How to get it, how to write for it.

July 3, 1997

4.1 in process....

Analytical Engine 4.1 is at the printer, with:

• an interview about Intel microcontrollers with hardware designer John Wharton;
• an article by David Rutland about the SWAC, the West Coast's earliest mainframe;
• an appreciation of the CHAC's new Sun 2/170;
• a review of The Complete Collector's Guide to Pocket Calculators by Guy Ball and Bruce Flamm;
• obituaries of Jean Hoerni, Vin Learson and Charlie Molnar;

and editorials, techstuff, event news and a great Nines-Card. Subscribers can expect to receive it by July 20. If you don't subscribe yet, we'd like you to; see below.

ftp'able 3.2....

We deeply appreciate the efforts of CHAC volunteers Carla and Julian Perry, who have converted Analytical Engine 3.2 (the issue featuring the 930 Rescue and the concluding portion of the Felsenstein interview) into flat ASCII so it can be retrieved from this Web page. Look for 3.3 soon!

What's happening with the .PDF files?

We've basically conceded defeat with Adobe Acrobat Distiller™ for Windows. A coalition of volunteers is ready to convert PostScript™ output files to .PDF using Distiller on PowerMacs, but first we have to clean up the MS-Word files that produced the original issues, which have suffered very peculiar and inconsistent damage to their page layout formatting. Grrrrr!!

The Analytical Engine is the quarterly journal of the CHAC, published in February, May, August and November.
Each issue features:

• three or more articles on the history of computing in California;
• a book review;
• news of recent computer history and of developments at other historical organizations;
• a letters column;
• a column of queries submitted by readers;
• details of any acquisitions by CHAC;
• and small standard features, such as a list of publications received in the last quarter.

We don't guarantee that every one of these things will be in each issue, but that's a good sketch of what's typical. The Engine is published in a paper edition of 36 to 60 pages, and in an online, plaintext edition available through e-mail or ftp.

These are the prices per year for an Engine subscription:

All proceeds help the CHAC rescue the history of computing in California. $25 is deductible from U. S. state and Federal tax for each year's sub; the CHAC is a California nonprofit corporation and Federally registered public charity [(501)c(3)].

Subscriptions to the Analytical Engine are deeply appreciated. To subscribe, please

Click if your browser doesn't do forms or you'd prefer to print out a subscription blank locally. Our mailing address is:

Subscribers outside North America: Please add US$10 per year for surface postage or US$18 per year airmail. Sorry; we're not thrilled either.

You can retrieve most issues of the Analytical Engine in ASCII via HTTP.

The plaintext edition of the Engine is shareware, and by far the most popular way for the CHAC to introduce itself in depth. These files are 150K to 210K in size and formatted to print out in a 12-point monospaced font – e. g. standard LaserJet Courier – at about 55 lines per page. (Depending on the browser you're using, the files may or may not display on-screen while they're being transferred. If they do, use the Save As function to save them to disk.)

Analytical Engine 3.1: "The Strongest Castle," The Rise, Fall and Rise of the HP 3000, by Christopher Edler.
"Convivial Cybernetic Devices;" Lee Felsenstein on vacuum-tube flip-flops, Community Memory, Homebrew Computer Club, and the singing Altair (part 1).
New Battery Packs for the HP-35 by Doug Jones. Editorial: X-Victory!! Review: Max Maxfield's Bebop to the Boolean Boogie. Nines-Card: A Persistent Bug.

Analytical Engine 2.4: "The Education of a Computer Maker," HP 21xx/2000; Interview with Joe Schoendorf.
Mac and Me by Jef Raskin (part 1). Editorial: SDS 930. Review: Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter Cookbook. Nines-Card: Poor Kitty!

Analytical Engine 2.3: "A Core Plane in Amber," HP 9100/2116; Interview with Barney Oliver.
SAIL Spinoffs by Les Earnest. Editorial: SDS 930. Review: Owen Linzmayer's Mac Bathroom Reader. Nines-Card: Form Letters the Teletype Way.

Analytical Engine 2.2: "The Same Technology Still Holds," IBM RAMAC; Interview with Rey Johnson and Jack Harker (part 2).
Bletchley Park Moves Forward by Chris P. Burton. Editorial: SDS 930. Review: Jim Tomayko's Computers in Space. Nines-Card: Printer, Spare That Tree!

Analytical Engine 2.1: "Flaming Dorados and Other Stories," Technical Support at Xerox PARC; Interview with Herb Yeary and Charlie Sosinski.
The Apple Lisa Computer: A Retrospective by David T. Craig. Editorial: SDS 930. Review: History of Computing by Lexikon Services. Nines-Card: Hey, that Moose is Eating My Tape!

