I am pleased to report that the somewhat haphazard research I have been doing since the beginning of Semester 2 is bearing fruit. The ‘brief history of computing and the internet’ was the topic of Jules’ lecture this week.
Had I not read about Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs’ out-of-a-garage business venture in the Courier Mail Q Weekend recently; had I not been trawling through (the introductory pages of) academic papers and book reviews dealing with cyberspace and cyberculture, I might have been completely overwhelmed by all the talk of ‘IP’s, ‘MUD’s, ‘MOO’s and all their close relations.
This lecture has been particularly well-timed, considering that Steve Wozniak celebrates his sixtieth birthday this week. The insider feature about the ‘two Steves’ and their journeys as co-founders of Apple Inc appeared in the Q Weekend in June of this year. Click here to download the pdf.
The lecture covered the early origins of digital computer development, beginning in the nineteenth century with big-thinker Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine, to Lady Ada Byron’s groundbreaking conception of multi-purpose machines, and later to mathematician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist Alan Turing. Of note here was the point Jules made about great ingenuity and progress being inspired, or, rather, compelled by very dark periods in our history. The example given was the birth of the first working computer (The Bombe, a device designed as a code-breaker that ultimately impacted on the outcome of the war) from the ashes of the Second World War.
The lecture then presented a timeline of commercially-produced computers, from Xerox PARC in 1975 to the Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and GNU/Linux models, which live on today in various updated, more compact guises. We like to make fun of ‘tech-nerds’, but their passion and drive has powered the progression of computing technology to the pervasive phenomena we know today.
Steve Jobs is perhaps one of the most well-known of this sub-culture. Credited with bringing the personal computer into the world, many now harbour concerns that the next decade will usher in the collapse of the Apple dynasty without its visionary; without its 'iGod' at the helm, tirelessly driving the company forwards (Brinkbaumer & Schulzphy, 2010).
The idea of cyberspace and online communities - touched on at the end of the lecture - generates fascinating debate about real and imagined worlds overlapping, combining and colliding. Various issues related to this often confusing intersection has resulted in a dichotomy of commentary. Adopting a 'Utopian' view of these phenomena, Wired contributing editor John Perry Barlow waxes enthusiastic about the internet and networking communication technologies. He describes these developments as "...the most transforming technical event since the capture of fire" (in Silver, 2000, p.3).
A more balanced perspective might be held by various LambdaMOO (a popular multi-user domain) users, whose online identities were violently abused by notorious fellow user 'Mr Bungle' (Dibbell, 1998). Interesting questions about justice, ethics, and protocols in online communities, and the phychological and emotional impacts on both virtual and 'real world' identities have been brought to the fore by damning stories like this one.
Reference List
Brinkbaumer, K., & Schulzphy, T. (2010, June 12). iGod. Qweekend, 10-14.
Dibbell, J. (1998). A Rape in Cyberspace [Electronic version]. Retrieved August 12, 2010, from http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/a-rape-in-cyberspace/
Silver, D. (2000). Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: Cyberculture Studies. In D. Gauntlett (Ed.) Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
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