What if you could someday put the manufacturing power of an automobile plant on your desktop? It may sound far-fetched-but then, thirty years ago, the notion of "personal computers" in every home sounded like science fiction. According to Neil Gershenfeld, the renowned MIT scientist and inventor, the next big thing is personal fabrication -the ability to design and produce your own products, in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics with industrial tools. Personal fabricators (PF's) are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago. PF's will bring the programmability of the digital world to the rest of the world, by being able to make almost anything-including new personal fabricators. In FAB , Gershenfeld describes how personal fabrication is possible today, and how it is meeting local needs with locally developed solutions. He and his colleagues have created "fab labs" around the world, which, in his words, can be interpreted to mean "a lab for fabrication, or simply a fabulous laboratory." Using the machines in one of these labs, children in inner-city Boston have made saleable jewelry from scrap material. Villagers in India used their lab to develop devices for monitoring food safety and agricultural engine efficiency. Herders in the Lyngen Alps of northern Norway are developing wireless networks and animal tags so that their data can be as nomadic as their animals. And students at MIT have made everything from a defensive dress that protects its wearer's personal space to an alarm clock that must be wrestled into silence. These experiments are the vanguard of a new science and a new era-an era of "post-digital literacy" in which we will be as familiar with digital fabrication as we are with the of information processing. In this groundbreaking book, the scientist pioneering the revolution in personal fabrication reveals exactly what is being done, and how. The technology of FAB will allow people to create the objects they desire, and the kind of world they want to live in.

The fascinating history of the personal computer from Altair to the IBM PC revolution. Written by computer legend Stan Veit, who turned Computer Shopper into the world's largest computer magazine.

Features models, diagrams, and charts that illustrate the workings of the keyboard, memory, disk drive, and printer

This book addresses the history of finite element analysis (FEA) and why FEA is becoming a necessary tool for the solution of a wide variety of problems encountered in the professsional engineer's career. It helps the user to solve general classes of problems with FEA on personal computers.

This Book Has Been Developed As A Text For A One Semester Course On The Hardware And Software Of Personal Computers. It Will Also Be Of Interest To Practicing Engineers And Professionals Who Wish To Develop Their Own Hardware And Software For Special Pc-Based Applications. Apart From Providing All The Significant Hardware And Software Details For Ibm-Pcs And Its Close Compatibles, It Also Presents A Comprehensive Description Of How The Pc Works And The Various Functions That It Can Provide. A Large Number Of Interesting And Useful Problems Have Been Given At The End Of Each Chapter. A Set Of Objective Type Questions Has Also Been Provided To Allow The Reader To Review His/Her Understanding Of The Material In The Text.This Book Has Been Developed As A Text For A One Semester Course On The Hardware And Software Of Personal Computers. It Will Also Be Of Interest To Practicing Engineers And Professionals Who Wish To Develop Their Own Hardware And Software For Special Pc-Based Applications. Apart From Providing All The Significant Hardware And Software Details For Ibm-Pcs And Its Close Compatibles, It Also Presents A Comprehensive Description Of How The Pc Works And The Various Functions That It Can Provide. A Large Number Of Interesting And Useful Problems Have Been Given At The End Of Each Chapter. A Set Of Objective Type Questions Has Also Been Provided To Allow The Reader To Review His/Her Understanding Of The Material In The Text.