Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture - The Many Creators of the Personal Computer

The Many Creators of the Personal Computer

The 1970s witnessed the rise of the personal computer (PC), a small, self-contained machine for individual use, affordable for consumers, which expanded public access to computing power and transformed American perceptions of computing.
The history of the PC is not a linear progression but characterized by false starts, dead ends, and unexpected convergences.
The Social Construction of Technological Systems (SCOT) model describes technological development as an alternation of variation and selection, resulting in a multidirectional model.
Historical hindsight can simplify the multidirectional model into a linear one, but this overlooks the fact that successful stages in development aren't the only possibilities.
This chapter examines the multidirectional development of the PC in the 1970s through various technological projects, including the ECHO home computer system, the emergence of minicomputers and time-sharing, the formulation of Moore's Law, the marketing of the microprocessor, and the invention of the Altair.
Each project represents an intersection of multiple, often conflicting visions of computing.
The PC is the result of struggles, alliances, and negotiations, which shaped contemporary notions of the personal computer.

ECHO: Making Room for a "Home Computer"

The ECHO IV, created by Westinghouse engineer Jim Sutherland in 1965, was the first computer designed for home use, utilizing surplus hardware and memory.
The computer's components were housed in four wooden cabinets weighing 800 pounds, located in Sutherland's basement.
Input stations and output terminals were wired throughout the house, including a keyboard in the living room, a teletype in the kitchen, and binary displays in various locations.
Westinghouse publicized Sutherland's project in 1966, featuring the family in newspaper and magazine articles.
The ECHO project raised the question of how to computerize a home, including where to place the computer and what it would do.
The ECHO was used for tasks like making shopping lists and filing recipes, representing early attempts to computerize the kitchen.
The Honeywell Kitchen Computer, also introduced in 1966, was another attempt at kitchen computerization, featuring a 16-bit machine with a built-in cutting board.
The idea of computerizing the kitchen has persisted, with recipe organization being among the first applications proposed for the Altair.
Another vision for the home computer was as part of a living room entertainment center, controlling the TV antenna and automatically switching channels.
While TVs became central to living rooms, PCs have remained peripheral, often relegated to a side desk.
The "home office" has emerged as a distinct room category, reflecting the blurring boundaries between work and leisure and providing a space for the PC.
The ECHO's ubiquity, with terminals and displays throughout the house, contrasts with the self-contained nature of later PCs.
Microprocessors have proliferated within household products, accomplishing more than the ECHO's mainframe could.
The idea of a networked, centrally controlled "smart house" has persisted in computer magazines, despite failures to gain widespread consumer adoption.
Smart houses, controlled by PCs for lighting, audio/video systems, and security, are often featured in computer and specialized publications.
Bill Gates's home is an archetype of these domestic fantasies, with computers monitoring guests and adjusting settings accordingly.
The smart house ideal is a vision of domestic space as a panopticon, with home surveillance technology seen as a solution for domestic issues.
The computer that takes over the house has been a theme in science fiction, exemplified by HAL in 2001 and the PC in Electric Dreams.

Minicomputers and Time-Sharing: "Mental Models" of Personal Computing

Alongside home computer experiments, time-sharing emerged in university computing centers as a different form of "personal" computing in the 1960s.
Early mainframes could only be operated by one user at a time, leading to the establishment of "batch processing."
Batch processing required users to program instructions on punch cards and submit them to technicians, with results received after processing.
Interactive learning and immediate feedback were limited in this system.
In the 1960s, minicomputers were developed by companies like Digital Equipment Corporation, offering smaller, less expensive alternatives to mainframes.
MIT's hackers embraced DEC's PDP-1 minicomputer, which was designed for scientific inquiry and mathematical formulation.
Minicomputers were more compact, required less air-conditioning, and were easier to operate.
The retail price of the PDP-1 was around 120,000, making computer time more accessible.
MIT's hackers valued the ability to directly interact with the computer and developed time-sharing systems to allow multiple users to simultaneously access a single computer.
Time-sharing created the illusion that each user had the full attention and resources of the computer, shaping a mental model of what computing could be.
Organizations like the People's Computer Company brought time-sharing to local communities, providing low-priced computing access.
Few envisioned that the time-sharing model would be popularized through individual "personal" devices rather than networks of terminals and mainframes.

