Computer History

The Charles Babbage Institute for the History of Information Processing recently elected I. Bernard Cohen, Thomas Professor of the History of Science, to its Board of Directors.

Cohen said yesterday he plans to use his new post at the Minneapolis-based institute to research, interpret and preserve "the pioneering methods" of early computers.

Cohen, an editor of the recently founded journal, "Annals of the History of Computing," added that he hopes to continue his program of oral interviews with leading computer scientists.

"It's terrible to think that nobody ever asked John von Neuman--the real pioneer of computers who invented the stored program concept--'Were you interested in extending the capacity of the human brain, or just in inventing a great machine?' As a historian, I'm very interested in these questions," Cohen said.