Computer History Exhibits

The Stanford Computer Science exhibits can be seen during university hours by visiting the Gates Information Science building or on-line. The displays were assembled by a coalition of Stanford computer scientists and the Computer History Museum (CHM), formerly the Computer Museum History Center (CMHC), and before that a part of The Computer Museum (TCM) in Boston, has installed exhibits within the Gates Computer Science building containing historical equipment and documents focusing on Stanford's role in the history of computing. The exhibits are being changed and updated as time permits. The first floor exhibit, installed November 1997, focuses on the early history of the Stanford Computer Science Department. and its founder, George Forsythe, and his students. Further exhibits are found on all floors of the building and all can be viewed on-line if you can't make it to Stanford. We are also collecting information about the PhD students, and their students+, that have graduated from the department. The Stanford Computer Science Department was founded on the 9th of January, 1965, so that in 2005 it could celebrate its 40th anniversary. The actual event took place March 21st, 2006.

2^5 th Anniversary Cake

The Participants include Voy Wiederhold, coordinator, email: voy@infolab.stanford.edu. Gio Wiederhold, instigator, email: gio@cs.stanford.edu Gwen Bell, coordination with CMHC, email bell@computerhistory.org. Len Shustek, CMHC coordination with Stanford. Penny Nii, exhibit designer, email Penny@penny-nii.com.

Location

The displays are spread throughout the public areas of the Gates Computer Science building, at Campus Drive and Serra street on the Stanford University campus, Stanford CA 94305-9400.
The current (September 2005) displays are

Floor 1 Stanford Related Items.
location (case umber): Items:
1. At the entrance (#8): The Mobi Robot.
2. In the Center Lobby (#9): Victor Scheinman's robot arm.
3. On the central mushroom, a guide to the various display sites.
4. At the far end of the passage (#1): Historical Storage disks
5. On the right side above table, left (#2): George Forsythe and students.
6. On the right side above table, right (#3): Early Stanford CSD faculty.
7. In the table left (#6) Calculators used by Forsythe and Floyd.
8. In the table right (#7) Stanford Programming Trophies, Prof. McCarthy's Turing award.
9. On the left side, right (#4): Departmental timeline. LOTS.
10. On the left side, left (#5): Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) history. More pictures of SAIL participants have been collected; many came from Bruce Baumgart who maintains a large archive.
11. In the stairway to floor 2, a 1969 IBM poster on the history of mathematics.

Floor 2 In two deep displays (#21-22). Computing in the fifties and earlier.
1. Left: Early storage devices: electron-beam tube from SWAC, delay line, RCA selectron tube, Eckert-Mauchly plug-in module. Electric keypunch and cards. In the background Grace Hopper in front of a Univac.
2. Right: Whirlwind artifacts: coreplane, logic panel, tube tester; Jay Forester photo.
3. In side cabinet (#23): Computing Without Electricity: mechanical integrators, linear and rotary slide rules, log table, Computator, abacus.
4. Planned: two boards for explanations (#24-25) next to the alcoves.
5. In the stairway to floor 3, two posters on the History of Computers (to 1967) [British] and History of Microprocessors.

Floor 3 In two deep displays (#31-32). Computing in the sixties.
1. Left: IBM 360 artifacts: 360-65 9020 (FAA special) front panel, core panels, manuals.
2. Right: DEC PDP-6 artifacts and modems. Picture of Gordon Bell's group. DEC cartridge disk, Model 33 Teletype, punched paper tape.
   Early Livermore accoustic-coupled modem, Selecterm modem, SAIL modem.
3. In side cabinet(#33): CROMENCO computing with a C-3 system, terminal, camera, posters, 8" floppy drive, Roger Melen and Harry Garland book, manuals.
4. Planned: two boards for explanations, next to the alcoves: (#34), Stanford Computer History, (#35) timesharing
5. In the stairway to floor 4, Language History, Silicon Valley History posters.

Floor 4 In two deep displays (#41-42).
Computing in the seventies and later.
1. Right: Early personal computers: Apple, Pet, Commodore, Osborne portable.
2. Left: Sun computers: First working board, Early SUN, disk drive. Photos of Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla, Laura Tong, and Vaughan Pratt.
3. Side cabinet (#43): Apple display, in preparation.

