What the “early digital” does, is rethinking the technologies of computation within a broader frame. The Springer History of Computing series very much welcomes the broadening of scope exemplified by the present volume. Mirroring the development of the history of computing as a scholarly field, the series has already expanded beyond histories of computer science, computer business and computer manufacturing to include analysis of the sociological and cultural dimensions of computing. In a broad sense history of computing has come to cover the history of the practices of computing, and so too has this series.
Then does not a volume centered on early computing machinery imply a return to a narrower history of computing? Here is the secret of this book. It returns to some of the subjects familiar from the early days of the scholarly history of computing, to study them in a new light. The editor of the present book, Tom Haigh, has lead the way this process in his previous work with Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope. Their perspectives on ENIAC (in the book ENIAC in Action) and Colossus (in a series of articles currently in press) have stripped away what seemed self-evident about these machines to earlier historians. Analysis by Priestley on Von Neumann’s Routines of Substitution is appearing as a SpringerBrief in the History of Computing series.
Liberated from the knowledge of what was “only natural” about those machines and unburdened by commitments to declaring which machines should count as computers, let alone be the “first computer” , they were able to present the ENIAC to the reader as an ensemble of practices of constructing and using computational devices. That object now stands before us in a fresh mode. A historian freed from the assumptions of the computer scientist can show how certain words and notions gradually evolved in relation to the use of those pieces of technology.
The scholarly goal of “decentering the computer” has been much discussed in the history of computing community. To me, decentering implies staying away from anybody’s definition or demarcation. It means looking at the historical pieces without assuming that they were a computer.
Now suppose a bunch of historians got together and took a similarly fresh look a set of historical objects which they had not necessarily deemed “computers” before. This is what the authors for this book did. They further decentered the computer, by presenting it as one in a set of things, artifacts entangled with digitality.
By rethinking their trade, and decentering twice, historians have reached an interesting new intellectual point. They have also reached a new physical place: the German town of Siegen. Siegen University has been the venue of workshops and conferences initiated by Erhard Schüttpelz and his colleagues. This book is the outcome of not only conceptually combining ideas, it is the genuine product of bringing people together.
Scholars of media share an inclination to treat the technological side of media with overdue reverence. All of media studies? Those in the venerable German town of Siegen are welcome exceptions. The black boxes of the “inter” are opened. Computers, software, networks are critically researched. If historians of computing are broadening their frame, these students of media are offering a proper setting for such broader scope. Welcoming Tom Haigh to Siegen has deepened and supported its intellectual endeavors. His diplomacy convinced an impressive crew of historians of computing to follow suit and enter dialog with an equally impressive media studies team for the cross fertilization of ideas. We are proud to present the resulting book as a contribution to the two series of Springer books.
Gerard Alberts, editor Springer Series History of Computing