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 u niversities in the period 1950 to 1973. In this period, the NSF played a major role in establishing computing facilities on American campuse s for the purposes of scientific research and science education. By th e end of this period, most of these programs at NSF had been disbanded , and the foundation was concentrating its support for computing not o n the service of other scientific disciplines, but instead on the esta blishment of a theoretically oriented discipline of computer science. The primary focus here is on NSF institutional history, with only a fe w examples of the impact of NSF programs. But it is an important part of a larger story of the role of the federal government in establishin g American hegemony in computing in this era.