Floor 5
1. Card Cabinet (#51) The manuscript on punched cards and generating programs for David Gries' Compiler Construction for Digital Computers; John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1971, 491 pages.
2. Wall cabinet (#52) Two copies of David Gries' Compiler book, one opened to show the metal typefont avialble then.

Now removed to the CMHC: The original 1971 Galaxy Star Wars computer game. (A Web Version).

Basement floor
a wide display (#11) on the wall between the elevators and the HP lecture hall. Computer development timelines (being developed)
1. Logic devices, from relay to integrated circuit, with some typical circuit boards.
2. Background Election prediction in 1952.
3. PDAs and the KBMS group.
4. Xerox Altos and mice.
5. IBM PC.
6. The original Google Storage (#12)

Some web pages have been created for Stanford Projects
• A list of All early Conmputers at Stanford. A practical limit is 1980, when personal computers started to appear, although some major computers installed after that date can be included. The list is quite incomplete, additional information is most welcome.
• Stanford's AI Lab (SAIL) (1976-1990).
• Stanford Computation Center and its predominantly IBM mainframes (1954-1980).
• ACME Project for time-shared real-time data acquisition in the Medical School (1965-1973).
• Stanford participation in the S-1 supercomputer project of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (1976-1988).
  Pictures of the displays were taken mainly by
• Nuriya Janss, July 1999
  and
• Hector Garcia-Molina, February 2005.

CS faculty Student Trees (under construction)

We are developing student trees for Stanford CS faculty. Contributions are welcome. An overview page of CS PHD students and many students that were supervised by CS faculty has links to the faculty trees below where the information is available.

• George Forsythe.

