Tools for thought
In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. The digital revolution did not begin with the teenage millionaires of Silicon Valley, claims Howard Rheingold, but with such early intellectual giants as Charles Babbage, George Boole, and John von Neumann. In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. Taking the reader step by step from nineteenth-century mathematics to contemporary computing, he introduces a fascinating collection of eccentrics, mavericks, geniuses, and visionaries. The book was originally published in 1985, and Rheingold's attempt to envision computing in the 1990s turns out to have been remarkably prescient. This edition contains an afterword, in which Rheingold interviews some of the pioneers discussed in the book. As an exercise in what he calls "retrospective futurism," Rheingold also looks back at how he looked forward.
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- I'm following my own advice there at the end and browsing around a bit more, and one book dynamicland links to on their bookshelf (https://dynamicland.org/2024/Roots/) is "Tools for Thought" (https://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/) which has this amazing blurb which reminded me of this thread:
> Tools for Thought is an exercise in retrospective futurism; that is, I wrote it in the early 1980s, attempting to look at what the mid 1990s would be like. My odyssey started when I discovered Xerox PARC and Doug Engelbart and realized that all the journalists who had descended upon Silicon Valley were missing the real story. Yes, the tales of teenagers inventing new industries in their garages were good stories. But the idea of the personal computer did not spring full-blown from the mind of Steve Jobs. Indeed, the idea that people could use computers to amplify thought and communication, as tools for intellectual work and social activity, was not an invention of the mainstream computer industry nor orthodox computer science, nor even homebrew computerists. If it wasn't for people like J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, Alan Kay, it wouldn't have happened. But their work was rooted in older, equally eccentric, equally visionary, work, so I went back to piece together how Boole and Babbage and Turing and von Neumann — especially von Neumann — created the foundations that the later toolbuilders stood upon to create the future we live in today. You can't understand where mind-amplifying technology is going unless you understand where it came from.
- I haven't read it yet, but Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology by Howard Rheingold looks very promising. The MIT Press edition [1] contains an afterword, in which Rheingold interviews some of the pioneers discussed in the book, and as an exercise in what he calls "retrospective futurism," he looks back at how he looked forward.
[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262681155/tools-for-thought/
- Some of my favourite internet-specific books:
- The Dream Machine. Fantastic tech history coverage with a particular focus on the lead up to the internet https://press.stripe.com/#the-dream-machine.
- Tools for Thought - Lots of similar ground to the Dream Machine but with a less internet-centric focus. Still great though - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tools-Thought-History-Mind-Expandin...
Perhaps not internet focused, but tangential/technology:
- The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
- One Giant Leap (Apollo Missions. Decent amount of computing foucs)
- Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
- Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Lots of interesting snippets of tech and non-tech history
- tips hat my pleasure. I'll add that I've recently begun to read about the fascinating early history of computing myself through a series of HN threads which led me to read, "Tools for Thought" by Howard Rheingold. That book is highly cited in another book mentioned here in the comments about Licklider, "The Dream Machine".
I highly recommend Tools for Thought. It is very clear from reading these histories that the early pioneers of the field knew with a very high degree of accuracy how the future of computing would play out over the coming decades. That book is humbling to say the least.
- Howard Rheingold's Tools for Thought. http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/
- Howard Rheingold's 'Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology' - covers George Boole, Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, John Von Neumann
Jon Gernter's 'The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation' - very cool story about the formation of Bell Labs and covers the Transistor, Satellite comms, the laser, and a ton of other stuff up till, but not disappointingly not including Unix.
John Markoff's 'What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry' - what is says!
Ted Nelson's 'Geeks Bearing Gifts' (or any of his YouTube Computers For Cynics videos) - awesome, curmudgeonly alternative (but accurate) version of computer history.
Michael A. Hiltzik's 'Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age' - as someone else mentioned, really great history
