Through the years, CACM held a forum for computer folks who
were looking for advice on how to bridge the divide between researchers in
the labs and those who were implementing programming, and the other
bridge between the developers and the end users.

computing pioneers in those early days, and a journal was born. This evolved into Communications of the ACM debuting in 1958. That 1958 is a lifetime ago in com-puter-speak only reminds us of the more innocent era this publication was born into. The average home in the U.S., after all, cost a paltry $12,220 and a gallon of gas was 24 cents.

RESEARCH PLUS

Communications of the ACM has chronicled the astonishing developments in the computer industry. In the pages of CACM, the progress and change and possibility are dissected and explored. Click through the archives of this publication, and you’ll find celebrities for the tech-obsessed, like Leonard Kleinrock co-writing “A Study of Line Overhead in the Arpanet” in the 1970s, or a tribute for the late Jonathan Postel, who helped create and run the Internet and direct the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

But while the academic and professional research that CACM showcased was renowned and revered, the publication was also able to serve unofficially as a

watercooler, a paper version of a newsgroup, not just programmers trying to figure out language or scholars debating standards, but in real-world issues. Through the years, CACM held a forum for computer folks who were looking for advice on how to bridge the divide between researchers in the labs and those who were implementing programming, and the other bridge between the developers and the end users.

There are so many thought-provoking pieces in CACM history, articles that looked at the big picture of a changing world, even as the images were still unfolding. In the early 1980s president David Brandin asked if our society will be vulnerable as a result of our growing dependence on computers and communication systems, an issue that is as relevant today as ever. In an exchange in “Letters to the Editor” decades before, the fragile and controversial sides of developing artificial intelligence are exposed and shine a light on the same issues the technology community, and culture at large, will have to address going forward.

There are broader questions raised in these pages too, ones

that have more to do with conscience than science. For instance, Maurice Wilkes, in 1996, provides the argument for moving toward a more diverse, non-U.S.-centric international Internet. And in “The Net Progress and Opportunity,” Larry Press implores the spread of the Internet to less wealthy nations. “As a major professional society ACM should also consider its role,” he wrote in 1992.

CACM has been able to capture and present both science and commentary in a thought-provok-ing, educational way for 50 years. What has made the organization and the publication so enduring is its promotion of the free exchange of ideas. So Happy Anniversary, CACM. And congratulations on providing a forum where an ever-broadening community can discuss ideas that will ripple into yet more business sectors as the years go by. ^c

MEG MCGINITY SHANNON ( [e-mail]) is a technology writer based on Long Island, NY.