Book ID: CBB772343102

A People’s History of Computing in the United States (2018)

unapi

Joy Marie Lisi Rankin (Author)


Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2018
Physical Details: 336
Language: English

The invention of the personal computer liberated users from corporate mainframes and brought computing into homes. But throughout the 1960s and 1970s a diverse group of teachers and students working together on academic computing systems conducted many of the activities we now recognize as personal and social computing. Their networks were centered in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Illinois, but they connected far-flung users. Joy Rankin draws on detailed records to explore how users exchanged messages, programmed music and poems, fostered communities, and developed computer games like The Oregon Trail. These unsung pioneers helped shape our digital world, just as much as the inventors, garage hobbyists, and eccentric billionaires of Palo Alto. By imagining computing as an interactive commons, the early denizens of the digital realm seeded today’s debate about whether the internet should be a public utility and laid the groundwork for the concept of net neutrality. Rankin offers a radical precedent for a more democratic digital culture, and new models for the next generation of activists, educators, coders, and makers.

...More
Reviewed By

Essay Review Schafer, Valérie (June 2020) Computers and Computing in Society. NTM: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin. unapi

Review Janet Abbate (2020) Review of "A People’s History of Computing in the United States". American Historical Review (pp. 1465-1466). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB772343102/

Similar Citations

Book Alex Wiltshire; (2020)
Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation (/isis/citation/CBB778832168/)

Article Barnes, Susan B.; (2007)
Alan Kay: Transforming the Computer into a Communication Medium (/isis/citation/CBB000850213/)

Book Michael L. Black; (2022)
Transparent Designs: Personal Computing and the Politics of User-Friendliness (/isis/citation/CBB017297145/)

Thesis McDonald, Christopher Felix; (2011)
Building the Information Society: A History of Computing as a Mass Medium (/isis/citation/CBB001567275/)

Chapter Misa, ThomasJ.; (2010)
Gender codes: Defining the problem (/isis/citation/CBB001180018/)

Chapter Lindsay, Cecile; (1999)
From the basement to the kitchen: constructing the gendered personal computer user (/isis/citation/CBB512625569/)

Article November, Joseph; (2011)
Removing the Center from Computing: Biology's New Mode of Digital Knowledge Production (/isis/citation/CBB001220457/)

Article Abbate, Janet; (2010)
Privatizing the Internet: Competing Visions and Chaotic Events, 1987--1995 (/isis/citation/CBB001231740/)

Article Aylen, Jonathan; (2012)
Bloodhound on My Trail: Building the Ferranti Argus Process Control Computer (/isis/citation/CBB001231606/)

Article Brooks, Douglas A.; Gmyrek, Daniel P.; (2011)
Computers Come into Pharmacy Practice: The First Retail Pharmacy Computer System in the State of Virginia (/isis/citation/CBB001252816/)

Thesis Kelly, Jean Patricia; (2003)
Selling Silicon: The Framing of Microcomputers in Magazines, 1973--1997 (/isis/citation/CBB001561983/)

Authors & Contributors
Meda-Calvet, Ignasi
Vidan, Gili
Wiltshire, Alex
Black, Michael L.
Clare S. Kim
Stark, Luke
Concepts
Computers and computing
Personal computers and computing
Information technology
Technology and society
Computer networks
Users of technology
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Virginia (U.S.)
Silicon Valley (California)
Catalonia (Spain)
Norway
France
Institutions
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
National Institute of Health (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment