"When personal computing finally blossomed in Silicon Valley in the mid-seventies, it did so largely without the benefit of any of the history and the research that had gone before it. As a consequence, the personal-computer industry would be deformed for years, creating a world of isolated desktop boxes, in contrast to the communities of shared information that had been pioneered in the sixties and early seventies"
The above quote is from John Markoff's book What the Dormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Although the book's support of its central argument is weak and jumbled, I found its attempt at establishing computer history within a movement and culture engaging. Computing's speed of innovation and adoption creates the illusion that they exist outside society, culture, and history. But this is not and has never been the case.
As Markoff's observation suggests, in order to use computers towards a human good it is essential that they be considered in terms other than financial gain and heedless progress.
This concept - maintaining a sense of computer context - is what drove me to create Data Archaea. In my notes and thoughts I have considered computer context in terms of history, data preservation, digital archeology and anthropology. These are all components of a larger goal: raising an awareness of the past as well as the future of computers.
4 comments:
hi ross!
"When personal computing finally blossomed in Silicon Valley in the mid-seventies, it did so largely without the benefit of any of the history and the research that had gone before it."
how exactly does he think this could even be possible?
Unfortunately I returned the book to the library a while ago, so I can't refer back to his own words, but what I think what he means by this poorly worded statement is a few things:
1) The new youngsters who designed and (most importantly) marketed the next generation of computers had no knowledge of "the history and research that had gone before it."
You're right to point out a problem here because they obviously had the benefit. They made tons of money. But on the other hand a lot of the technology we've seen emerge in the last 20 years originated well before the PC came to be. It was developed by interesting people who thought about computers in terms other than money making.
According to the author of this book, the explosion of the financial incentive to be involved in computers resulted in a historical, intellectual and cultural disconnect between what computers had been to their creators and users and what they were to be for years to come.
You can see this same thing happening in the disconnect between Pre-WWW technology (BBSes, Fidonet) and the WWW. Almost nobody knows about that stuff - it's a historical side-note at best - but everybody uses the Web.
Oops.. I put a number 1) but no 2)!
This is how you can tell it is 7AM.
Hi Ross, Just found your blog. I'm looking forward to following it. Best, Bill
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