Key concepts summary

Prehistory:

• Babbage, Fayol & Taylor
• Trust
• Three traditions — administration, process control, science

Cold War feel:

• US — gains from WW2 Manhattan project, ENIAC, NASA, Atomic power
• EU — fatalism & optimism, rebuilding, Mathematisch Centrum (research center), Freudenthal “Rekenmachines“

Dinosaurs:

• US — Manchester Baby, EDSAC
• EU — scientific, ARRA series and X1, PETER (overall Amsterdam, Delft, Eindhoven)

Golden Age of Sci-Fi:

• advertising computers to people
• themes of totalitarianism, nationalism, surveillance, censorship
• literature — Asimov, Huxley, Orwell, Heinlein, Clarke, Dick
• films — Metropolis, Desk Set, Forbidden Planet

Computing sounds:

• relays leading to sounds for debugging
• Strachey & EDSAC - God Save The Queen
• creating music with computers

Language changes, metaphor:

• language — “programming”, “plugging”, “memory“

IBM “Big Blue” vs everyone:

• Seven Dwarves in US: Burroughs, Honeywell, Control Data Corporation, General Electric
• European Dwarves: Zuse (GER), Electrologica (NL), Regnecentralen (Denmark)
• sales tactic of FUD, IBM had more resources

Real time computing:

• Whirlwind/SAGE — flight simulator by Jay Forrester, then IBM and Burroughs, eventually used for regulating plane traffic
• cashless society ideal — Barclays cash dispenser, credit cards, ‘universal’ product code (US vs Europe)
• decimal day — Barclays & Burroughs (not IBM cuz not British), build B8500 connecting to TC500, sold before built, lots of problems and eventually IBM

Programming:

• ALGOL60 vs FORTRAN vs COBOL
• programming becoming a job
• software becoming economic commodity
• 1968 IBM Unbundling, result of software crisis (or was there one?)

Silicon Valley:

• time sharing facilities, democratic movement, developments in hardware (wristwatches)
• Whole Earth Catalog, 2001
• Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib (“understand computers now”)
• people started wanting computers
• Homebrew Computer Club

EU valleys:

• no interest from youth Hippies, too forced
• Twente polytechnic (Enschede) tried
• utopian city planning
• Hobby Computer Club

Appropriation:

• VisiCalc, Teleac, SSAA
• Squatter movement, Chaos Computer Club (activism, political statement)
• computers in education — educating large amount, making them think, flowcharts, Ecole/BASIC, programmed instruction
• EU demoscenes — magazines, underground journalism, stories, pictures
• personal computers, support from governments in EU, de digitale stad

Rise of internet:

• confluence of 3 desires — good networking technology, unifying all computers on network, making knowledge available
• US company networks (AOL, CompuServe), EU government networks (minitel, viditel), email
• gaming — pacman turned it into a business

Rise of academic disciplines:

• Administration => IMM, Process Control => LI, Science => CS
• EU vs US

Paradigm shifts:

• content to service-oriented
• local to ‘global’
• pc as a tool => pc as gateway to internet (knowledge)
• therefore, info to knowledge society

Digital culture

• Esther Dyson & “Release”, her observations on digital culture
• online library catalogues, desktop publishing, art, online meetings
• motion graphics in movies, changing everything
• eventually developed into risk society, big data, privacy (Project X), controlling what goes wrong
• Saskia Stuiveling — focused on openness, president o fDutch Court of audit