It’s been a delight to select materials and write the labels for Computer Revolutions, an exhibit in Bizzell Memorial Library, University of Oklahoma. We expect to have installation completed before the first home football game in early September. It should remain available through February on both the Main Floor and in Special Research Collections on the 5th floor.
The main floor footprint will be extensive, featuring some of our books and instruments, but mainly items from our computer collection, whether hardware (including peripherals) or computer journals and other ephemera. Upstairs we’ll have rare books on display related to the story, including Galileo, Leonardo, and Ada Lovelace.
I’m working with Dr. James Burnes, Director of Exhibits for the library, who wears all the hats of graphic design, layout planning, production, installation, and coordination of communication. James is a pop culture aficionado in addition to a historian of science with a deep and comprehensive scope. James will be adding items from pop-culture and the university archives. He is a co-curator of this exhibit rather than merely working in a supporting role. (James created the logo below and the image above.)
Here’s the overall introduction:
“50 years ago, Steve Wozniak designed the first Apple personal computer. Over the last half-century, computers have changed every aspect of our lives. In antiquity, computus referred to calculating dates on the calendar. In the 19th century, computers were skilled mathematicians, often women, who performed scientific calculations. In the middle of the 20th century, a computer occupied a room all to its own, operated by experts at elite institutions. By the end of the century, personal computers could be found in many homes and the emergence of the World Wide Web was transforming ordinary life. Today the most common computers fit in our pockets.
How did this happen? What is the story of the personal computer? What revolutions have computers wrought? What lies ahead?
In this exhibit, explore these questions with items from the personal computer collection of the History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries. A particular strength of the collection is its holdings of Apple computers, although a mix of different PC makers are also represented here. Additional items, including rare materials related to the exhibit, are on display in the Special Research Collections, 5th floor.”
Here are the major sections of the exhibit, with brief intros:
1. From Calculators to Computers
“Calculators and other mathematical instruments provided a sophisticated and impressive foundation for the eventual development of computers. It becomes difficult to define a historical dividing line between calculators and computers. Imagine the excitement of Ada Lovelace as she created a computer program before any computer actually existed.
Typewriters provided a manual input device for varied settings in the office, the home, and even on the go. As form became melded with function, the aesthetics of their design mattered.
Even when a mainframe computer took over a building or a large room, from its early stages of development visionaries foresaw the future of the computer as a personal assistant. We wonder what Vannevar Bush would say today about his dream of a “memex” machine.”
Display areas in this section: early calculators, typewriters, mainframe artifacts.
The Computer History Museum in San Jose — just a stone’s throw from Apple and Google — used to open its exhibit area (the last time I visited) with a black and white photograph of Galileo’s first and rarest book, which is an ancestor to the slide rule. We will have Galileo’s own copy of this book on display, with Galileo’s handwritten annotations. Thousands of school kids across the country celebrate Ada Lovelace Day each fall in honor of the woman who wrote the first computer program before any computer existed. We will have her book on display, along with the Galileo and other rare works that are part of the story.
2. The Rise of the Personal Computer
“Early personal computers came with a great variety of chips, operating systems, programming languages, and killer software applications. They integrated innovations in technology, business, and design. Some were modular, offloading components or apps and inviting third parties to contribute to a shared platform. Others focused on incorporating proprietary code into logic boards and built-in memory. With some, the screen was custom-designed and built-in; others required an external monitor supporting a specific video format; and some could even output to a regular TV. Some computers came as kits for hobbyists to assemble; others came ready to use out of the box. Some focused on affordability, others on portability. Some entrepreneurs tried to go it alone, perhaps as a labor of love, while others sought market success through collaboration or corporate backing. Around them all hovered a hum of excited activity exuding a sense that almost anyone at any time might reveal the shape of the future.”
Display areas in this section: Cromemco, Intel chip, Osborne, Atari, Commodore, Amiga, Texas Instruments, Timex Sinclair, Radio Shack, Apple, DOS, Windows 95. The focus is on the Apple II. The entire exhibit is rather Apple heavy, as is our computer collection, reflecting Apple’s leadership in every decade.
