Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
off their entries into the computer era. Of course, terrorism reversed this trend, and
computers are now located out of sight in secure buildings.
The SSEC was the first operational computer to be put on public display, and it
garnered IBM a great deal of favorable publicity. Partly to present a clean appear-
ance to pedestrians passing by, the SSEC computer was the first to inspire the use
of raised floors with cables hidden from view.
Several famous software pioneers were programmers on the SSEC, including
John Backus, Herb Grosch, and Ted Codd, later to become famous as the inventor
of the relational database concept.
IBM filed a patent on the stored-program capabilities of the SSEC; this patent
was later upheld and remains a basis for storing programs and data.
Computers in the Postwar Era
Germany surrendered to the Allies on May 8, 1945, which is now called V-E Day
and stands for Victory in Europe. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, V-J Day
(Victory over Japan). These surrenders ended the immediate hostilities between
the Allies and the Axis powers, but they did not reduce the need for either analog
or digital computers for military use.
Soon after the end of hostilities, tensions began to occur between the Soviet
Union and its former allies. By 1947, this tension had started to be called “the Cold
War” and this state of mutual hostility lasted until 1991.
A group of computer engineers meeting in New York at Columbia University
on September 15, 1947, decided to form the Association of Computing Machinery
(ACM), which is an important business association of computer manufacturers.
This organization has become one of the largest technical associations in the
world. Its original mission statement is still valid today: “The purpose of this or-
ganization would be to advance the science, development, and construction and
the application of the new machinery for computing, reasoning, and other hand-
ling of information.” There are currently about 100,000 ACM members and 170
regional and local chapters. Because of the diversity of computer and software
technologies, there are numerous special interest groups (SIGs) within the ACM
umbrella. Currently, there are about thirty-five of these SIGs.
Many of the SIGs are famous in their own right, and their conferences are
often venues where interesting new inventions surface. Among the special interest
groups are SIGCOM for communications, SIGGRAPH for graphical topics, and
SIGPLAN for programming languages.
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