Honesty in history

We expect university-level textbooks to be accurate. Although mainstream material is accurate, supplementary material such as the history of computing can be inaccurate or misleading. This paper looks at some of these inaccuracies in computing and other branches of engineering. Although some may feel that such inaccuracies do no harm, we argue that academic integrity should be maintained throughout education. Moreover, tolerating inaccuracy in teaching computer history implies that computer history is of little importance to the profession. This paper has three threads. We first discuss the type of inaccuracies found in text books. Then we look at how the history of several inventions across the engineering spectrum is misrepresented. Finally, we discuss ways of teaching the history of computing.