[Air-l] timeline

[Heidelberg, Chris]

Jonathan:

I am trying to find some books that are stating what you just said about
things going all the way back to Aristotle and Aristoxenus since my
professors will not accept wikis and discourage too many online
citations. Do you have a few books or papers that I can find at a
reasonable price that chronicle the use of technology from the Greek
period (or before if you have some Egyptian data) to the present in
education and media. Also, can you explain the relationship between
music and number in easy to explain way to me because people think I
sound too technical. I guess history of technology books may be my
answer but you seemed to know exactly where I want to go. I am writing
journal articles as part of my final class.

Chris 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Sterne
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 5:41 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] timeline

Hi All,

I haven't been following the timeline conversation so I don't know the
particular motivations behind it, but it seems rather short scale to my
mind.  For instance, if one wants to understand the history of digital
audio, you've got to at least go back to Fourier, who was interested in
heat but whose waveform analysis made digital audio possible.  And if
you want to talk about the relationship between music and number, well
now we're back to Aristotle and Aristoxenus.

If we're interested in keyboard instruments, the history of typewriters
seems important, and if we're interested in the history of databases the
census, the postal system and the invention of tabulation machines seems
important.

Also the 20th century dates seem off to me.  1950s is an important
period for the diffusion of television in the US but much of the key
policy and technological development happened between the 20s and 40s.
One might also look internationally to German deployments of television
and so forth.

Again, I don't know the motivation behind such a timeline but if it is
meant as a guide to media history relevant to people who are interested
in digital media today, I would recommend more attention the extant
media historical scholarship.

Best,
--J

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