  ---

  Working list, many dates are estimates.
• Alex Aiken (from UC Berkeley, 2003 - now)
• Russ Altman (Medicine, now Genetics & courtesy CS, 1992 - now).
• Mary G. Baker (from UC Berkeley, with EE, 1994-2003).
• Jeffrey Barth (from UC Berkeley, 1976-1978).
• Forrest Baskett (1971-1982 regular, consulting - now).
• Serafim Batzoglou (from MIT, 2001 - now).
• Charles Bigelow, with Art department (1982 - 1997, left for industry).
• Thomas O. Binford (1971-2000, emeritus - now).
• Dan Boneh (1997 - now).
• Tom Bredt (EE professor -1976).
• Chris Bregler (from UC Berkeley, 1999 - 2002).
• Bruce Buchanan (1970-1985, left for Univ.of Pittsburgh).
• Rodney Brooks (1983 -1964, left for MIT).
• Vinton Cerf (EE 1972-1976, left for ARPA and MCI).
• David Cheriton (1981 - now).
• James Clark (EE/CSL) (1979-1983, founded Silicon Graphics).
• Ken Colby (1970-1974, left for UCLA, deceased 2001), Education, CS..
• Bill Dally (from MIT, with EE, 1997 - now).
• George B. Dantzig (with OR, 1964 - now, emeritus).
• Giovanni diMicheli (from IBM Research, EE, 1988 - now).
• David L. Dill (from CMU, 1987 - now).
• Dawson Engler (CS and EE, 1998 - now).
• Jeffrey Eppinger (1988 - 1989).
• Ronald Fedkiw (CS, from UCLA, 2000 - now).
• Jerome Feldman (professor 1968-1974 At SAIL ~1970 (1/4); 1973 Rochester; ICSI, Berkeley.).
• Edward Feigenbaum (from UC Berkeley, 1965-2000, emeritus - now).
• Richard Fikes (1991 - now).
• Robert Floyd (1967-1995, retired, deceased 2002).
• Michael Flynn (EE, 1965 - 1999 emeritus).
• Armando Fox (CS, 1998 - now).
• Joyce Friedman (from MITRE; at Stanford 1967-1970; Univ.of Michigan, Boston Univ.)
• Samuel Fuller (EE, 1970-1977, left for DEC) .
• Hector Garcia-Molina (from Princeton, 1992 - now).
• Michael R. Genesereth (1979 - now).
• John T. Gill III (EE & courtesy CS, - now).
• Bernd Girod (EE & courtesy CS, from Un.Erlangen, 1999-now).
• Ashih Goel ( courtesy CS) , -now).
• Andrew Goldberg (from MIT, 1987-1995, left for NEC labs, Microsoft Research)
• Gene H. Golub (1962 - now)..
• Cordell Green (1973-1978).
• David Gries (from TU Muenchen; Stanford 1966-1969; Cornell) .
• Leonidas J. Guibas (1985 - now).
• Anoop Gupta (EE, 1987-1999, to Microsoft Research).
• Joseph Y. Halpern (Harvard; IBM and Consulting Prof. at Stanford 1984-1996; Cornell).
• Patrick Hanrahan (from Princeton and PIXAR, 1994 - now).
• David Heegern (Psychology and Neuroscience, - now).
• John Hennessey (from SUNY Stony Brook, EE & CS, 1977 - now).
• John G. Herriott (1960-2003, emeritus, deceased).
• Mark Horowitz (CS & EE, 1984 - now).
• Manolis Katevenis (1984 - 1984).
• Martin Kay (Linguistics, courtesy CS, - now).
• Alan Kay (from Univ. of Utah; lecturer 1968-1980, at SAIL ~1970 and XEROX Parc; Apple; Disney.
• Oussama Khatib coming soon (1991 - now).
• Vladlen Koltun (2005 - now)
• Scott Klemmer (2004 - now)
• Donald Knuth (1969 - now, emeritus).
• Daphne Koller (from UC Berkeley; 1995 - now) .
• Christoforos Kozyrakis (EE and CS, from UC Berkeley, 2002 - now)
• Monica Lam (1988 - now).
• Keith A. Lantz (1977?-1984?).
• Jean-Claude Latombe (from Grenoble, 1987 - now).
• Joshua Lederberg (with Genetics, 1965-1977?, consulting - 2001; to Rockefeler Univ.).
• Doug Lenat (from Stanford, CMU, 1977-1982, to MCI and CyCorp).
• Michael Leventon (Radiology and CS, from UC Berkeley, 2004 - now)
• Philip Levis (2005 - now)
• Marc Levoy (from UNC, Chapel Hill, 1990 - now).
• Michael Levitt (CEE, courtesy CS, - now).
• David Luckham (EE, 1977 - 2001 emeritus, now);at sail ~1970.
• Zohar Manna (1975 - now), see also Stanford students with theses, or in Israel.
• Christopher Manning (CS and Linguistics, 1999 - now).
• Ernst W. Mayr (1981-1989; visiting (25%) 1990-1993; Univ. Frankfurt; TU Muenchen).
• David Mazieres (2005 - now)
• John McCarthy (1962-1963, 1965-2002, emeritus - now); At sail ~1970...
• Edward J. McCluskey (with EE, from Princeton, 1967 - emeritus, now).
• Bill McKeeman (professor 1966-1968) .
• Nick McKeown (CS & EE, 1995 - now).
• Teresa Meng (from UC Berkeley, EE, 1988 - now).
• William Miller (from Argonne, later with GSB, 1964 - 1997, emeritus)..
• Grgori Mints (, courtesy CS, - now).
• John C. Mitchell (1988 - now).
• Rajeev Motwani (from UC Berkeley, 1988 - now).
• Mark Musen (from Brown Univ. and Stanford, Medicine & courtesy CS, 1988 - now)
• Clifford I. Nass (courtesy CS, ? - now).
• Andrew Ng (2002 - now).
• Nils Nilsson (from SRI, 1985 - now, emeritus).
• Joseph Oliger (from Uppsala, 1974-2001, emeritus - deceased 2005).
• Oyekunle Olukotun (EE & courtesy CS, - now).
• Susan Owicki (EE and CS, 1976-1983, part time since 1983)
• Balaji Prabhakar (EE and CS, from Stanford via MIT, 1998 - now).
• Serge Plotkin (from MIT, 1989 - now).
• Vaughan Pratt (from MIT, 1981-2000, emeritus - now).
• Raj Reddy (professor 1966-1969)
• Brian Reid (from CMU; 1977 (1981?)-1983 (1986?); left for DEC WRL; CMU west).
• Eric Roberts (1990 - now).
• Paul S. Rosenbloom (CS and Psychology, fron CMU, 1984-1989, left for USC ISI)
• Mendel Rosenblum (from U.C.Berkeley, 1991 - now)
• Bernard Roth (SAIL,ME, 1969-current)
• Timothy Roughgarden (2004 - now)
• David Rumelhart (Psychology, - now)
• Ken Salisbury (CS and Surgery, from MIT, 1999 - now).
• Arthur Samuel (from IBM, research professor 1966-1990). Photo ~1960.
• Roger Schank (1968-1973, left for Yale, later NorthWestern, CMU West).
• Yoav Shoham (1987 - now)
• Russel Shakelford (CS, 2000 - 2003).
• Edward Shortliffe (Stanford Medicine and CS, 1979-2000; Columbia Univ.).
• Harold Stone (EE) (-1976; IBM Research; Cornell; NEC Research)
• Andrew M. Stuart (from Oxford Univ., with Mech.Eng., at Stanford 1991-1999, to Warwick Univ., UK).
• Robert Tarjan, (1974-1980, left for AT&T Bell Labs, at Princeton University since 1985.
• Sebastian Thrun (from CMU, 2003 - now)
• Fouad Tobagi (from UCLA, EE & courtesy CS, 1977 - now)
• Carlo Tomasi (from Cornell, 1992-2001)
• Jeffrey Ullman (from Princeton 1979 - 2004 emeritus, now).
• David Ungar (1986-1991)
• Wim van Cleemput (EE, to , now Delos Research Group)
• Benjamin van Roy (courtesy CS), -now).
• Richard H. Watson (CS, 1964-1967 .. , to Shell Oil, UC, Lawrence Livermore Lab)
• Gio Wiederhold (lecturer 1965-1976, professor 1976-2001, emeritus - now).
• Jennifer Widom (from Cornell, IBM Research, 1993 - now)
• James Hardy Wilkinson (part time 1960's)
• Terry A. Winograd (from MIT, 1973 - now)
• Niklaus Wirth (1963-1967).
• Mihalis Yannakakis (2003-2004)
• Andy Yao (1976-1986)
• Frances Yao (1975-1979)
• Unknown adviser (I show CSD PhD graduates here that I have not yet linked to a faculty member). Photographs of identified and unidentified students at the AI lab are available to help.