3. Research and Creativity on the PC
“Transformations in the graphical user interface led to an explosion of PC-based productivity in research and creative activity outside of computer science per se. Personal computers became tools for everyday use in writing, music, art, science, and communication. The PC revolution created the phenomenon of desktop publishing and graphic design. Personal computer pioneers advocated for greater roles for women in every field and for a democratization of knowledge through open access. The personal computer transformed culture in every medium from Super Bowl advertising to industrial design, and radically altered the dynamics of audio and video production. The world we now take for granted arose in many steps and phases alongside the PC.”
Display areas in this section: Lisa manual, early Macintoshes, desktop publishing, Think Different, early iMacs, audio and video production. We focus on Osamu Fujimura and his path-breaking research into the languages of the world, displaying his Mac SE, an electronic retainer peripheral, and even his painting easel.
4. The Internet and the PC
“Personal computers reflect our constant longing for connectivity and security.
Users of personal computers expanded their connections over local networks, then over larger regional networks, and ultimately over networks of networks, creating exciting new possibilities.
• The creative functionality of hyperlinks made it possible for users to create digital works connecting with others in dynamic, non-linear ways.
• The system of networks comprising the early Internet greatly increased possibilities of collaboration.
• With the graphical user interface of the World Wide Web, possibilities for co-creation of knowledge and meaning seemed unlimited.
Others worked to preserve the security without which surveillance and disinformation might usher in a brave new world. For with increasing connectivity comes increasing vulnerability. Upholding privacy protections and intellectual property rights alongside the ideals of sharing and collaboration is a delicate balance at best, one made far more precarious in view of aggressive agents we may collectively call Big Brother.
From our vantage point, the hyperlink and the Internet are woven into the seamless fabric of a post-literate culture in which potential distractions are unlimited and attention spans diminished.
As you explore this section, ponder all that Computer Revolutions have
wrought.
Display areas in this section: We focus on the interplay of Security vs. Connectivity with the advent of Hyperlinks, Internet, and the World Wide Web.
5. On the Go
“Throughout history, technologists have sought portability at a premium. Smaller is better, even at a higher price. Handheld sundials, pocket globes, mobile astrolabes, and miniature books show that humans have always been on the go.
The PC is a “bicycle for the mind” in part because our tools give us a boost. Yet we are altered in unforeseen ways by the tools we use.
The early laptops displayed in this section illustrate how obstacles to true portability, from power to design to durability, were gradually overcome. When it comes to objects on the go, design is first not how it looks but how it works, although eventually the two go hand-in-hand.”
Display areas in this section: Analog, Early PC laptops, Early Apple laptops. The computer is a “bicycle for the mind,” as Steve Jobs said.
6. The PC as a Digital Hub
“From our perspective today, the convergence of telephones and personal computers seems inevitable, but it was not necessarily so. A series of handheld devices from cell phones to music players to cameras and video camcorders first carried out their functions without needing to connect to personal computers. The PC became a digital hub when it began to add essential value to each of these devices, integrating them into a digital lifestyle.
Our story ends with the digital hub, before the coming of the cloud. When handheld phones and tablets and other devices achieved parity with the PC, no longer did they need to connect by cables and wires. With the coming of the cloud, the era of the centrality of the personal computer closes. Its loss of identity as the “digital hub” does not imply the end of the PC, only a new beginning.
As the revolutions computers have wrought continue to ripple far out into the future, have we learned any lessons that might guide us?”
Display areas in this section: Cell phones, Mobile computing, Music players, Digital Hub.
Featured items:
We recommend these for reading groups:
- Cliff Stoll, The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage (New York: Doubleday, 1989).
- Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” The Atlantic Monthly, July, 176 (1945): 101-108.
Other recommended books:
- Vannevar Bush, Science, the Endless Frontier: A Report to the President (Office of Scientific Research and Development, 1945). Reprinted with introduction by Rush Holt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021). 75th anniversary edition reissued by the National Science Foundation, https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75th_w.pdf.
- Kent C. Redmond and Thomas M. Smith, From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of the SAGE Air Defense Computer (Boston: MIT Press, 2000).
- Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, Collector’s Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000).
- David Weinberger, Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory Of The Web (Basic Books, 2003).
- Doug Menuez, Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000 (Atria Books, 2014).
- Laine Nooney, The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023).
- David Pogue, Apple: The First 50 Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2026).
- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Updated with a New Afterword (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020).
