Computer History Museum

From University Video Communications' catslog: "The need for digital multimedia information processing increases with the use of computers for enhancing communications, in addition to computations. Lee shows how today's microprocessors may be leveraged, with very minor changes, to run multimedia programs significantly faster. This includes definitions and uses of subword parallelism, multiplication and division primitives, and saturation arithmetic. Lee discusses, as a concrete example, the initial minimalistic set of general-purpose multimedia extensions introduced in PA-RISC microprocessors, enabling for the first time, high-fidelity MPEG video and audio decoding achieved by software at real-time rates of 30 frames per second on entry-level workstations."

Type
Moving Image
Format
Digital Betacam
Catalogue number
102624749
Multimedia acceleration with PA-RISC microprocessors

From University Video Communications' catalog: "This talk focuses on programmable logic architecture as an enabling vehicle for fast turn-around design, and the high-level design methodologies that allow this type of design. This combination of enabling technologies supports possibilities that never existed before. Quite often large portions of the design are fixed, and a relatively small portion changes over time. Programmable logic facilitates this kind of methodology by allowing complex design to be updated in a matter of days, if not hours. The IP capability provides "on-call" expert designers, allowing system implementors to focus on the part they know best. HLD methodology is the glue that holds the system together. By using standards, designers can rapidly prototype complex systems."

Type
Moving Image
Format
Betacam SP
Catalogue number
102624778
Design for highly complex programmable logic architectures

This lecture describes “augmenting human intellect,” a key motivational concept for researcher Douglas Engelbart and his team at Stanford Research Institute from the late 1960s onwards. There are four speakers in this lecture: Jeff Rulifson, Bill English, Charles Irby, and Douglas Engelbart. The lecture begins with Jeff Rulifson describing how Engelbart’s technologies were useful in allowing companies to ‘bootstrap themselves’ into enhanced group productivity using tools developed by Engelbart’s team to specifically facilitate communication. This included the use of video conferencing, hypertext, a graphical user interface, email, and online archiving systems. Bill English next describes the evolution of hardware pointing devices at SRI, which he joined in 1964. He notes multiple experiments done with diverse pointing devices including light pens, knee controllers, and joysticks and then describes some of the technical background to the “Mother of all Demos” which took place at Brooks Hall on December 9, 1968 at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. Charles Irby then elaborates on some of this technical background and specifically the integration of text and graphics during the 90-minute demo. Irby worked with Engelbart from 1969-1975 and notes that Englebart’s team considered computers to be more than ‘number crunchers’ but also communication tools and symbol manipulators. In the late 1960s, the Arpanet’s 2nd node was installed at SRI. When Englebart’s lab closed, many of his people went to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in nearby Palo Alto where they continued developing concepts like overlapping windows, icons, a mouse-based GUI, and document editing, this time in the context of the Xerox’s vision of “the office of the future.” Finally, Doug Englebart describes his early years at SRI, where he began by working with Hewitt Crane on magnetic logic systems. He complained of ‘stove piping’ whereby information within an organization is not efficiently shared among the people who need it. Improving the ability of people within organizations to plan and manage change is the cornerstone of Englbart’s vision for improving humankind’s ability to solve ever more complex social, economic, and technical problems.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102638928
Augmenting Human Intellect 35 Years Later

A panel discussion featuring four pioneer developers of Ethernet: Robert Metcalfe, David Boggs, John Shoch, and Ron Crane. This talk details the specifications, standardization, and adoption of Ethernet from the 1970s through the 1980s. Metcalfe begins by recounting the phases of development for Ethernet recounting earlier networking methods at Xerox PARC, the influence of ALOHAnet, and the development of the famous “Ethernet memo” in 1973. Dave Boggs notes that on joining the Office Systems group at PARC, he came to work with Metcalfe on Ethernet, and discusses his role in the collaboration with Metcalfe. John Shoch recounts his arrival at PARC, working for Alan Kay, and the early software he developed for use with the Ethernet system. Ron Crane describes some of the limitations of the early system, and details the design limitations of early transceivers. The panel is peppered by audience questions throughout.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102639147
Ethernet 20th Birthday Early History of the Ethernet

This talk focuses on the various technologies deployed by computer manufacturers since the early 1950s and how these developments were reflected in the computing environment at Livermore Labs. As one of the nation's premier government laboratories, Livermore has often been the first in line to receive the most advanced computing systems of the day. In 1964, for example, it took delivery of S/N/ #1 of the CDC 6600, perhaps the signle most influential computer ever built. The 6600 set the standard for the next twenty years of supercomputer development and also marked the beginning of serious networking at Livermore, with the Octopus networking environment. From Livermore's first Univac in 1953 (which used mercury delay line memory) to the Williams Tube memory in the IBM 701 and the core memory of the IBM 704, this talk presents five Livermore people's perspective on forty years of change in computational methods and machines.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102639186
Early Generations of Computer Hardware at Livermore Labs, 1953-1975

