Article ID: CBB812274950

Exploding the Black Box: Personal Computing, the Notebook Battery Crisis, and Postindustrial Systems Thinking (April 2017)

unapi

Historians of science and technology have generally ignored the role of power sources in the development of consumer electronics. In this they have followed the predilections of historical actors. Research, development, and manufacturing of batteries has historically occurred at a social and intellectual distance from the research, development, and manufacturing of the devices they power. Nevertheless, power source technoscience should properly be understood as an allied yet estranged field of electronics. The separation between the fields has had important consequences for the design and manufacturing of mobile consumer electronics. This paper explores these dynamics in the co-construction of notebook batteries and computers. In so doing, it challenges assumptions of historians and industrial engineers and planners about the nature of computer systems in particular and the development of technological systems. The co-construction of notebook computers and batteries, and the occasional catastrophic failure of their compatibility, challenges systems thinking more generally.

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Authors & Contributors
Sovacool, Benjamin K.
Hirsh, Richard F.
Daniel, Claus
Caroline White-Nockleby
Dunk, James
Serra, Roberto
Concepts
Systems theory
Personal computers and computing
Batteries
Technological innovation
Computers and computing
Public policy
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
Norway
Institutions
Ovonic Battery Company
Matsushita Electrical Industry Company, Ltd.
United States. Securities and Exchange Commission
Toyota Motor Corporation
General Motors Corporation
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