The book is generating a pleasing amount of interest, with the result that we have been invited to speak at several public events in addition to the usual presentation of academic work at conferences.
2022 Podcast
Katie Hafner, author and longtime NY Times reporter, is fronting a podcast called Lost Women of Science. It’s a professionally produced project, in collaboration with PRX and Scientific American. Each season focuses on a single “lost woman” and the second season “A Grasshopper in Very Tall Grass,” released in April 2022, is all about Klara von Neumann. She’s a major character in my book ENIAC in Action and so the podcast finished up recording about seven hours of interviews with me and enlisting me to review several of the scripts for accuracy. I’m featured prominently in episodes three (“The Experimental Rabbit”) and four (“Netherworld”) but if you start at the beginning you’ll learn a lot about her life and early career that was news to me. Unlike most journalists writing about ENIAC and the women who used it, this team has really dug into primary sources and consulted with expert historians to tell a set of stories that go far beyond the typical recycled anecdotes.
To launch the new season, Katie worked with the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA to set up an event on the evening of April 5 with the two of us in conversation, with Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe as the moderator. There’s a writeup of the event on the CHM blog, including video snippets and (if you scroll down to the bottom) a slickly produced video of the entire event.
Post Launch Talks
January 24, 2017. “Working on ENIAC: Design, Repair, and Maintenance in the Early Digital.” Talk by Thomas Haigh. Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany. Details online.
February 23, 2017. “Working on ENIAC: Memory, Labor and Gender in the Early Digital.” Talk by Thomas Haigh. De Paul University, Chicago. Loop Campus, 14 E. Jackson, CDM Theatre, Daley Building, Room LL105. Details online.
March 20, 2017. “The Other Women of ENIAC: Rethinking IT Innovation.” Talk by Thomas Haigh for the IEEE Silicon Valley History group. KeyPoint Credit Union, Santa Clara, 6 pm. Videos online. Details online.
“The Other Women of ENIAC: Rethinking the Myths of Innovation,” Montagskolloquium, Deutsches Museum, Munich, January 2018.
“Working on ENIAC: The Lost Labors of the Information Age,” Danish History of Science Society Lecture Series, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2018.
Launch Events
15 February 2016, University of Pennsylvania. Wu & Chen Auditorium, Levine Hall 101. 2:30-4:30. ENIAC 70th Anniversary Event, Engineering School. Book signing, talk by Thomas Haigh “Working on ENIAC: Rethinking the Myths of Innovation,” and by Mark Priestley “A History of ENIAC in Three Programs.” Followed by a reception and musical performance! Reported in the Pennsylvania Gazette (online).
February 16, 2016, University of Pennsylvania. History Department Lounge, College Hall. 12:00-1:30, brown bag with the authors on “The Many Histories of ENIAC.”
February 18, 2016, University of Maryland College Park. “Working on ENIAC: The Lost Labors of the Information Age” with Thomas Haigh & Mark Priestley. Sponsored by Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and Computer Science. Human-Computer Interaction Lab (2105 Hornbake, South Wing), 12:30-1:30. Video recording of talk and full slide deck available online from MITH.
February 23, 2016. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Greene Hall. 2:45-4:45. Talk by Thomas Haigh and book signing, with light refreshments.
April 7, 2016. Talk by Thomas Haigh and book signing. 1:30 pm in the Hetzel-Hoellein room of the library, Weber State University, Utah. Details online. Reported in The Signpost (online).
May 11, 2016. “The History of ENIAC in Three Programs,” with Mark Priestley. Computer Conservation Society, London. UK. Details online. Video online
June 11, 2016. Haigh and Priestley are speaking at Siegen University in Germany, as part of a workshop Beyond ENIAC: Early Digital Platforms and Practices organized to explore the themes of the book. Details online. Report (in German) here.
September 10, 2016. Talk by Thomas Haigh and book signing. Vintage Computer Festival–Midwest, Schaumberg, Illinois. Details online. Video here.
November 18, 2016. Talk by Thomas Haigh and book signing, 12:00 to 1:30. “CHM Live” lecture series, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California. Video here.
Pre Launch Talks
“Working on ENIAC: The Lost Labors of the Information Age,” Directions in Digital Humanities Series, Digital Humanities Laboratory, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, October 2015. Thomas Haigh.
“The Secret History of Computer Operations, From ENIAC to The Cloud,” Data Center World Conference, Las Vegas, April 2015. Thomas Haigh.
“Rethinking the Stored Program Concept,” 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester, UK, July 2013. Thomas Haigh.
“Stored Program Considered Harmful: History and Historiography,” Computability in Europe 2013: The Nature of Computation, Milan, July 2013. Thomas Haigh.