Moore's Law: The Rush to Miniaturize

The miniaturization of circuitry onto silicon chips made individually owned "personal" computers possible.
A computer is essentially a series of on/off switches that represent logical operations and numerical values.
The size of the computer depends on the size of the switches, the processing power on how quickly they switch, and the price on how cheaply they can be manufactured.
Charles Babbage's difference engine used electromechanical switches; ENIAC used vacuum tubes, which were faster but larger and prone to failure.
The invention of the transistor in 1947, which used semiconductors, led to miniaturization.
Transistors are smaller, faster, more durable, and more energy efficient than vacuum tubes.
Integrated circuits (ICs), which put multiple transistors on a single chip, further streamlined electronics design.
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invented the IC in 1958, and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor refined the manufacturing process.
Noyce's photolithographic process allowed complex circuits to be mass-produced.
Gordon Moore observed in 1965 that the number of transistors on a silicon chip doubled every year.
This shrinking transistor size directly translated into a doubling of speed.
Moore predicted that this pattern would continue indefinitely, leading to exponential growth in computer processing power, which became known as "Moore's Law."
Moore later revised his figure to doubling every two years, then eighteen months.
Hard-drive storage capacity has grown even faster than microprocessor speed, doubling every year since 1997.
Laptop battery life has not kept pace with these advances.
Moore's Law has become the centerpiece of technological determinism in computer culture.
It suggests that technological change is driven by the intrinsic properties of semiconductors rather than social factors.
Moore's Law is not a "force" or "law" like the Second Law of Thermodynamics but a result of labor and capital investment.
It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with chipmakers and analysts setting goals and forecasts based on it.
Moore's Law reflects an increasing rate of acceleration, with electronic devices speeding up at an ever-increasing rate.
This explains why observers consistently perceive themselves to be at the center of unprecedented change.
Moore's Law provides a level of predictability to technological change, allowing executives, engineers, and futurists to extrapolate computer processing power into the future.
A knowledge of Moore's Law can differentiate those in the computer industry from those outside it.
Increased processing power does not necessarily imply greater creativity, efficiency, or ease of use, leading to "bloatware."
Faster models are consistently sold to consumers, even if the practical uses of that speed are not immediately apparent.
Moore's Law is a paradigm for planned obsolescence, justifying the purchase of new versions of the same machines every few years.
Software upgrades often force users to buy new computers as well.
Semiconductor companies continuously build faster chips with the expectation that a market for them will follow.
Great breakthroughs often precede the need for them.
Some observers question whether the obsession with Moore's Law has blinded the industry to other priorities.
Industry leader Intel has begun to de-emphasize "clock speed" and highlight other improvements, such as lower power requirements.
However, competition may prevent any chip company from halting the processor-speed race.
Moore's Law's confidence that if you build it, they will come, has opened opportunities for unanticipated uses.

The Microprocessor

Semiconductor companies manufactured a wide array of chips for calculators, clocks, and other electronic devices in the 1960s.
Chips were traditionally custom-designed for each product.
Intel developed a flexible chip that could be programmed to perform various tasks, resulting in the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, in 1971.
The microprocessor's introduction was a critical development that made the personal computer possible.
The Altair, the first device resembling a personal computer, appeared in 1975.
Early engineers described the 4004 as a "microprogrammable computer on a chip."
Intel management viewed the microprocessor as a more flexible version of existing chips rather than the core of an actual computer.
Established computer companies could have developed personal computers using Intel's chips in the early 1970s.
Engineers at Hewlett-Packard and Digital lobbied to build low-cost microcomputers.
Digital's David Ahl organized a pilot program and produced two prototypes, but the project was scuttled due to skepticism from the sales department and CEO Ken Olsen.
Executives found it difficult to imagine a tiny chip could be the core of a computer.
The developer of the microprocessor, Ted Hoff, compared replacing microprocessors to replacing light bulbs.
Design engineers couldn't make the connection between room-sized computers and a sliver of silicon.

