History

» Software History Center
   History of the software industry and the stories of its entrepreneurs and software developers. Includes lengthy software industry who's-who.
   http://www.softwarehistory.org/

» Beer and Nappies -- A Data Mining Urban Legend
   Article debunking the beer-and-diapers data mining urban legend.

   
   http://web.onetel.net.uk/%7Ehibou/Beer%20and%20Nappies.html

» Borud
   History of search engine vendor FAST Search & Transfer, and of a predecessor company founded by an early technical employee.

   
   http://blog.borud.no/2008_01_01_archive.html

» CORBA history
   Critical history of the CORBA standard for object request brokers.

   
   http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=396&page=1

» Cincom Timeline
   Official timeline-history of database pioneer Cincom.

   
   http://cincom.com/us/eng/cincom/about-cincom/history-culture/industry-first/index.jsp

» DBMS Magazne Interview - August 1995
   Founder Mitchell Kertzman discusses the history of Powersoft.

   
   http://www.dbmsmag.com/int9508.html

» Dan Bricklin's History Section
   By Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of Visicalc

   
   http://www.bricklin.com/history/intro.htm

» History of Computing: Software Index
   Taxonomy of many kinds of software, with historical perspective.

   
   http://www.thocp.net/software/software.htm

» IBM DB2's 25th Anniversary: Birth Of An Accidental Empire
   Information Week article on relational DBMS history. Discusses IBM internal politics, and the cooperation between IBM and UC Berkeley researchers.

   
   http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/database_apps/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403005

» Information Technology Corporate Histories Collection
   History of various IT companies, especially enterprise software vendors. Affiliated with the Computer History Museum.

   
   http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/index.php

» Outliners & Programming
   Dave Winer on the history of some early personal computer software products.

   
   http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming

» PostgreSQL History Document
   Capsule history of POSTGRES-related database management systems.

   
   http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2004-12/msg00033.php

» PowerBuilder History
   Idiosyncratic history of PowerBuilder and other client/server development tools.

   
   http://pbdj.sys-con.com/read/124571_1.htm

» Powersoft History
   Capsule history of PowerBuilder, with a scan of a product advertisement.

   
   http://www.lannigan.org/powersoft_powerbuilder_history.htm

» Software Memories
   Historical articles about the enterprise software industry, its companies, and its pioneers.

   
   http://www.softwarememories.com/

» Stottler Henke - Artificial Intelligence History
   Brief history of artificial intelligence, especially expert systems

   
   http://www.stottlerhenke.com/ai_general/history.htm

» System R History
   Includes oral history transcripts about System R and SQL. From 1995.

   
   http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/

» Teradata History
   Official summary company history of Teradata.

   
   http://www.teradata.com/t/page/42649/

» The Hard Work of Software History
   Paper on the challenges and techniques of preserving software history, by a Stanford University curator. [PDF]

   
   http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/rbm/backissuesvol2no/lowood.PDF

» The History of Software Patents
   A history of how software went from unpatentable to patentable.

   
   http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html

» The Origins of Today's OLAP Products
   History of analytic software products, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, which the author regards as precursors to modern OLAP.

   
   http://www.olapreport.com/origins.htm

» The Seven Ages of Information Retrieval
   Essay on the history of information retrieval and search technologies, written before the World Wide Web took off.

   
   http://www.ifla.org/VI/5/op/udtop5/udtop5.htm

» The Technology and Business of ObjectStore
   Detailed two-part history of Object Design, maker of object-oriented database management system ObjectStore.

   
   http://dlweinreb.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/the-technology-and-business-of-objectstore/

» The Vintage Mac Museum
   Screenshots of vintage Macintosh software.

   
   http://www.d4.dion.ne.jp/~motohiko/

» Tincat Group, Inc.— MultiValue Family Tree
   Family tree "poster" and timeline for multivalue (PICK and U2) database management product lines.

   
   http://www.tincat-group.com/mv/familytree.html

» Usenet Software: History and Sources
   Short essay on the development of Usenet architecture.

   
   http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/software/part1/

» Visicorp 1978-84
   A business school case study detailing the history of electronic spreadsheet pioneer Visicorp. [PDF]

   
   http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/dick.rumelt/Docs/Cases/Visicorp.pdf