As part of its ongoing celebration of Apple’s 50th anniversary, CHM curator Dr Hansen Hsu surveys our remarkable collection of Apple prototypes: <https://computerhistory.org/blog/apple-history-in-prototypes/> [chm_apple50_web_image2_960x540.jpg] Apple History in Prototypes<https://computerhistory.org/blog/apple-history-in-prototypes/> computerhistory.org<https://computerhistory.org/blog/apple-history-in-prototypes/> Prototypes as objects for historians to study can offer some interesting benefits: 1. Historians can interact with prototypes to "re-experience" the constraints of a past era. By physically manipulating a replica or an original prototype, a researcher gains a phenomenological understanding of the machine’s weight, heat, noise, and interface, leading to insights that a 2D drawing cannot provide. 2. Modern scholarship — with its user-centered historiography — often emphasizes how technology is "socially constructed.” (I know this might be viewed as a bit dated but it still has many proponents!) Prototypes often show evidence of early user testing. Wear patterns, modified buttons, or ergonomic adjustments on a prototype tell a story of how early users influenced a technology’s trajectory before it ever reached a factory line. 3. … and, finally, standard histories often suffer from hindsight bias, looking only at successful end products. Prototypes provide a material trail of the path not taken. By examining a series of failed or intermediate prototypes, historians can reconstruct the developer's logic, seeing exactly where a specific technical theory failed and how the design was "negotiated" with the laws of physics. Enjoy Hansen’s great blog! Dag ----- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing ACM History Committee 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View CA 94043 “History is a vast early warning system.” — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990). Join our Mailing List here: https://info.computerhistory.org/subscribe