PhD graduates

• All advisees (I show all CSD PhD graduates as of summer 2002 here with a pointer to their advisor tree, including thoses that I have not yet linked to a faculty member).
  The CS department also maintains a list of alumni.
  The Center for Integrated Systems lists its alumni as well.

Early Computers at Stanford

We have a phototour, of the Stanford Computer Science Computer History Display. The photour includes some items that are not now shown in the actual display, and includes some links to further information. The initial photographs were made by Nuriya Janss, July 1999, but are being updated as new items are put on display.
We have also posted a list with some additional pictures of our inventory items.

Meta History

Click to review the planning of the historical display and its progress.

A Brief History of Computing

is on the web pages of Jeremy Meyers: "A Short History of the Computer"; available on-line as http://www.softlord.com/comp/.

Other History sites

The Computer History Museum (CHM) in mountain View, CA has since October 2003 a Virtual Visible Storage.
Its predecessor is The Computer Museum (TCM) in Boston, MA.
The Digibarnis located in the Santa Cruz mountains, focuses on operational machines.
The IEEE Computer Society timeline includes images of early computing equipment.

At the Computer Industry History is a collections of links to history pages by the Electronic Software Publishing Corporation.
A timeline starting 50BC focusing on industry is maintained at Bull in France.
A timeline of computer history events is available from ComputerHope, with many entries for Apple, Windows, and Unix.
A focus on Canadian Computing is maintained by Zbigniew at York University.
The Deutsches Museum in Munich has an extensive computer section, with some pictures of their large collection of early mathematical instruments.
The University in Erlangen also displays on the floors of its department a collection of their historical old computers (incl. a Zuse Z23 from 1962), components, computing instruments, and graphics.
Computing in The Netherlands is shown in a military museum and at the Computer Museum at the Vrije Universiteit which shows, among other, paper tape and analog computers.

The Vintage collection is displayed periodically in Oakland, CA; now with annual showings and sales at the CHM.
The impressive museum on office technology started by Heinz Nixdorf in Paderborn, Germany,
The Electronics Museum in San Jose, CA
The Nerds' Timeline from PBS "The Triumph of the Nerds".
Smithsonian
Computers: History and Development, from Jones Telecommunications & Multimedia Encyclopedia, focuses on hardware.
IBM's museum is now on line, as the Antique attic, vol.1, vol.2, and vol. 3.
Interesting pictures of antique instruments for sale are found at The Gemmary, Antique Scientific Instruments, Old & Rare Books.
Folklore of computing, at Monash Univ.
A glossary of terms used in the MIT Multics literature, generally useful for old computer stuff (1965-1975). Also list of their people; some S-1 references.