{"id":1842701,"date":"2025-06-13T07:51:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T11:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1842701"},"modified":"2025-06-13T07:51:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T11:51:04","slug":"exploring-the-history-of-geospatial-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/06\/exploring-the-history-of-geospatial-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the History of Geospatial Software"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ingrid Burrington is working on a PhD dissertation on the history of geospatial software and<a href=\"https:\/\/placing.technology\"> she\u2019s posting through it<\/a>. Two gems I\u2019ve run across so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/placing.technology\/how-do-computer-maps-make-money\">(How) do computer maps make money?<\/a> \u201cThe first thing that seems important to state upfront, even though it seems obvious: the business of maps is almost entirely business-to-business, not business-to-consumer. Even if a digital map or geospatial product is consumer-facing, most of the money changing hands doesn\u2019t happen at the level of the individual looking at a map.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/placing.technology\/notes-on-the-history-of-the-map-tile\">Notes on the history of the map tile<\/a>. \u201cCrediting the brothers Rasmussen and Google Maps with the map tile is sort of like crediting Steve Jobs and Apple for the smart phone: understandable but formally imprecise. Both are examples of a company taking technologies and user experiences that had been speculated on or experimented with and transforming them into the seemingly obvious, inevitable Way Things Are Done.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When we talk about the history of cartography (and when I deploy the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/tag\/history-of-cartography\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"312\">history of cartography<\/a> tag) we usually think of something older than the goings-on in Silicon Valley a few decades ago: al-Idrisi and Mercator, not Dangermond or Tomlinson. But recent history is still history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ingrid Burrington is working on a PhD dissertation on the history of geospatial software and she\u2019s posting through it. Two gems I\u2019ve run across so far: When we talk about the history of cartography (and&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/06\/exploring-the-history-of-geospatial-software\/\">More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,114],"tags":[312],"class_list":["post-1842701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-gis","category-web-mapping","tag-history-of-cartography","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1786739,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/11\/creative-cartography-making-art-with-discarded-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":0},"title":"Creative Cartography: Making Art with Discarded Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 November 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Creative Cartography: Since 2014, students of Ellen Meissinger's Art on Paper class at Arizona State University have taken discarded maps from ASU Library's Map and Geospatial Hub and put them to use as raw material for art projects. Every year since then those projects have been the subject of an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/asu-shi-magic-place-1024x792.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/asu-shi-magic-place-1024x792.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/asu-shi-magic-place-1024x792.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/asu-shi-magic-place-1024x792.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2011,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/05\/killing-the-map-in-order-to-protect-the-territory\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":1},"title":"&#8216;Killing the Map in Order to Protect the Territory&#8217;","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 May 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Writing for\u00a0The Wire, Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Adya Garg discuss the recent Indian draft bill that proposes fines and jail terms for publishing a map that shows the \"incorrect\" Indian borders. They provide some background, setting out the government's\u00a0past history of trying to regulate maps of India, and point out some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Censorship&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/censorship\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1810189,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/12\/geospatial-data-is-stuck-in-the-year-1955\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":2},"title":"&#8216;Geospatial Data Is Stuck in the Year 1955&#8217;","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"2 December 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"James Killick\u2019s blog, Map Happenings, looks very much like one worth following. Killick\u2019s been around the block more than a few times, working at Mapquest, Esri and most recently at Apple\u2019s Maps division. He\u2019s seen things, in other words. In his latest post, he decries the geospatial industry\u2019s lack of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;GIS&quot;","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5905,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2017\/11\/future-and-alternate-melbourne-transit-networks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":3},"title":"Future and Alternate Melbourne Transit Networks","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 November 2017","format":"link","excerpt":"Geospatial scientist Adam Mattison also dabbles in maps of a more speculative bent, including maps imagining Melbourne's future transit network, including a tram network map of 2048, a metro map of 2070, and\u00a0the above train network map of 2070. There's some alternate history as well: maps of transit systems that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Transit&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Transit","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/transit\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/mattinson-melbourne-2070-1024x838.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/mattinson-melbourne-2070-1024x838.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/mattinson-melbourne-2070-1024x838.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/mattinson-melbourne-2070-1024x838.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1788786,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/04\/a-u-s-army-film-from-1971-mapping-a-better-tomorrow\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":4},"title":"A U.S. Army Film from 1971: &#8216;Mapping a Better Tomorrow&#8217;","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"23 April 2020","format":"video","excerpt":"\u201cMapping a Better Tomorrow\u201d is a 30-minute film produced in 1971 to explain the work of the U.S. Army Topographic Command (TOPOCOM). After explaining maps from first principles, it covers the state of the art in terms of cartography, computer mapping, photogrammetry and surveying circa 1971, including the production of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Cartography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1817043,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/07\/cartography-and-geospatial-accounts-on-mastodon\/","url_meta":{"origin":1842701,"position":5},"title":"Cartography and Geospatial Accounts on Mastodon","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"5 July 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"If you\u2019re trying out Mastodon in the wake of Twitter\u2019s latest fail (and given the uptick in new followers I\u2019ve seen over the past few days, it seems more than a few of you are) but aren\u2019t sure who to follow, here are two curated lists of cartography, geospatial, GIS\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mastodon\"","block_context":{"text":"Mastodon","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/tag\/mastodon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1842701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1842704,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842701\/revisions\/1842704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1842701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1842701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1842701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}