Happenings

Abstract

The Happenings department reports on events-past, present, and future-that are of particular interest to the history of computing. Of primary importance are recent meetings that are of historical significance. Few meetings concentrate so/e/y on history, but many contain sessions that can be recorded in this department. Organizers of historical sessions and meetings are urged to appoint a person with the specific responsibility of writing a report and submitting it to this department. They are further encouraged to tape-record sessions and to create a photographic record that can be deposited with one of the computer archival establishments, such as the Charles Babbage Institute, the Computer Museum, or the Smithsonian Institution. Conference planners are specifically referred to Appendix B, Conference Organization, in " History of Programming Languages " [i?ichard L. Wexelblat description of the preliminary steps that may be taken to obtain and record historical materials presented in a conference setting. This department will also present news and notices of forthcoming activities that are of historical value. These may include conferences, exhibits, projects, awards, publications, and general memorabilia. Contributions should consist of a brief description of the activity, highlighting its specific relevance. Finally, this department will contain citations of prominent dates in the history of computing. Readers are welcome to submit suggestions. These must include the day, month, and year of the event, and should be accompanied by a statement of the source used for verification. Included in the displays were three items which were of historical significance. The University of Iowa prepared a small presentation on the contributions of John A display concerning the development of the Atanasoff-Berry computer by the University of Iowa at the 1989 ACM Computer Science Conference. Vincent Atanasoff to the field, including some of the reconstructed pieces of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) which were prepared for the Honeywell versus Sperry-Rand suit (see Annals, Vol. 6, No. 3). A second display consisted of parts of a UNIVAC I which had been located in a garage and which is believed to have been the first nongovernment (or first industrial) system delivered. The display included the main console, a UNITYPER, UNITAPE, and a delay line memory unit. Examining the records of UNIVAC I installations, prepared by Carl Hammer for the 1981 NCC Pioneer Day held in Chicago, this would appear to be system number 8 which was shipped to General Electric Corporation in Louisville in January 1954. Hammer lists …