[Air-l] PCs were invented in 1968

[Roger Clark]

Actually, I made my first "personal computer" in 1967.  It consisted of
lights on a pegboard.  You dialed a wheel to add or subtract, and the
lights would turn on in the tens, hundreds, and thousands column.  I
doubt that was the computer the students had in mind, though.

Dr. Roger W. Clark

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-aoir.org-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Willard
Uncapher
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 4:29 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] PCs were invented in 1968

At 01:26 PM 9/11/2004, you wrote:
>Yup, that's what a student in my first class (Tech & Society) told me.
I
>forget if it was by John, Paul, Ringo or George.
>
>The comment made me realize that I should include in the syllabus a
potted
>article on the history of computing, from Einiac to Pentiums and
wireless.

Picking up a parallel thread to exploring computer history - I have been

incensed, if I might put it in those terms, at the lack of interest in
most 
communications research programs on the general topic of communications 
history.  Indeed, the lack of understanding on these issues by my
students 
is so profound that I find it almost impossible, or at least improbable
to 
move forward on others issues.  I would generalize that the
understanding 
of history in general is becoming erratic, a factor that plays into
various 
know-nothing political stances these days.  For instructors like myself
who 
have very little say in what courses are taught in the departments with 
which I am affiliated, this great lack of understanding on both the
faculty 
as well as the students I think presents a great theoretical hole in not

only Internet Studies, but in communication research in general. (I am 
doing a little study on this right now, not that I know where such
research 
might be welcome).

I am teaching a course on 'computer mediated communication' right now,
with 
over half the class consisting of graduate students in communication.
Now 
I wanted to contextualize the development of the computer into the
larger 
developments of comm history. Indeed, I like to think about the question
as 
to whether the development of the Internet and CMC during the later 20th

century was 'revolutionary' or 'evolutionary' or what. I want to make
sure 
that we wouldn't be too quick to jump on techno-determinist or 
cultural-determinist ideological camps, and to see how the impact of new

media can reflect, play into, and influence contemporary 
techno-communicational developments.

Ok. Computers in 1968, Barry?  I asked my students when Gutenberg
developed 
his revolutionary iteration of the printing press - and not only could
not 
a single student tell me within a 100 years, but the answers were simply

astonishing (1700!).  Dates of the larger developments in comm history, 
even from a Euro-centric perspective were not forthcoming. What little
comm 
history they did know was related to mass media (there were some grunts
of 
acknowledgement when I asked about the penny press, but not much 
understanding when I mentioned the telegraph as the beginning of the 
global, electronic, network society).  The same was true as I talked
about 
the history of the discipline itself: Paul Lazersfeld, who's he?
Indeed, 
not one of my students had heard of Marshall McLuhan (and how could they
in 
a traditional media course?). My course on CMC, which I had planned as
only 
exploring the state of the field since 9/11 and the dot.com bust is now 
spending a lot more time setting up an understanding of the media world 
even before Turing, von Neuman, etc.  Indeed more contemporary
historical 
awareness - for example, the complete lack of awareness bout the
existence 
or promise of the Whole Earth Catalog - can be so lacking that a
question 
about the inter-relation of the WECatalog, the California Ideology, the 
Sharing economies, and the rise of the WEB invite confusion. However, I 
don't see resources out there to address this problem. Sigh.

Willard


Willard Uncapher, Ph.D. / Network Emergence / 8706 Kendall Court,
Arvada, 
CO 80003
mailto:nwu1 at columbia.edu / http://www.well.com/user/willard  

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