Projects and Activities of the IPSJ Computer History Committee - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 52

the computers, peripherals, mini and personal computers, and so on, with photographs
and precise descriptions.
In all, eleven categories for the Computer sections were provided. Those categories
were: Early Computers, Mainframes, Supercomputers, Office Computers, Minicom-
puters, Workstations, Personal Computers, Japanese Word Processors, Other
Computers, Peripheral Equipments, and Operating Systems. If we peruse the Early
Computer web pages, there are the chronological lists, and early works by Ryoichi
Yazu, who developed his mechanical calculator in 1902, by Torajiro Omoto, who
started a manufacturing and marketing company for mechanical calculators as early as
1923, etc. Both Japanese and English pages were prepared. The web pages were con-
tinually kept updated and were enhanced by the addition of new items found since the
initial release.
How many items are there in the Virtual Computer Museum? I counted the lines of
the index and got an answer. About 950 items are included in the web site in all. (See
http://museum.ipsj.or.jp/en/)
There are also other web pages for computer pioneers who endeavoured to realize
the practical computer world. About sixty or so people were chosen from the indices
of the above mentioned topics of history as computer pioneers, and their prominent
works in the computer field were uploaded to the web pages, both in Japanese and in
English. If the pioneer was still alive, the text was written by the pioneer himself,
otherwise, one of the disciples or colleagues was asked to contribute.
5 The Oral History Interviews
One urgent mission for the Committee is the oral history collection, i.e., the actual
words spoken by each of the computer pioneers. In fact, less than half of the computer
pioneers are still alive today. Sadly, some of those are already too aged to participate
in interviews. The oral history subcommittee selects three to five candidates each
year, makes arrangements for the interview, and listens to and records the story. Up to
now, about 30 pioneers have already been interviewed.
As expected, the hardest part of this activity is in editing into the final form. There-
fore, many records are still in the editing queue.
6 “My Poetry and Truth,” Pioneers Reminiscences
The number of interviewers for the oral history project averages about five. Only
limited members are allowed to join. On the other hand, the story told by a pioneer
often tends to be quite interesting, and worth being listened to, and which, if possible,
should be heard by a wider audience. From these observations, the Committee
proposed to have special sessions at the Annual Congress of the Society. On each
occasion, a couple of pioneers are given slots to lecture on the works of their
younger days.
Following the autobiography by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “ From My Life:
Poetry and Truth ” (in German, “ Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wharheit” '), the
session was titled as “ My Poetry and Truth ”.