History of Nordic Computing 2 : Second IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, HiNC 2, Turku, Finland, August 21-23, 2007, Revised Selected Papers

The First Conference on the History of Nordic Computing (HiNC1) was organized in Trondheim, in June 2003. The HiNC1 event focused on the early years of computing, that is the years from the 1940s through the 1960s, although it formally extended to year 1985. In the preface of the proceedings of HiNC1, Janis Bubenko, Jr. , John Impagliazzo, and Arne Sølvberg describe well the peculiarities of early Nordic c- puting [1]. While developing hardware was a necessity for the first professionals, quite soon the computer became an industrial product. Computer scientists, among others, grew increasingly interested in programming and application software. P- gress in these areas from the 1960s to the 1980s was experienced as astonishing. The developments during these decades were taken as the focus of HiNC2. During those decades computers arrived to every branch of large and medium-sized businesses and the users of the computer systems were no longer only computer s- cialists but also people with other main duties. Compared to the early years of comp- ing before 1960, where the number of computer projects and applications was small, capturing a holistic view of the history between the 1960s and the 1980s is conside- bly more difficult. The HiNC2 conference attempted to help in this endeavor.

This book constitutes the refereed post conference proceedings of the Second IFIP WG 9.7 Conference on the History of Nordic Computing, HiNC 2,  held in Turku, Finland, in August 2007.

The 27 revised full papers presented together with three keynote addresses and two panel discussions were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on working with history and its usability; computer system perspectives; university computing; university education; computers, policies, and politics; perspectives on computer applications; publishing and communication applications; software histories; and history of computer playing.