The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the post-World War II history of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking. Categories: Information technology ...

In addition to holding important historical archives in a number of different media, its staff of historians and archivists are dedicated to conducting and publishing historical research and on and promoting the study of the history of information technology, and its impact on society. It also carries out and encourages research in the area and related topics (such as archival methods); to do this, it offers graduate fellowships, and sponsors conferences and publications. It also serves as a general clearinghouse for people interested in, and resources on, the history of information technology. A fellow in its broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. ...

Particularly valuable for researchers and historians are its extensive collection of oral history interviews with important early figures in the field; with the poorly documented state of many early computer developments, which often had no formal documentation at all, these oral histories provide an irreplacable resource. Oral history is an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. ...

The archival collection also contains manuscripts; records of professional associations; corporate records (including the Burroughs Corporate Records and the Control Data Corporate Records, among many others; trade publications; periodicals; manuals and product literature for obsolete systems, photographic material (stills and moving), and a variety of other reference material. A manuscript (Latin manu scriptus, written by hand), strictly speaking, is any written document that is put down by hand, in contrast to being printed or reproduced some other way. ... This article or section should be merged with professional body In countries where the legal system entitles defendants to a jury by their peers, the general public may not be considered sufficiently knowledgeable in a field of practice to act as a peer in some legal cases. ... This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ...

It is now associated with the University of Minnesota system, and is located at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, where it is housed in the Elmer L. Andersen Library. The University of Minnesota is a large university with several campuses spread throughout the U.S. state of Minnesota. ... University of Minnesota Twin Cities This article is about the oldest and largest campus of the University of Minnesota. ...

History

It was founded in 1978 as the International Charles Babbage Society, and initially operated in Palo Alto, California. In 1979, the American Federation of Information Processing Societies became a principal sponsor of the Society, which was renamed the Charles Babbage Institute. 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... Downtown Palo Alto Palo Alto is a city in Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA, named for a tree called El Palo Alto. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ...

In 1980, the Institute moved to the University of Minnesota, which contracted with the principals of the Charles Babbage Institute to sponsor and house the Institute. A new entity, the Charles Babbage Foundation, was created to help support and govern the Institute, in partnership with the University. In 1989, the University assumed complete authority for the Institute, which became an organized research unit of the University. 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• History of computing hardware
• History of the Internet

Computing hardware has been an essential component of the process of calculation and data storage since it became useful for numerical values to be processed and shared. ... ...

External links

• Web site
  • Newsletter archive
  • Oral history database
    • Oral history interviews list
    • Oral history index