<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">This is a different angle on the "conception of the user," but Petrick’s book <i class="">Making Computers Accessible</i> makes the point that early computer users were assumed to be able-bodied, until disability activists demanded accessible technology. I don’t have the book handy, but maybe a chapter could be excerpted for undergrads. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
<div dir="auto" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Dr. Janet Abbate<br class="">Professor, Science, Technology and Society<br class="">Virginia Tech</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Co-director, VT National Capital Region STS program<br class=""><a href="http://liberalarts.vt.edu/sts" class="">liberalarts.vt.edu/sts</a><br class="">www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br class=""><br class="">
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 17, 2018, at 8:17 PM, Kevin Driscoll <<a href="mailto:kdriscoll@alum.mit.edu" class="">kdriscoll@alum.mit.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Hi Shreeharsh,<br class=""><br class="">In the past, I have assigned selections from "Computer" for a similar purpose. You might find passages that offer precisely the comparison you wish to make:<br class=""><div class="">- Campbell-Kelly, Martin, William Aspray, Nathan Ensmenger, and Jeffrey R Yost. Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 2018.</div><br class="">This year, I am particularly excited to try a new reading in my media history course:<br class=""><div class="">- Petrick, E. “Imagining the Personal Computer: Conceptualizations of the Homebrew Computer Club 1975-1977.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 39, no. 4 (October 2017): 27-39. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2018.1221045" class="">https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2018.1221045</a>.</div><br class=""><div class="">Not only does Petrick's paper dig into the particular concerns of early enthusiasts, but it lends itself well to the classroom. The Homebrew newsletters are widely available on the web so you can ask students to trace the citations in the paper back to their primary sources. I'm looking forward to hearing what undergrads think about these unusual documents.<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best of luck!</div>Kevin Driscoll<br class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="">On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 11:38 AM Shreeharsh Kelkar <<a href="mailto:shreeharsh@gmail.com" class="">shreeharsh@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class="">Dear all, <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">This fall, I'll be teaching a course on the history of computing. One of my learning objectives for the class is to show students the how the conception of the computer user varied with the social context of the cold war labs where new ways of interacting with computers were invented (e.g. IPTO versus SRI versus PARC). I feel like this helps me bring out in class (a) the importance of patronage (which students could care less but that's another matter) and (b) the idea that early computer users (e.g of ARPANET) were often elites and thereby were able to shape the technology quite actively. <br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="">I wonder if anyone on this list has suggestions for an article (preferably in a journal, but long-form journalism works too) that explores these themes and which is written in a manner that's accessible to undergraduates.</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Last year I assigned <a href="https://academic.oup.com/joc/article-abstract/45/3/40/4160211" target="_blank" class="">Bardini and Horvath's "The Social Construction of the Personal Computer User"</a>--which, I think, does a great job at bringing out these issues. Unfortunately, the text itself is quite abstruse and my sense is that students were left shaking their heads. (I paired it with a small section from Neal Stephenson's "In the beginning was the command line ...")<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Many thanks in advance, <br class=""></div><div class="">Shreeharsh</div><div class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="m_-8794284200643965011gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="">_______________<br class="">Shreeharsh Kelkar<br class=""><a href="http://www.shreeharshkelkar.net/" style="font-size:12.8px" target="_blank" class="">http://www.shreeharshkelkar.net</a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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