Best of
Technology

1984

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution


Steven Levy - 1984
    That was before one pioneering work documented the underground computer revolution that was about to change our world forever. With groundbreaking profiles of Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, and more, Steven Levy's Hackers brilliantly captured a seminal moment when the risk-takers and explorers were poised to conquer twentieth-century America's last great frontier. And in the Internet age, the hacker ethic-first espoused here-is alive and well.

The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution


T.R. Reid - 1984
    The world's brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000. In this completely revised and updated edition of The Chip, T.R. Reid tells the gripping adventure story of their invention and of its growth into a global information industry. This is the story of how the digital age began.

Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer


Paul Freiberger - 1984
    It reveals the visions they shared, the sacrifices they made, and the rewards they reaped.

Not Much of an Engineer


Stanley Hooker - 1984
    So successful was he that in 1966 Rolls-Royce decided the best thing to do was to spend 63.6 million pounds and buy its rival. By this time there was scarcely a single modern British aero-engine for which Hooker had not been responsible.

Computers & Typesetting, Volume A: The TeXBook


Donald Ervin Knuth - 1984
    It is particularly valuable where the document, article, or book to be produced contains a lot of mathematics, and where the user is concerned about typographic quality. TeX software offers both writers and publishers the opportunity to produce technical text of all kinds, in an attractive form, with the speed and efficiency of a computer system.Novice and expert users alike will gain from The TeXbook the level of information they seek. Knuth warns newcomers away from the more difficult areas, while he entices experienced users with new challenges. The novice need not learn much about TeX to prepare a simple manuscript with it. But for the preparation of more complex documents, The TeXbook contains all the detail required.Knuth’s familiar wit, and illustrations specially drawn by Duane Bibby, add a light touch to an unusually readable software manual.The TeXbook is the first in a five-volume series on Computers and Typesetting, all authored by Knuth.

Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies


Charles Perrow - 1984
    Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them.The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it may mark the beginning of accident research. In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the quintessential 'Normal Accident' of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer


Michael Moritz - 1984
    This story of Apple computer

Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry


Albert Borgmann - 1984
    This pattern, discernible even in such an inconspicuous action as switching on a stereo, has global effects: it sharply divides life into labor and leisure, it sustains the industrial democracies, and it fosters the view that the earth itself is a technological device. He argues that technology has served us as well in conquering hunger and disease, but that when we turn to it for richer experiences, it leads instead to a life dominated by effortless and thoughtless consumption. Borgmann does not reject technology but calls for public conversation about the nature of the good life. He counsels us to make room in a technological age for matters of ultimate concern—things and practices that engage us in their own right.

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation


David F. Noble - 1984
    David Noble argues that industrial automation--more than merely a technological advance--is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.

Weapons and Hope


Freeman Dyson - 1984
    (Amazon.com)

The Second Self: Computers & the Human Spirit (20th Anniversary)


Sherry Turkle - 1984
    Technology, she writes, catalyzes changes not only in what we do but in how we think. First published in 1984, The Second Self is still essential reading as a primer in the psychology of computation. This twentieth anniversary edition allows us to reconsider two decades of computer culture--to (re)experience what was and is most novel in our new media culture and to view our own contemporary relationship with technology with fresh eyes. Turkle frames this classic work with a new introduction, a new epilogue, and extensive notes added to the original text.Turkle talks to children, college students, engineers, AI scientists, hackers, and personal computer owners--people confronting machines that seem to think and at the same time suggest a new way for us to think--about human thought, emotion, memory, and understanding. Her interviews reveal that we experience computers as being on the border between inanimate and animate, as both an extension of the self and part of the external world. Their special place betwixt and between traditional categories is part of what makes them compelling and evocative. (In the introduction to this edition, Turkle quotes a PDA user as saying, When my Palm crashed, it was like a death. I thought I had lost my mind.) Why we think of the workings of a machine in psychological terms--how this happens, and what it means for all of us--is the ever more timely subject of The Second Self.

The Bungalow: The Production of a Global Culture


Anthony D. King - 1984
    Devereux (1929)The bungalow, in all its various forms, has existed since the early seventeenth century. From its origin as a Bengalese hut, or banggolo, made of mud, thatch, and bamboo, to later developments as a one-story structure surrounded by a colonnaded veranda, and the subtle permutations exhibited in designs such as the Frank Lloyd Wright style prairie house, the bungalow has become one of the most frequently adapted house forms throughout the world and the most popular home style in the United States. It is probably the only dwelling that, in both name and form, exists on every continent (the word bungalow has entered over twenty languages). The first work of its kind, this richly illustrated volume takes readers on an intriguing tour of the cultural history of the bungalow, from its inception as a peasant's simple dwelling place to its present day incarnation as a much-loved suburban home looked upon with affection and pride. Here, in investigating its origins in India, and subsequent development in Britain, North America, Africa, Australia, and continental Europe, Anthony D. King explores the historical forces which, in producing the bungalow, also shaped the modern world: colonialism and industrialization, capitalism and socialism, urbanization and suburbanization. He argues that a global culture of architectural form can be identified with the bungalow, one which accords with the development of our international, capitalistic, and urban culture, and that the bungalow was one of, if not the first, common house types of this culture. In turn, King demonstrates the bungalow's varied manifestations throughout the world: in North America, for exampl, the bungalow illustrates the relationship between ideology and environment, while in Britain we see the role of class interests in shaping town and country planning, and in Africa and India the bungalow reveals the way in which an international market economy can transform the housing and lifestyle of an urban bourgeoisie. Offering the definitive history of a popular house form, this fascinating work provides an engaging look at the ubiquitous bungalow and the social, political, and cultural forces that produced it. Indeed, as this unique book shows, one might expect to hear a happy bungalow owner (whether from a bohemian summer bungalow in the woods of Vancouver or a family home in the suburbs of Jacksonville, Florida) singing a bungalow tune: Far from the city, Somehow it seems, We're sitting pretty in, Our bungalow, Of dreams.

Running MS-DOS


Van Wolverton - 1984
    It acts as an introduction and a reference to MS-DOS commands and provides a grounding in the basics of the MS-DOS operating system. The intention is to keep the book jargon-free and thorough.

Pascal: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming


Walter J. Savitch - 1984
    With an emphasis on modern programming concepts such as ADTs the book shows readers how to conceptualize their programs in an object-oriented fashion. This edition also features expanded coverage of algorithm analysis and Big O notation and earlier coverage of loops.

Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming: Ecology as the Basis of Design


Nancy Jack Todd - 1984
    

Grand Unified Theories


Graham G. Ross - 1984
    The phenomenological aspects of the work are emphasized and explicit calculations presented. Many of the aspects of current research, including technicolor models, supersymmetry and supergravity, and the cosmological implications of these theories, are discussed in this book.This book is suitable for graduate students with a background in quantum mechanics, and experimental and theoretical particle physicists who want to understand the grand unified theories.

Ragwings and Heavy Iron: the Agony and the Ectasy of Flying History's Greatest Warbirds


Martin Caidin - 1984
    Here are the machines that are more than machines, that have about them the kind of personal aura that seems to have vanished in the age of jets.In this rousing account of the hair-raising airshows presented by these pilots, as well as the incredible adventures and misadventures that inevitably occur when a near maniac takes to the air in a rusty or otherwise neglected antique, Martin Caidin allows you to share the cockput with himself and his fellow flying addicts, and also to share the joy of seeing a neglected old Warbird rise phoenix-like from the runway and roar in the really wild blue yonder. A must for all pilots, private or professional, and for anyone else who has dreams of being one.