Accidental Machines: The Impact of Popular Participation in Computer Technology
Michael Punt · Design Issues · 1998
This article is about computers, electronic communications, and how the current use of these technologies has been influenced by changes in the popular understanding of what they mean. It is about the role of ordinary users in defining the meaning of science and its products. It shows how, sometimes, this is a source of conflict between the narrow interests of the professional and the broader concerns of the amateur. Extrapolating from this premise, the article presents a history of the personal to suggest how the understandings that motivate commercial innovators might sometimes be vastly at odds with those of the consumer. It concludes by proposing that the type of historical method we use is important in explaining technology, and that this is a crucial problem to be addressed by all those with an interest in what the future of the industry and its products might be. For most of us, the term computer has come to mean a small, inscrutable personal machine no bigger than the average television set, which sits on the desktop in the home and office, and has become an extension of our professional and recreational lives. Typically, it is used for a number of discrete operations such as word processing, spreadsheet analysis, publishing, multimedia applications, and telecommunications. This machine, commonly referred to as the PC, but more properly called a microcomputer, is the engineer's paradigm of a black box. Few of us know how the apparatus works in detail, and there is little to be gained from the effort of understanding the finer points of the hardware and its operating system. This tendency has been nurtured by the imperative of friendliness, which suggests good computer/user interface design. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) make it unnecessary for us to do more than decode the occasional acronym (ROM and RAM, for example) to which highly complex electronic modules known as chips have been reduced. The PC is one of the most technically complex and mysterious pieces of technology that we have to deal with on a daily basis, and it is not a coincidence that it is both a metaphor for the mind and the architecture for working models of human intelligence. The history of the PC is the story of the transformation of a specialized piece of scientific equipment into a popular consumer product. After starting life as an ambitious laboratory project, the The author would like to express gratitude to the editors of Design Issues for their help in the preparation of this article. In particular, he would like to thank Victor Margolin for his helpful comments in developing the paper and his stimulating responses to various drafts.