000 Computer Science, Knowledge & Systems, Part 6

This week, for the sixth entry in the 000s, Books by the Numbers returns to the world of computing. Specifically, the development of the personal computer is the subject of this week's book, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff (004.16 MA). As the title indicates its author has a special take on the development of the PC. In this book he contends that the psychedelic era and ethos ultimately gave rise to the development of the PC.

If you found this premise as interesting as I did, then you may want to give the book a try. It is certainly not as light reading as some of the other computer books I have read for the blog. Also, it focuses on times and events that I did not previously associate with the development of the PC. The MITS Altair, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates receive hardly any mention in the book; just in the preface and some at the end.

The era that this book describes is also not what most people would associate with the psychedelic movement. It deals instead mostly with the very early experimentation with LSD and other psychedelic phenomena. Rather than being pure recreation, this was experimentation that was aimed at augmenting human abilities. This was seen by some as going hand-in-hand with development of artificial intelligence.

Eventually, the pursuit of creating thinking machines gave way to put the power of computers-- and of course we are talking very minuscule computing power by today's standards--into the hands of everyone. And, of course, it is a long and convoluted story how this all happened. Just as throning the "father of the computer" was not done in Electronic Brains, so neither is the "father of the PC" enshrined here. Its development was the work of many actors, and Markoff takes pains to give many of them credit.

As to whether he solidly ties in the development of the PC with the psychedelic era is another matter. Even after reading the book I am not convinced that its advent was inevitable regardless of the political and social climates holding sway over the time period. To be sure, it may not have happened exactly as it did otherwise, but that goes without saying. Still, it is interesting to see the interplay of the two movements, and I think one can still see some of the reverberations today--though faintly.

One thing I did not like about the book, which I know several Amazon commenters picked up on before me was the continuity in the flow of the narrative. At several points during the book, the author hops back and forth among the late 50s, all of the 60s, and the early 70s. I found it a little annoying and thought the book could have been paced a little more chronologically. Even so, one cannot deny that this book is an outstanding work of non-fiction for telling the story of the early roots of the PC, from such a unique perspective, and in such a well-researched and thorough manner.