David C. Brock

dbrock@computerhistory.org

David C. Brock is an historian of technology, Director of Curatorial Affairs and director of the Software History Center at the Computer History Museum. He focuses on histories of computing, electronics and software, as well as on oral history. Brock’s work in the history of semiconductor electronics includes Thackray, Brock and Jones,’Moore’s Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley’s Quiet Revolutionary’ (Basic Books, 2015); Lécuyer and Brock, ‘Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor’ (MIT Press, 2010); and Brock (ed.) ‘Understanding Moore’s Law’ (CHF, 2005). He has served as a writer and executive-producer for several documentary shorts and hour-long television documentaries including: “Moore’s Law at 50”; “Scientists You Must Know”; “Gordon Moore”; and “Arnold O. Beckman”.

He was the curator for a biographical film on computer artist Lillian Schwartz that won a Telly Award in 2022, and he curated the exhibit “Early Computer Films, 1963-1972” at the Computer History Museum in 2022.

Employment

2021-Present COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM, Mountain View, CA.

Director of Curatorial Affairs and Director, Software History Center.

2016-2021 COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM, Mountain View, CA.

Curator and Director, Software History Center

2004-2016 D. C. BROCK CONSULTING, Greenfield, MA.

Principal

1998-2015 SCIENCE HISTORY INSTITUTE, Philadelphia, PA.A

Associate Historian, 1998-2000

Program Manager, 2000-2004

Senior Research Fellow, 2004-2015

Affiliations

2016-Present UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, Santa Barbara, CA.

Visiting Scholar, Department of History

Recent Publications

Arnold Thackray, David C. Brock, and Rachel Jones, Moore’s Law: The Life of Gordon E. Moore, Silicon Valley’s Quiet Revolutionary (New York: Basic Books), 2015.

Brock, “From Automation to Silicon Valley: The Automation Movement of the 1950s, Arnold Beckman, and William Shockley,” History and Technology, 2013. DOI:10.1080/07341512.2012.756236

Brock and Christophe Lécuyer, “Digital Foundations: The Making of Silicon-Gate Manufacturing Technology,” Technology and Culture, 53(3), 2012, 561-597.

Christophe Lécuyer and Brock, Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor. (Cambridge: MIT Press), 2010.

Oral History

I have been an interviewer for nearly two hundred oral histories.

Education

M.A. May 1997 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Department of History, Program in History of Science.

M.Sc. June 1992 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, Science Studies Unit, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge.

B.A. May 1990 BROWN UNIVERSITY, Logic and Philosophy of Science.

Service

2021-Present IEEE Annals for the History of Computing, Biographies Editor

2022-Present Society for the History of Technology, Edelstein Prize Committee

2015-2021 IEEE Spectrum Editorial Advisory Board

2017-Present IEEE Computer Society History Committee

2017-Present Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology and Society, Founding Board Member

2019-Present ACM History Committee

2022 Society for the History of Technology, Da Vinci Prize Committee

2019-2022 Society for the History of Technology, Eugene Ferguson Prize Committee (Chair, 2022)

2019-2021 Society for the History of Technology SIGCIS, Mahoney Prize Committee (Chair, 2020)