<<A related question would be how much work was done outside the USA and UK. >>
One standard work is "The First Computers : History and Architectures" Ed Rojas, et al MIT Press; 2002; ISBN 0-262-68137-4 US : 5 sections Germany : 7 sections UK : 5 sections Japan : 2 sections as an indication of activity <<similar questions could be asked about the amount of documentation preserved from various countries. >> In the UK context, where there is on-line documentation of the ICL 2900 series is a question I don't know the answer to There is of course an operational ICL 2966 at TNMoC, Bletchley Park Martin -----Original Message----- From: Paul Koning via cctalk [mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org] Sent: 31 January 2024 18:53 To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Cc: Wouter de Waal <w...@dw.co.za>; Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> Subject: [cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal > On Jan 31, 2024, at 1:39 PM, Wouter de Waal via cctalk > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > >> I have found that computers are much like motorcycles: many of the most >> interesting were never available in the US. > > Computers are much like motorcycles: many of the most interesting ones were > TERRIBLE! I wonder what fraction of early (before, say, 1955) computer work was done in the USA. A substantial fraction no doubt, but perhaps not as large as one might guess. A related question would be how much work was done outside the USA and UK. For that matter, similar questions could be asked about the amount of documentation preserved from various countries. One difficulty, I think, is that resources like bitsavers have a large proportion of US material. Maybe because of the predominance of the work, maybe in part because of the distribution of collectors. To pick one example, material -- even just a passing reference -- about the Philips PR8000 is very nearly nonexistent. And I see no trace of any other Dutch computer at all on Bitsavers. True, some stuff can be found in places like the CWI archive, though searching that can be rather painful. paul
