CS378, History Of Computing
Week 12, Weekly Report
Due 2004 Nov 11
Reports for
History of Computing CS378
Joseph Lopez
2004 Nov 11
Computers and People
Introduction
Steve Brand’s role as a futurist in the 1970’s was a hit in a time where things were changing at a drastic rate. His article SPACEWAR describes a future for which we now live in. This paper will look at Brand’s discussion of the Hacker (a person who’s culture revolves around computing) as well as his discussion of the computer culture. Brand’s early identification of such practices have had a great influence in computing as well as computing culture.
Hackers
Steve Brand gives an in depth summary fleshing out what makes a person a hacker. He lists habits and physical qualities that a hacker might have.
“The hackers are the technicians of this science - "It's a term of derision and also the ultimate compliment." They are the ones who translate human demands into code that the machines can understand and act on. They are legion. Fanatics with a potent new toy. A mobile new-found elite, with its own apparat, language and character, its own legends and humor.” (1)
The above statement still holds up today as a definition, however because of the media’s use of the term hacker to describe people who commit computing crime, there has been a split of the definition to differentiate these two meanings.
“A possible middle ground position observes that "hacking"
describes a specific (collection of) skill-set(s), and that these skills are
utilized by hackers of both descriptions, though for differing reasons. The
companion situation which illustrates this is the skills involved in
locksmithing, specifically picking locks, which -- aside from its being a skill
with a fairly high tropism to 'classic' hacking -- is a skill which can be used
for good or evil.”(2)
Brand’s ability
to foresee this persona given to geeks was visionary, his ability to put
social, cultural, and technical skills together and forumulate a persona shows
his awareness of the times.
Counter Computer
Steve Brand’s ability to foresee such a rich counter culture of the computing community reenforces the term hacker he gave to the participants of Spacewars. He also prelude to file trading culture with his statement:
“Since huge quantities of information can be computer-digitalized and transmitted, music researchers could, for example, swap records over the Net with "essentially perfect fidelity." So much for record stores (in present form). “(2)
Comments like these would go on to be proven in the late 1990’s with Napster, then in 2000 with Kazaa and presently with BitTorrent. Another computer phenomenon that Brand quickly picked up on was video gaming, which now is a multi billion dollar industry. His insight into Spacewar was amazing. Spacewar is a multiplayer simulation that was created by Doc Smith’s Lensman series of science fiction novels.(3) It’s impact was great because it came in a time where the programmer was just beginning to have the ability to touch actual hardware and use the computer during his leisure time. This gave the programmer the ability to not have to focus on business work such as programming computers to work with computers, but to work with humans and computers.
Conclusion
In conclusion Steve Brand’s ability to predict the future of computing technology proved to be very innovated and accurate. His observation of the computer persona and his foresight into file trading culture are what make futurist so great to the computing world.
Notes
1. 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 3).
2. “Hacker,” Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker (www.wikipedia.org accessed 2004 Nov 9)
3. “Spacewar,” Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar (www.wikipedia.org accessed 2004 Nov 9)