Analytical Engine 1.4: "Just Like The Golden Gate Bridge," IBM RAMAC; Interview with Rey Johnson and Jack Harker (part 1).
The MORE Command in UNIX by Dan Halbert. Editorial: Bootstrap!! Review: Herman Lukoff's From Dits To Bits. Nines-Card: 704x/709x Trivia Contest.

Analytical Engine 1.3: IBM 701 in California: Origins and Legacy of the IBM 701 by Doug Jones.
Dawn of the Micro: Intel's Intellecs by Kip Crosby. "Land of the Silent Giants: A Day at Livermore." Editorial: Campaign 1994. Review: Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer. Nines-Card: Lance Loses Power.

Analytical Engine 1.2: Programming the 1401; Interview with Leo Damarodas (part 2).
LOGO and Smalltalk by Aaron Alpar. Editorial: Hello, World. Review: Jon Palfreman and Doron Swade's The Dream Machine. Nines-Card: ERMA Says Goodbye.

Analytical Engine 1.1: Programming the 1401; Interview with Leo Damarodas (part 1).
I Played the ORIGINAL Video Game by Scott Robinson. Editorial: Welcome to the Analytical Engine.

Reading the Analytical Engine is fun. We do it all the time ourselves, for QC. And what makes the reading fun? The writing.

Good articles make a good magazine. But a good article for the Engine accomplishes more than that; it helps the CHAC fulfill its central mandate by protecting the history of computing in California. If you read the Engine, you probably can – and should – write for it as well.

If you've worked with computers in California, and by your own assessment you find technical or social significance in the work you've done, then please realize that people like you, and stories like yours, are the Engine's reason for being. The development you led, the code you wrote and debugged, the circuits you designed and the boards you soldered tell stories that are a crucial part of the CHAC's mission.

The history of computing in California encompasses so much that, realistically, the Engine can never present more than a part of it. Even so, the strength and variety of the Engine's first eight issues have drawn international acclaim from computer historians, as we've featured the development of the first hard disk at IBM San Jose....the trials and tribulations of Hewlett-Packard's earliest computers....technical support at Xerox PARC, and why it sometimes involved fire extinguishers....the Intel Intellec, the world's first micro....ARPANet's genesis at UCLA....the trailblazing Apple Lisa, and lots more. Every word written, or told, by people like you.

We're proud of our work. Are you proud of yours? Then share it, and keep the Engine spinning. Read the "Guidelines for submission" at the bottom of this page, sit down with your writing instrument of choice, and tell it like it was. If you'd like to query first, click.

Computer humor

Every issue of the Analytical Engine since 1.2 has had a special feature on its back page: the Nines-Card, named after the last card in a classic IBM mainframe deck, with all its nines punched to indicate its status as a separator.

The Nines-Card is supposed to be funny, in that special, gut-grabbing way that a sysadmin, programmer, or support techie would recognize instantly – maybe a story about a cat caught in a printer, or a thirty-six-hour system restore after a power failure, or an undergraduate computer club's adventures with a 360/91. At its best the Nines-Card is more than just a joke or war story; it's the kind of tale that makes you laugh and groan simultaneously.

If the Analytical Engine appeals to you, chances are there's a Nines-Card somewhere in your repertoire – and our totally hand-picked audience is just waiting to read it. Usually a Nines-Card is at least half a page long (anything shorter is just a joke) and no longer than a full page, although Dave Breneman's "Form Letters the Teletype Way" in 2.3 was a thoroughly deserved exception.

If you'd like to write for the Engine, but an article seems like too big a job, send us your Nines-Card. It's a story you've been telling for years anyway, and you can probably write it down in half an hour. And every single Analytical Engine needs one. TIA!

Guidelines for submission....

The Analytical Engine solicits manuscripts of 750 to 2500 words on the general topic of the history of computing in, or with significant reference to, the State of California. Articles should focus on one interesting or illuminating episode and should be written for a technically literate general audience. Submissions are welcome from both members and non-members of the CHAC. Article deadlines are: July 15 for the November issue, October 15 for the February issue, January 15 for the May issue, and April 15 for the August issue.

Each author may publish a maximum of one signed article per year. This restriction does not apply to letters, queries, book reviews or interviews. Thank you for cooperating to protect diversity of voices and topics. Previously published material will be republished only in clearly attributed quotations or citations; or when its publication in the Analytical Engine will bring it to the attention of a significantly broader audience; or when the original publication is materially obsolete or inaccessible.

Decision of the editors is final but copyright of all published material will remain with the author.

The preferred document file format is Microsoft Word for DOS or Windows, but almost any DOS or Macintosh word processor file will be acceptable. Submit manuscripts on DOS 5.25" or 3.5", or Mac HD (1.4) diskettes. Alternatively, please send your article as ASCII or ISO Internet mail. Please avoid submitting on paper unless absolutely necessary.

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