Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From Communications of the ACM
How the AI Boom Went Bust
Fallout from an exploding bubble of hype triggered the real AI Winter in the late 1980s.
From Communications of the ACM
There Was No 'First AI Winter'
Despite challenges and failures, the artificial intelligence community grew steadily during the 1970s.
From Communications of the ACM
Conjoined Twins: Artificial Intelligence and the Invention of Computer Science
How artificial intelligence and computer science grew up together.
From Communications of the ACM
Women's Lives in Code
Exploring Ellen Ullman's 'Close to the Machine' and AMC's 'Halt and Catch Fire.'
From Communications of the ACM
When Hackers Were Heroes
The complex legacy of Steven Levy's obsessive programmers.
From Communications of the ACM
The Immortal Soul of an Old Machine
Taking apart a book to figure out how it works.
From Communications of the ACM
Von Neumann Thought Turing's Universal Machine was 'Simple and Neat.': But That Didn't Tell Him How to Design a Computer
New discoveries answer an old question.
From Communications of the ACM
Hey Google, What's a Moonshot?: How Silicon Valley Mocks Apollo
Fifty years on, NASA's expensive triumph is a widely misunderstood model for spectacular innovation.
From Communications of the ACM
Defining American Greatness: IBM from Watson to Trump
Reflections on a firm that encapsulated the American Century.
From Communications of the ACM
Colossal Genius: Tutte, Flowers, and a Bad Imitation of Turing
Reflections on pioneering code-breaking efforts.
From Communications of the ACM
How Charles Bachman Invented the DBMS, a Foundation of Our Digital World
His 1963 Integrated Data Store set the template for all subsequent database management systems.
From Communications of the ACM
Where Code Comes From: Architectures of Automatic Control from Babbage to Algol
Considering the evolving concept of programming.
From Communications of the ACM
Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing
Can computing history be both inspiring and accurate?
From Communications of the ACM
The Tears of Donald Knuth
Has the history of computing taken a tragic turn?
From Communications of the ACM
We Have Never Been Digital
Reflections on the intersection of computing and the humanities.
From Communications of the ACM
Actually, Turing Did Not Invent the Computer
Separating the origins of computer science and technology.
From Communications of the ACM
Software and Souls; Programs and Packages
How can historians tell stories about software without focusing solely on the code itself?
From Communications of the ACM
Five Lessons from Really Good History
Lessons learned from four award-winning books on the history of information technology.
From Communications of the ACM
Seven Lessons From Bad History
Journalists, historians, and the invention of email.12