CBI Salutes “Silver” Anniversary Donors

CBI has a splendid “silver” 25th anniversary that we’d like to mark, and it is of course connected to the flurry of “golden” 50th anniversaries evident in the world of computer history.  The late 1950s witnessed the founding of a number of electronics and computer industry giants, including Control Data and Fairchild Semiconductor, the emergence of dominant designs for computer circuits, and the creation of key programming languages and concepts.  Within two decades of these momentous events, in 1979, Erwin Tomash and his core group of computer-history activists founded the Charles Babbage Institute. 

Here, while warmly recalling these founding events, we would like to direct a moment of celebratory attention to a “silver” anniversary for our most-dedicated, longest-term financial supporters.  This past fall, I asked CBI’s secretary Katie (Baumhover) Charlet to identify the most-consistent donors to CBI—not always the largest donors, just the ones we have counted on over the years.  The results of her research, frankly, astonished us.  We knew CBI had a healthy number of longer-term supporters extending back 10 and 15 years.  As relative newcomers ourselves, what amazed us was the impressive number of supporters stretching back 20 and even 25 years.  We resolved to create a festive “silver anniversary” moment to honor these exceptionally dedicated friends. 

To each and every of our long-term supporters: we at CBI are truly honored to have your support.  You have shown that people from diverse walks of life, including the business, professional, education and technical worlds, can have a positive difference in understanding the history of this remarkable age, even as it has continued to change around us.  Because of your essential support—combined also with crucial support from the CBF Founders and the contributors to the ERA Chair Fund—CBI has developed into the leading international research center in the history of computing.  You, as core members, have sustained our core activities.   This solid base has permitted CBI, in effect, over nearly three decades, to define and create the modern field of computer history. 

This long-term support has allowed CBI to build outward from its strengths.  The list of notable accomplishments is simply breath-taking: supporting scholars from around the world to better understand this remarkable history and the people who made it; conducting and completing research projects for NSF, the National Archives, IBM, and DARPA; publishing dozens of scholarly articles and nearly a dozen scholarly books; creating a unique research infrastructure through extensive oral histories; and not least collecting, processing, and making publicly accessible the unparalleled archival records from leading companies, people, government agencies, and professional organizations.  (See my note in the “Director’s Desk” column  about the recent ACM archive.)  Recently, CBI’s associate director Jeffrey Yost took on the editorship of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.  Our presence in the archival world is stronger than ever.  None of these achievements would have been possible absent CBI’s dedicated base of long-time financial supporters.  For all of this, our heartfelt thanks.  You have literally helped make history.

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