The (in)difference engine: Explaining the disappearance of diversity in the design of the personal computer

Journal of Design History

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 59-72

  Atkinson, Paul ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Computers; Consumption; Gender politics; Product design; Science fiction; Social construction of technology

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249171979     PISSN: 09524649     EISSN: 17417279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jdh/13.1.59     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. D. L. Moore, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, Byron's Illegitimate Daughter, John Murray, 1977, p. 44.
2. Paraphrased from interviews with various office staff during research on personalization of the workspace in P. Atkinson, 'Work, rest and play', Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference of the European Academy of Design, Design Cultures, Sheffield, March-April 1999, vol. 1, pp. 26-56.
3. D. Gelernter, The Aesthetics of Computing, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1998, p. 109.
4. The term 'clone' in the context of computers referred originally to computers having operating system compatibility only. Although there is no reason for this technological congruence to carry over into visual congruence as it has, it may be understandable in marketing terms in increasing the chance of acceptance of a cheaper, possibly inferior product. Many corporations today, however, produce personal computers of at least the same quality as 'original' IBM products, yet the sterility of design continues.
5. R. Cringely in The Money Programme, BBC, 23 March 1997.
6. See, for example, J. Yates, 'The structuring of early computer use in life insurance', Journal of Design History, vol. 12, no. 1, 1999, pp. 5-24, in which the argument is put forward that the acceptance by insurance companies of IBM's success in their early computers was due at least in part by the continuity they offered to their previous tabulating machinery.
7. For a detailed exploration of the development of the home computer, see L. Haddon, 'The home computer: the making of a consumer electronic', Science as Culture, vol. 2, 1988, pp. 7-51.
8. The National Archive for the History of Computing was established in 1987 at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine of the University of Manchester to preserve rapidly disappearing artefacts and documents relating to the development of the information age. The archive consists of various collections documenting in particular the history of computing in Britain, including Manchester University's association with the development of the first stored program computer and the complete archives of ICL and Ferranti Ltd. The Trade Catalogue and Machine Literature Collection used as the focus for this research consists of approximately 5,000 brochures, mostly from British, European and American manufacturers and covering production from the late 1940s onwards.
9. Although I do not claim that there is no detailed difference between any of the personal computers created by a range of companies between 1985 and today, the fact remains that the basic format and arrangement of components is the same. Small differences do exist between the current products of different companies, and even between one company's range of computers positioned at different price points, but these are so small as to be negligible, and in no way significant enough to carry any kind of signifying function in terms of identity or status.
10. P. Atkinson, 'Computer memories: the history of computer form', History and Technology, vol. 15, nos. 1/2, 1998, pp. 1-32.
11. G. Sowden, 'Are you thinking comfortably?', Design, April 1983, p. 48.
12. J. Woudhuysen, 'Complex consoles are coming', Design, January 1980, p. 34.
13. C. McCarty, Mario Bellini: Designer, Museum of Modern Art exhibition catalogue, New York, 1987, p. 21.
14. B. Busch in M. Erlhoff (ed.), Designed in Gennany, Prestel Verlag, 1990, p. 147.
15. Woudhuysen, op. cit., p. 35.
16. R. Green, 'File under future', Design, May 1982, p. 47.
17. P. Palton, 'The magic box', Connoisseur, January 1986, p. 55.
18. T. Ostler, 'Sci-fi in the City', Design, March 1985, p. 30.
19. P. Palton, op. cit., p. 56.
20. An example of the social construction of technology as a driving force of design development - a process outlined most clearly in W. Bijker, T. Pinch & T. Hughes (eds.), The Social Structure of Technological Systems, MIT Press, 1985.
21. J. Woudhuysen, 'Things to come', Design, July 1979, p. 42.
22. S. Braidwood, 'Torch: a tin box company no longer', Design, November 1985, p. 48.
23. T. Bentley, 'Laid on the line', Design, March 1985, p. 34.
24. A. Pipes, 'Designing the terminal', Design, February 1985, p. 54.
25. R. Rosenberg, The Social Impact of Computers, Academic Press, 1992, p. 257.
26. See S. Levy, Insanely Great, Penguin, 1994
27. and J. Scully, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, HarperCollins, 1988, for reports of the business world's reaction to the Apple Macintosh.
28. Palton, op. cit., p. 57.
29. T. Roszak, The Cult of Information, Paladin, 1986, p. 179.
30. See D. Lyon, 'The roots of the information society idea', in N. Heap et al. (eds.), Information Technology and Society: A Reader, Sage, 1995, pp. 54-73.
31. See, for example, G. Kirkup, 'The social construction of computers: hammers or harpsichords?' in G. Kirkup & L. S. Keller (eds.), Inventing Women: Science, Technology and Gender, Polity Press in association with the Open University, 1992
32. and L. Haddon, 'Explaining ICT consumption: the case of the home computer' in R. Silverstone and E. Hirsch (eds.), Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces, Routledge, 1992, for accounts of the gendering of computing technology in the office (Kirkup) and the home (Haddon).
33. W. Aspray & D. deB. Beaver, 'Marketing the monster: advertising computer technology', Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 8, no. 2, 1986, p. 138.
34. V. E. Guiliano, 'The mechanization of office work', in T. Forester (ed.), The Information Technology Revolution, Oxford, 1985, p. 299.
35. J. Webster 'From the word processor to the micro: gender issues in the development of information technology in the office', in E. Green, J. Owen & D. Pain (eds.), Gendered by Design?, Taylor & Francis, 1993, p. 113.
36. Kirkup, op. cit., p. 269.
37. Webster, op. cit., p. 118.
38. Kenrick & Jefferson Ltd., Keyboard Training brochure, 1977.
39. Control Data CRT Display Terminal brochure, 1972.
40. Lomac Adam Computer brochure, 1976.
41. Webster, op. cit., p. 119.
42. T. Lindsay, 'Small screen, big style', Design, May 1981, p. 43.
43. See Part III of G. McCracken, Culture and Consumption, Indiana University Press, 1988, for an explanation of objects as markers of status and consequent superordinate/subordinate relations.
44. F. Duffy, The Changing Workplace, Phaidon.
45. M. Douglas & B. Ishervvood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption, Basic Books, 1978;
46. D. Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Basil Blackwell, 1986.
47. See, for example, M. Csikszentmihalyi & E. Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
48. D. Lupton 'The embodied computer/user', in M. Featherstone & R. Burrows (eds.), Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk, Sage, 1995, p. 102.
49. As mentioned in the introduction, a series of one-off or unique designs were found in the sample collected for this research, but all had disappeared without trace. A similar situation to the present one (at the hands of the same individual associated with the iMac) occurred in the 1980s when Steve Jobs launched the NeXt computer - a black, sinister cube - as a competitor to both Apple and IBM.