Alan Kay, computer researcher and inventor, recounts the history of Dynabook, an early attempt to create a portable computing system. He begins talking about his influences, including Vannevar Bush’s MEMEX, the writings of Robert Heinlein, Douglas Engelbart, the MIT LINC project, J.C.R. Licklider’s work for ARPA, and the Burroughs 220 computer. He shows several film segments, including pieces of Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad film, work at the Rand Corporation, and a demonstration of the Smalltalk programming environment, and Dynabook concepts from 1973. Kay recalls his time at the University of Utah under Dave Evans and Bob Barton. An extended segment of an animation program is shown, demonstrating the kinds of programs children were creating with Smalltalk. Kay concludes by describing the NoteTaker portable computer.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102639873
Dynabook, The Complete Story

Recorded during a joint meeting of the Silicon Valley Special Interest Group in Graphics (SIGGRAPH) and Bay Area Computer Perspectives, speakers John Warnock (Adobe), Ed Catmull (Pixar), Frank Crow (Apple), and Lance Williams (Apple) discuss their various experiences at the University of Utah, a center for computer graphics research. Warnock begins by recounting the founding of the Utah graphics lab, and the individuals who moved on to bring Utah’s graphics techniques to Silicon Valley. Catmull discusses his early experiences as a student, including stories of his classes with Alan Kay, and screens his 1972 student film The Computer Animated Hand, and tells of his interactions with his advisor, Ivan Sutherland. Crow displays a series of slides of computer graphics and of University of Utah, including work by Warnock, Bui Tuong-Phong, and Ron Resch, as well as the lab environments and the devices used there like the DEC PDP-10 computer, Evans & Sutherland frame buffers, drum scanners, line drawing systems, and a specially-built film recorder. Williams discusses work by Jef Raskin, including the FLOW language, and compares the work being done at Utah with Ohio State, and reads a paper he wrote from roughly 1975 describing his vision of the requirements for advancing computer graphics. Following the presentation is an extended audience question and answer session, followed by a screening of 15 minutes of student work from University of Utah in the late 1970s. There are some minor audio problems throughout the video.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102639874
The Inception of Computer Graphics at the University of Utah

This is the second video in a series on floating point arithmetic, featuring presentations by David Bailey (NASA Ames Research Center), Joel Boney (Hal Computer), Jerome Coonen (Apple Computer), Harsh Sharangani (Intel), William Kahan (UC Berkeley), and Brian Wong (Sun Microsystems). Boney begins by presenting his work at Motorola, including his work on the 68000-series floating point chips, and the specifics of the individual chips and difficulties that would face future chip architects. David Bailey then follows by speaking on high-performance applications to floating point processing, as well as looking at the trends in high-performance computers, the potential of home-use of processors to access video information. Sharangani outlines Intel’s involvement in floating point processors, and the coming challenges in consumer chip design. David Hough discusses some of the issues within the IEEE 754 standard for floating point arithmetic. Jerome Coonen looks back at his work on floating point concepts for consumer-end machines at Apple. Brian Wong discusses his experiences working with customers using floating point systems at Sun Microsystems. William Kahan discusses floating point philosophy, use, and promotion within education. The presentations are then followed by twenty minutes of questions from the audience answered by the panel.

Type
Moving Image
Format
VHS
Catalogue number
102639875
Floating Point, Past, Present and Future

Recording of the memorial held at the Computer History Museum to celebrate the live of Chester Gordon Bell.

Type
Moving Image
Format
MOV
Catalogue number
102644053
Celebration of Live of C. Gordon Bell

Recording of Alan Kay's talk titled "Back to the Future of Software Development." This talk is part of Future of Software Development Series.

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102651338
Back to the Future of Software, lecture by Alan Kay

From abstract: "The entrepreneurs who created the first consumer-software companies gather to reminisce about the early days and recall the lessons learned in the founding of a new industry. Scott Cook is co-founder of Intuit; Doug Carlston is co-founder of Broderbund Software; Trip Hawkins is founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO. Stewart Alsop was the publisher of P.C. Letter and founder of the Agenda and Demo conferences. Stewart will moderate an informal discussion of the beginnings of consumer software and the entrepreneurs have promised to bring pictures and products to show and tell for the audience."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102651345
Jurassic Software: A Look Back at The Beginnings of Consumer Software, lecture by Scott Cook et al.

This exceptional Friday afternoon event will feature Gates sharing his thoughts on the theme, Building Confidence in a Connected Marketplace. With the world increasingly operating as a global network, and companies around the world innovating and contributing to its rapid growth, Gates will be discussing with Hennessy his vision of how technology will contribute to commerce and society in the years ahead, the opportunities and challenges facing the technology industry and the shared responsibility to ensure trust in the digital future.

