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Genre/Form: | Electronic books History Geschiedenis (vorm) |
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Additional Physical Format: | Print version: Mindell, David A. Between human and machine. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002 (DLC) 2001004203 (OCoLC)47521252 |
Material Type: | Document, Internet resource |
Document Type: | Internet Resource, Computer File |
All Authors / Contributors: |
David A Mindell |
ISBN: | 0801877741 9780801877742 |
OCLC Number: | 51493422 |
Description: | 1 online resource (xiv, 439 pages) : illustrations |
Contents: | A history of control systems -- Naval control systems: The Bureau of Ordnance and the Ford Instrument Company -- Taming the beasts of the machine age: The Sperry Company -- Opening Black's box: Bell Labs and the transmission of signals -- Artificial representation of power systems: Analog computing at MIT -- Dress rehearsal for war: The four horsemen and Palomar -- Organizing for war: The fire control divisions of the NDRC -- The Servomechanisms Laboratory and fire control for the masses -- Analog's finest hour -- Radar and system integration at the Radiation Laboratory -- Cybernetics and ideas of the digital. |
Series Title: | Johns Hopkins studies in the history of technology. |
Responsibility: | David A. Mindell. |
Abstract:
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
[Mindell's] account of this complex story of engineering, people, and organizations-academic, industrial and govenment-is well researched and well told. -- Stuart Bennett * International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing * While one might think a history of servomechanisms, feedback loops, and fire control systems would be of interest only to a narrow audience, one of David A. Mindell's great achievements in this rich and multilayered book is to show the centrality of control systems-the machines (and humans) that control machines-to the history of computing, the history of technology, and indeed to American history in the twentieth century. -- Ross Bassett * American Historical Review * In contextualizing the theory of cybernetics, Mindell gives engineering back forgotten parts of its history, and shows how important historical circumstances are to technological change . . . Mindell is scrupulous about providing this historical context; providing biographical insight into the major players in the history; and giving the reader a good sense of what it was like to be a Bell Labs scientist, or an engineer for Sperry. -- Michele Tepper * Networker * The book is an eye-opener in understanding who our engineering ancestors were and what they did. -- David L. Elliott * IEEE Control Systems Magazine * In an exceptionally insightful and lucid account, Mindell shows how engineering cultures emerging in specific institutional contexts profoundly shaped the design of human-machine systems and defined the human operator as part of a larger technological system. -- Slava Gerovitch * IEEE Annals of the History of Computing * This is a good and surprising book. It is good in its articulate survey of dynamic man-machine systems in the period from 1916 to 1948; it is surprising in its convincing revision of our picture of the origins of the computer and cybernetics. -- Larry Owens * Technology and Culture * The reader who makes the effort to follow Mindell's argument will be rewarded with a fresh insight into the emergence of the digital computer and all that its invention implies. -- Paul E. Ceruzzi * Journal of American History * This book is the first major study by a professional historian and as such should help to draw the attention of historians to the embeddedness of feedback control in 20th century technological systems. -- Stuart Bennett * International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing * A joy for both engineers and historians . . . Mindell's major contribution is to explore in abundant and fascinating detail the intellectual and physical roots of cybernetics in fields as distinct as communications engineering, military fire control, and analog computing. -- Karl D. Stephan * IEEE Technology and Society Magazine * Read more...

