CS378W, History of Computing
Week 12, Weekly Report
Due 2004 Nov 11
"Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" - A Modern-day Analysis
Bryant Tang
2004 Nov 11
This paper by Stewart Brand is an interesting one, for it brings up some key ideas that have developed and matured into computing as we see it today. However, not all the links are direct, for some of the concepts have taken decades to ripen into some of the things we see in the world around us.
Firstly, there is the concept of the gaming tournament, something along the lines of the "First Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics" that was held at Stanford in 1972 (5). Certainly, the idea of an event where electronic gamers gather in real life to compete in a game is not a new concept, but it survives to this day despite the advent of online gaming. For example, there are events like the Cyberathlete Professional League that are held each year where gamers play for a large pot of cash in a heated game of Counter-Strike (2). Such LAN (Local Area Network) events harken back to the days when the hackers at Stanford or MIT would gather together in front of a terminal to play against each other in Spacewar (5).
Of course, there is the Dynabook, Alan Kay's ingenious idea that would prove to be a precursor to the notebooks of today. Sure, it might have been targeted at children, but there is no doubt that the conceptual system was a revolutionary idea in the 1970s, and would ultimately lead to the actualization of the portable computer idea in the form of later laptops (4). Even the stylus interface is interesting, for it is something that still survives till today in our latter-day Personal Digital Assistants and Tablet PCs (5)!
Also mentioned is the system of computing that was still prevalent in that era, that of a single centralized mainframe that had to be shared by multiple people (5). With the high costs of computing equipment back then and the large size and power requirements of the aforementioned computers, it was nearly impossible for individuals to own their own machines (3). That seems like a archaic concept by modern standards, as we find computers in so many homes and offices across America! The ever-dropping costs of technology and improvements in size, heat production and efficiency have led to the personal computer. It started with Intel's development of the world's first commercial microprocessor in the 4004 in 1971, subsequently followed up with the MITS Altair 8800, the first personal computer that was sufficiently small and cheap that it could be owned by your average Joe (3).
There is also the ARPAnet, which is talked about in its infancy. That, of course, has expanded and grown impressively to result in the internet as we know it today (5). Back in the 1970s, access to the ARPAnet was restricted primarily to the government and a handful of universities, but now every person who owns a device connected to the internet has full access. There is also the amount of content available online today, which is a vast improvement over the paltry bits of information that was available to users during the early stages of the ARPAnet's development.
As such, we can definitely see how some of the concepts highlighted by this article have evolved over the years. By reading it, we can get a better grasp of how far we've come since the 1970s and hence garner a greater appreciation for the modern technology we have around us.
Notes
1. J. M. Graetz, "The origin of Spacewar," http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/creative/SpacewarOrigin.html (Monkeys with Wheels, accessed 2004 Nov 10).
2. "History of the CPL," http://www.thecpl.com/gamers/?p=art_cplhistoryptII (Cyberathlete Professional League, accessed 2004 Nov 10).
3. Stephen White, "A Brief History of Computing," http://www.ox.compsoc.net/~swhite/history/ (Oxford University Computer Society, accessed 2004 Nov 10).
4. "Dynabook," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook (Wikipedia, accessed 2004 Nov 10).
5. Stewart Brand, "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Rolling Stone (1972 Dec 7). Also available online at http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html (www.wheels.org, accessed 2004 Nov 10).