The Altair: Playing with the Future

The dawn of the personal computer age is often dated to the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which featured the Altair 8800 minicomputer kit.
The Altair was created by Ed Roberts, president of MITS, and was available via mail order for 397.
Roberts founded MITS to build electronic instruments for model rocketry hobbyists and later moved into calculator kits.
When large companies started producing low-cost calculators, Roberts developed the idea of a low-cost digital computer kit.
The Altair was not the first hobbyist project to use the Intel 8008 microprocessor; the Scelbi 8-H was advertised earlier.
Jonathan Titus published instructions on building the Mark-8 minicomputer in Radio-Electronics.
The Altair was the first machine to develop a strong user base and support the development of software and peripherals, initiating the personal computer industry.
Ed Roberts hoped to sell 400 machines, but sold that many in a single afternoon.
Newsletters and magazines for Altair users began to be published, and companies developed software for the Altair, including Microsoft.
Competitors like the IMSAI 8080 and Processor Technology's SOL emerged, culminating in the Apple II in 1977.
The Altair lacked a keyboard, long-term memory storage, and a monitor, requiring users to input data via switches and translate binary code.
It had an "open bus" architecture, allowing for easy expansion with plug-in cards.
The Altair was marketed as a state-of-the-art minicomputer at a fraction of the cost of commercial units.
Possible applications listed included accounting systems, navigation computers, time-shared computers, and intrusion systems.
The language used to describe the uses of a home computer was still emerging.
Applications like word processors and spreadsheets had not yet been invented.
The appeal of the personal computer involved a tension between practical uses and long-range hopes and fantasies.
Building the Altair was an opportunity to develop technical skills.
Hobbies exist on the boundaries of work and leisure, allowing for experimentation and self-improvement.
Readers of Popular Electronics were self-identified "hobbyists."
Ads for technical education courses were prevalent, including courses on computer skills.
Building a computer was a way to join an elite fraction of the professional-managerial class.
It provided an opportunity to explore and understand a powerful technology and gain a sense of control and mastery.
Many hobbyists saw their access to computing as part of a larger movement for the democratization of technology.
Advocates of "computer liberation" emerged, especially in California's Bay Area.
The Homebrew Computer Club became a meeting place for Altair enthusiasts and pioneers of Silicon Valley.
Technophilia and radical politics intersected in publications like The Whole Earth Catalog and Co-Evolution Quarterly.
These magazines promoted the "appropriate technology" movement, advocating democratizing, environmentally friendly tools.
The personal computer was a logical extension of this left-wing technotopianism.
Ted Nelson explored this vision in his 1974 manifesto, Computer Lib/Dream Machines.
Nelson was depicted as the Tom Paine of the personal-computer revolution.
The enemy was Central Processing, representing commercial, philosophical, political, and socio-economic manifestations.
The libertarian vision of democratized technology differed from the communitarian time-sharing model.
The time-sharing model was based on a shared public resource; hobbyists embraced an individualist vision of personal computers.
This privatized concept of computing made it possible to imagine the computer as a commodity.
The commodification of computing fostered decentralization but also stratified access by income level.
The French Minitel system, by contrast, treated the computer as an extension of the government-backed phone system, reaching a larger percentage of the population.
Only recently have computers penetrated the majority of American households.
The commodification of computing established a vision of computing as an atomized, "personal" task, different from the time-sharing model.
Despite the availability of modems, "connectivity" was initially seen as a peripheral role.
The rise of the internet in the mid-1990s shifted this model, developing into "interpersonal" computing.
The American interpersonal model remains rooted in the assumption that each user is anchored to a personal computer.
In many parts of the world, users access the internet through publicly available computers.
Cybercafes in the United States offer WiFi access, expecting users to bring their own laptops.
Building an Altair was a way to participate in the making of the future.
The era of the computer in every home was described as having arrived, casting the builders of the first Altairs as pioneers.
The Altair was named after a star in Star Trek.
The fascination in hobbyist texts was for the technology in itself rather than its possible consequences.
This fascination is equivalent to the "sense of wonder" described by science fiction critics and the "American technological sublime."
It is the utopian impulse at its most basic and unfocused: a vague sense that the world can be better and a deep hope for fundamental change.