Member Appreciation and "Highlights of Computer History"

Bob Fraley, Chair, SF Bay Area Chapter, ACM

Date: Wednesday, 16 February 2005
Time: 6:30pm - refreshments, 7:00pm - talk
Location: Hewlett Packard (see directions), Pruneridge and Wolfe, Cupertino, Bldg. 48, Oak Room.
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend, but membership is only $10/year.

We are deviating from our usual meeting format and instead will start with a "Member Appreciation Night". This will be followed by a quick trip through the history of computing in the 1950's and 1960's.

The Member Appreciation Night will start with our usual social time starting at 6:30. Then, over chapter-supplied pizza, you'll meet the executive council. You'll hear about the active groups within the chapter, and the ways that we are trying to improve the chapter. This is your chance to tell us what you'd like for our evening programs and PDSs, and we'll share with you the current plans. We'll discuss what's happening to the web site and the Bit Dropper newsletter. We want this meeting to be lively and interactive. This is your opportunity to influence and socialize with the chapter.

This will be followed by a survey computing in the 1950's and 1960's. We'll look a bit at early hardware from the ENIAC on, dipping briefly into the climate that led to the ENIAC, and through the development of tube computers. We'll transition into the early transistor computers, and the programming languages that gained popularity with them. We'll take a brief view of the ways that people's interaction with computers, and the businesses that supported computing. This will be a survey type presentation; we hope to offer something for everyone in this presentation.

About the Speaker:
Bob Fraley is the current Chair of the SF Bay Chapter of the ACM. He has been a volunteer docent at the Computer History Museum since 2003, and a member of the ACM since 1963. His PhD is in programming languages, but he has had opportunities in his professional career to deal with many aspects of computing.