A celebration of the early years of the digital revolution, when computing power was deployed in a beige box on your desk. Today, people carry powerful computers in our pockets and call them “phones.” A generation ago, people were amazed that the processing power of a mainframe computer could be contained in a beige box on a desk. This book is a celebration of those early home computers, with specially commissioned new photographs of 100 vintage computers and a generous selection of print advertising, product packaging, and instruction manuals. Readers can recapture the glory days of fondly remembered (or happily forgotten) machines including the Commodore 64, TRS-80, Apple Lisa, and Mattel Aquarius—traces of the techno-utopianism of the not-so-distant past. Home Computers showcases mass-market success stories, rarities, prototypes, one-offs, and never-before-seen specimens. The heart of the book is a series of artful photographs that capture idiosyncratic details of switches and plugs, early user-interface designs, logos, and labels. After a general scene-setting retrospective, the book proceeds computer by computer, with images of each device accompanied by a short history of the machine, its inventors, its innovations, and its influence. Readers who inhabit today's always-on, networked, inescapably connected world will be charmed by this visit to an era when the digital revolution could be powered down every evening.

The challenges faced by IBM's research and development laboratories, the technological paths they chose, and how these choices affected the company and the computer industry.

This encyclopedia collects and organizes theoretical and historical content on the topic of video games, covering the people, systems, technologies, and theoretical concepts as well as the games themselves. This two-volume encyclopedia addresses the key people, companies, regions, games, systems, institutions, technologies, and theoretical concepts in the world of video games, serving as a unique resource for students. The work comprises over 300 entries from 97 contributors, including Ralph Baer and Nolan Bushnell, founders of the video game industry and some of its earliest games and systems. Contributing authors also include founders of institutions, academics with doctoral degrees in relevant fields, and experts in the field of video games. Organized alphabetically by topic and cross-referenced across subject areas, Encyclopedia of Video Games: The Culture, Technology, and Art of Gaming will serve the needs of students and other researchers as well as provide fascinating information for game enthusiasts and general readers.

Tracing the story of computing from Babylonian counting boards to smartphones, this inspiring textbook provides a concise overview of the key events in the history of computing, together with discussion exercises to stimulate deeper investigation into this fascinating area. Features: provides chapter introductions, summaries, key topics, and review questions; includes an introduction to analogue and digital computers, and to the foundations of computing; examines the contributions of ancient civilisations to the field of computing; covers the first digital computers, and the earliest commercial computers, mainframes and minicomputers; describes the early development of the integrated circuit and the microprocessor; reviews the emergence of home computers; discusses the creation of the Internet, the invention of the smartphone, and the rise of social media; presents a short history of telecommunications, programming languages, operating systems, software engineering, artificial intelligence, and databases.

Networks of Design maps a new methodological territory in design studies, conceived as a field of interdisciplinary inquiry and practice informed by a range of responses to actor network theory. It brings together a rich body of current work by researchers in the social sciences, technology, material culture, cultural geography, information technology, and systems design, and design theory and history. This collection will be invaluable to students and researchers in many areas of design studies and to design practitioners receptive to new and challenging notions of what constitutes the design process. Over ninety essays are thematically organised to address five aspects of the expanded notions of mediation, agency, and collaboration posited by network theory: Ideas, Things, Technology, Texts, and People. The collection also includes an important new essay on rethinking the concept of design by Bruno Latour, one of the most influential figures in the philosophy and sociology of science and technology and a pioneer of actor network theory, and essays deriving from forum discussions involving designers and designer-makers responsive to actor network theory. Rather than an anthology of previously-published essays, Networks of Design presents work in progress on design theory and its applications. It is the outcome of a live and vigorous debate on the possibilities and actualities offered by actor network led conceptualisations of the relationships and processes constituting design. All the essays, many collaborative, derive from papers presented at the international conference of the Design History Society held at University College Falmouth, UK in the Autumn of 2008.

This engaging work provides a concise introduction to the exciting world of computing, encompassing the theory, technology, history, and societal impact of computer software and computing devices. Spanning topics from global conflict to home gaming, international business, and human communication, this text reviews the key concepts unpinning the technology which has shaped the modern world. Topics and features: introduces the foundations of computing, the fundamentals of algorithms, and the essential concepts from mathematics and logic used in computer science; presents a concise history of computing, discussing the historical figures who made important contributions, and the machines which formed major milestones; examines the fields of human−computer interaction, and software engineering; provides accessible introductions to the core aspects of programming languages, operating systems, and databases; describes the Internet revolution, the invention of the smartphone, and the rise of social media, as well as the Internet of Things and cryptocurrencies; explores legal and ethical aspects of computing, including issues of hacking and cybercrime, and the nature of online privacy, free speech and censorship; discusses such innovations as distributed systems, service-oriented architecture, software as a service, cloud computing, and embedded systems; includes key learning topics and review questions in every chapter, and a helpful glossary. Offering an enjoyable overview of the fascinating and broad-ranging field of computing, this easy-to-understand primer introduces the general reader to the ideas on which the digital world was built, and the historical developments that helped to form the modern age.