Arming American scientists: NSF and the provision of scientific computing facilities for universities, 1950-1973

This article discusses the role of the US National Science Foundation in the provision of scientific computing facilities for colleges and universities in the period 1950 to 1973. In this period, the NSF played a major role in establishing computing facilities on American campuses for the purposes of scientific research and science education. By the end of this period, most of these programs at NSF had been disbanded, and the foundation was concentrating its support for computing not on the service of other scientific disciplines, but instead on the establishment of a theoretically oriented discipline of computer science. The primary focus here is on NSF institutional history with only a few examples of the impact of NSF programs. But if is an important part of a larger story of the role of the federal government in establishing American hegemony in computing in this era.<>