This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the Third IFIP WG 9.7 Conference on the History of Nordic Computing, HiNC3, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in October 2010. The 50 revised full papers presented together with a keynote address and a panel discussion were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers focus on the application and use of ICT and ways in which technical progress affected the conditions of the development and use of ICT systems in the Nordic countries covering a period from around 1970 until the beginning of the 1990s. They are organized in...

Computing in the Nordic countries started in late 1940s mainly as an engineering activity to build computing devices to perform mathematical calculations and assist mathematicians and engineers in scientific problem solving. The early computers of the Nordic countries emerged during the 1950s and had names like BARK, BESK, DASK, SMIL, SARA, ESKO, and NUSSE. Each of them became a nucleus in institutes and centres for mathematical computations programmed and used by highly qualified professionals. However, one should not forget the punched-card machine technology at this time that had existed...