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102651426
Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft, in Conversation With John Hennessy, President of Stanford University, lecture by Bill Gates and John Hennessey

From abstract: "Reid Dennis, founder of Institutional Venture Partners, and Franklin "Pitch" Johnson, founding partner of Asset Management, review their combined 100 years of venture capital experience and observation, from the major mistakes to the spectacular successes. How does venture capital affect innovation? What have we learned? What is really new? Come learn and be entertained by the very personal stories and views of these two legendary venture capitalists."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102651440
Innovation is Nothing New: 100-Odd Years of Venture Capital Wisdom, lecture by Reid Dennis and Pitch Johnson

From abstract: "This year marks the 40th anniversary of Moore's Law, Gordon E. Moore's 1965 observation and prediction about the exponential growth in the power of semiconductor technology. Moore observed that semiconductor technology had doubled in power every year and predicted that it would continue along this developmental path. Originally named Moore's Law several years later by the physicist Carver Mead, that simple observation has proven to be the bulwark of the world's most remarkable industry. In 1975, Moore updated this to a doubling about every two years. History has thus far proven Moore's law correct, and this special conversation between Moore and Mead looks back on the past 40 years on what has made this electronics revolution possible."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102695277
The 40th Anniversary of Moore's Law with Gordon Moore, Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus, Intel, in conversation with Carver Mead, Chairman and Founder, Foveon, lecture by Gordon Moore and Carver Mead

From abstract: "The paper Distributed Computing Economics considers the relative costs of computing resources and the implications this has for distributed system design. Today there is rough price parity between (1) one database access, (2) ten bytes of network traffic, (3) 100,000 instructions, (4) 10 bytes of disk storage, and (5) a megabyte of disk bandwidth. This has implications for how one structures Internet-scale distributed computing: one puts computing as close to the data as possible in order to avoid expensive network traffic. If there is time, the talk will then cover what the architecture we are evolving for the World-Wide Telescope -- a federation of the worlds' astronomy data as a collection of web services accessed via portals."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102703059
Distributed Computing Economics : lecture by Jim Gray

Recordings of Jim Gemmell and Gordon Bell presentation about MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research.

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102703062
My Life Bits, lecture by Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell

From abstract: "The enterprise software industry is searching for the right words to describe the Next Big Thing -- "on demand", "utility", "autonomic", "adaptive enterprise". Pick a buzzword. The goal is information technology that adapts to business requirements, not the other way around. Two technologies are critical to this vision of flexibility: grid computing and web services. The combination of these two technologies is greater than the parts. In fact, it's the Next Big Thing. Now if we can just come up with the right words."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102703064
The Next Big Thing, lecture by Bill Coleman

Recording of Mitch Kapor's lecture titled "Ubiquitous Open Source: What Does It Mean for the Software Industry?" held at the SDForum.

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102703065
Ubiquitous Open Source: "What Does It Mean for the Software Industry?," lecture by Mitch Kapor

From abstract: "Consider the impact auto racing (visibility, technologies) has had on the automotive industry. Computer games have evolved into a similar relationship with the computer industry. Because we get to design the problems that our players face (the game challenges) we have an opportunity to push the boundaries of graphics, user interface, AI, metrics and simulation. What we're currently learning about mapping these abilitites to the psychology of our players will be used in the mainstream software of the future."

Type
Moving Image
Format
DVCAM
Catalogue number
102703078
Lessons in Game Design

In startup history, Hewlett-Packard is the “granddaddy of them all”. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard developed business and management practices we see reflected in Silicon Valley companies today. However, after 77 years of history and seven CEOs, the HP of today looks completely different from the company it was in 1939. How has leadership at Hewlett-Packard enabled the company to transform itself throughout its history? And what can today’s founders learn from the company’s ability to evolve? Becoming Hewlett Packard: Why Strategic Leadership Matters tackles these questions by studying the contributions of each of HP’s CEOs, obtained through 15 years of primary research. Former HP executive Webb McKinney and strategy consultant Philip E. Meza join Museum Center for Software History Director, David Brock for a conversation about the role of leadership in shaping HP and what startups can learn from its history. Webb McKinney began his career at HP when David Packard and Bill Hewlett ran the company. McKinney held numerous engineering management and executive positions at HP, running HP's entry into consumer PCs, and going on to lead its entire PC business. McKinney later led worldwide sales, marketing and supply chains for all of HP's commercial customers. Before retiring from HP in 2003, McKinney was the executive vice president responsible for HP's integration of Compaq. McKinney is currently a consultant in merger integration and leadership development. Philip E. Meza is a strategy consultant and researcher. Much of his consulting work focuses on technology strategy and business development. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Meza is the author of Coming Attractions: Hollywood, High Tech and the Future of Entertainment (2007) and co-author of Strategic Dynamics: Concepts and Cases (2006).

Type
Moving Image
Format
MOV
Catalogue number
102706878
The six transformations of Hewlett-Packard