Bell System Technical Journal, 1922-1983 | Hacker News Reader

Bell System Technical Journal, 1922-1983

alcatel-lucent.com

75 pointswglb14 comments

For those who like to read about the old Bell System, there's a great book called Engineering and Operations in the Bell System that gives an overview of the technology that was in use up to around the time of their breakup in 1984. It was published by Bell Labs. You can find used copies on Amazon for as little as 1 cent (plus the cost of shipping).

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Engineering_and_operat...

Yes! I have an original copy that was given to me in 1978 when I went to work for Bell Labs. A lot of today's technology has it's roots in the early work done at the labs.

I ordered this on your recommendation, and it just arrived today.

This thing is like the Bell Bible. Fold-out diagrams and everything. Amazing.

Thanks for the info.

It's got Claude Shannon's "A Mathematical Theory of Communication":

(warning, large PDF files)

Parts I-II: http://alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol27-1948/articles/bstj27-3-...

Parts III-V: http://alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol27-1948/articles/bstj27-4-...

Cool!

Trivium: a friend on G+ shared with me a story about having a Geniac kit as a kid -- an educational "computer" sold from 1955 through the 1960s by Edmund Berkeley. Included with was a copy of Claude Shannon's "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits".

For a kid's game.

Contrast that with today's "deep analysis" articles in which VirtualBox VMs are referred to as "Russian dolls" (to reference an earlier comment of mine).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geniac

I see no inconsistency. Few people in the 1950s would have purchased such a game, despite its novelty.

Personally, I'd love a copy.

This being said, the concept of a virtual machine fits pretty well within the idea of a Russian doll.

There was a period of unabashed embrace of technology in the wake of WWII. Much of that had to do with the advances and successes of technology during the war: radar, missiles, the first jet aircraft, penicillin, and of course, the atom bomb.

Vannevar Bush was commissioned by FDR to write a proposal for a national scientific research initiative, which appeared as Science, the Endless Frontier. This ultimately replaced the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development with the National Science Foundation (following some not-atypical politicking and hurdles).

The mood began to change in the 1960s with opposition to nuclear testing, the appearance of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, concerns over pollution, overpopulation, and limits to growth, the emergence of the environmental movement, and other reactions to the earlier spirit of scientific, technological, and industrial progress.

A whole series of articles introducing UNIX:

http://alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol57-1978/bstj-vol57-issue06...

This is a great resource but not perfect. Is there anything we can do to alert the curators to problems with the collection? For example, Walter Shewart's paper on the "Nature and Origins of Standards of Quality" appears on pages 1 through 22 of Volume 37, Issue 1, January 1958, but pages 4 through 15 are missing.

I tried contacting Alcatel-Lucent about this some time ago without success.

I'm actually interested in that article as well and have tried finding the complete version. If you ever succeed please let me know. So far I also have not found the complete version.

Thanks for the reminder! Unix, blue box papers, Shannon theory, switch blueprints, nice lore.

Funny, I used to have the '81—'83 issues...

Previous discussions may be of interest:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1802293

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2420084

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4687277

Reply on news.ycombinator.com