: cybernetics (norbert wiener et al, macy conferences), unabomber (ted kazcynski), counterculture (stewart brand, whole earth catalogue, the well, usco,...), studies of human behaviour @ harvard (murray/leary/LSD; authoritarian bahaviour), internet/ARPAnet
-- website for the documentary, including texts in english and german: http://www.t-h-e-n-e-t.com/start_html.htm

#04: assignment

-- write a short paragraph (~1/3 - 1/2 page) with your impressions and thoughts about "The Net", post it to our ning (prehystories.ning.com);
-- deadline: Tuesday (29th of Sept) evening