Computer History

The computer as calculating aide, as military wonder weapon, as electronic data processor that rationalises workplaces, as plaything and partner, as the tool for creativity and communication, as a memory and intelligence booster, and finally as a super- or hyper-medium - the computer has been accorded all of these roles and daims during its brief history.

Its potential as a universally configurable machine and tool for other tools appears unfathomable.

Yet precisely this versatility and the enormous variety of its allotted tasks and functions emphasise the necessity of tapping them and being using them purposefully and effectively, which makes ease of use the key criterion of a computer.

The interface between the computer and the human being is not simply a kind of space, surface or point for interacting with the computer, but also the locus where the two historical dimensions of its usage, programming and applications, grew closer and closer until they finally merged.

This publication will be the first book ever to tackle the history of this interface - from the perspective of both the computer and the design. A detailed text and a wealth of illustrations forge the appropriate link between art and technology.

The work can be used as a scientific reference book, but equally enjoyed as a book on design and photography and its layout and structure will do justice to both these purposes.

With its approximately one thousand illustrations, the book not only describes the constantly altering concepts and situations for that determine computer use; it also serves as a precise and vivid record of people's continuously changing surroundings in their working and private lives, whilst simultaneously highlighting the design, fashion and photography of their times...The history of the human computer interface main sections of the book are as follows:- 1.0 the scientific and military computer 2.0 the mainframe computer 3.0 the mini computer 4.0 the micro computer 5.0 the personal computer 6.0 the desktop computer 7.0 the net computer 8.0 convergence and evaporation The 8 sections, which are told parallel to the history of the computer, set down the changes and development of the user interface on both the text- and picture-level.