2.9Steve Wozniak (left) and Steve Jobs with the Apple I Computer (1976). A repeating message on the displays reads, “Computer… available at BYTE Shop.” (Photo: Joe Melena. Image courtesy of the Computer History Museum and used with permission of Apple Computer)
The stage was set for the rapid democratization of programming culture in the U.S. Computer literacy programs U.S. Computer literacy programs developed in the wake of widespread exposureComputing mythologiespersonal computing to computers, as new users sat in front of PCs and wondered what to do with them. Computer programming, once considered the domain of corporate specialists, became a popular way to learn about computers and benefit from them. In the next chapter, we will learn more about this new skill, and how learning to program gained momentum as a popular movement in America.
1.Cited in David Lorge Parnas, “Education for computing professionals,” Computer 23, no. 1 (Jan. 1990), 17–22.
2.Margaret S. Elliott and Kenneth L. Kraemer, “Computerization movements and the diffusion of technological innovations,” in Computerization Movements and Technology Diffusion: From Mainframes to Ubiquitous Computing, edited by Margaret S. Elliott and Kenneth L. Kraemer (Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2008), 6.
3.For a deeper look at the issues, see Janet Abbate, Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012), 97–111; Sandy Payette, “Hopper and Dijkstra: Crisis, revolution, and the future of programming,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 36, no. 4 (2014): 64–73; Adam Barr, The Problem with Software: Why Smart Engineers Write Bad Code (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018); Liesbeth De Mol and Giuseppe Primiero, eds., Reflections on Programming Systems: Historical and Philosophical Aspects (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019).
4.Quoted in Hal Sackman, W. J. Erickson, and E. E. Grant, “Exploratory experimental studies comparing online and offline programming performance,” Communications of the ACM 11, no. 1 (1968): 3–11.
5.See Abbate, Recoding Gender; Marie Hicks, Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017); Nathan Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics and Technical Expertise (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010).
6.Abbate, Recoding Gender, 102–103.
7.Peter Naur and Brian Randell, eds., Software Engineering: Report on a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Garmisch, Germany, Oct. 7–11, 1968 (Brussels: Scientific Affairs Division, North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO], 1969). I thank Brian Randell and Robert M. McClure for sharing important information with me about the conference via email and postal correspondence. See http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/NATO/nato1968.PDF. Accessed August 20, 2019.
8.Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over, 196–197.
9.On the legacy of the 1968 conference, see Matti Tedre, The Science of Computing: Shaping a Discipline (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2015), 111–137. Also useful is Merlin Dorfman and Richard H. Thayer, eds., Software Engineering (Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997).
10.Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over, 196–197.
11.Stuart Shapiro, “Splitting the difference: the historical necessity of synthesis in software engineering,” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 19, no. 1 (1997): 25–54.
12.Shapiro, “Software Engineering,” 20.
13.Naur and Randell, Software Engineering Report, 13. The italic formatting is mine.
14.For the original transcript, see Naur and Randell, Software Engineering Report, 24–25. The speakers were Professor J. N. P. Hume (University of Toronto), J. D. Babcock (Allen-Babcock Computing, New York, NY), Professor J. Berghuis (Philips’ Computer Industrie [a Dutch computer manufacturer], Netherlands), J. W. Smith (Scientific Data Systems, El Segundo, CA), Dr. M. Paul (Leibniz-Rechenzentrum [a computing research center], Munich), and Professor A. J. Perlis (Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA).
15.Harvard Business School, Lehman Brothers Collection, Allen-Babcock Computing Inc. https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/lehman/Data-Resources/Companies-Deals/Allen-Babcock-Computing-Inc. Accessed August 20, 2019.
16.Luanne Johnson, “A view from the sixties: how the software industry began,” in From 0 to 1: An Authoritative History of Modern Computing, eds. Atsushi Akera and Frederik Nebeker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 101–109.
17.Not until 1998, when Microsoft overtook it, did IBM cease to be the world’s largest software supplier. See Martin Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003), 174.
18.A number of excellent books have explored the myths and mythmaking of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and software developers, including (by date of publication), Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984; Revised edition, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2010); Theodore Roszak, From Satori to Silicon Valley: San Francisco and the American Counterculture (San Francisco, CA: Don’t Call It Frisco Press, 1986); John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counter-culture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York: Penguin Books, 2005); Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger, Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, Third Edition (Dallas, TX: The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2014); Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014); Clive Thompson, Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2019); Margaret O’Mara, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (New York: Penguin Press, 2019).
19.Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1969).
20.Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, 31–34.
21.This statement appeared on the title page of each catalog, one page after the image of the planet earth from space. (See Figure 2.5.) For an excellent introduction to the Whole Earth Catalog and its structure, see Caroline Maniaque-Benton, ed., Whole Earth Field Guide, with Meredith Gaglio (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016).
22.Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, 32.
23.Nicholas Negroponte, The Architecture Machine (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1970).
24.Stewart Brand et al., The Last Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools (San Francisco, CA: Portola Institute, 1971), 321.
25.For important assessments of Nelson’s work, see Peter Morville, Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything (Ann Arbor, MI: Semantic Studios, 2014); and Douglas R. Dechow and Daniele C. Struppa, eds., Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson (Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, 2015).
26.On this term, Nelson wrote in Dream Machines: “EVERYTHING IS DEEPLY INTERTWINGLED.
