My dissertation examines the cultural history of personal computers in the United States. Through a close analysis of films, novels, advertisements, and other texts, I investigate the conflicting fears and fantasies which continue to determine how we use and think about these powerful machines.
 

Introduction: Historicizing the Cyberculture Debates
 
    The body of the dissertation is structured chronologically, to best narrate the story of the personal computer. The Introduction sets the stage by summarizing contemporary controversies in computer culture which the subsequent chapters address historically.
 
 
Chapter One: Before the PC
 
    Chapter One looks at the meanings of computers before the emergence of the personal computer.
    Part I, "Before the Digital Computer," traces the history and historiography of early precursors to the computer, from the invention of the abacus to Charles Babbage’s abortive steam-powered "Difference Engine" of the Nineteenth Century. I discuss the transition from analog to digital calculating devices in the 1930s and 1940s in particular detail, as this technological shift continues to have important cultural repercussions.
    Part II, "Mainframe Culture," addresses the hopes and fears raised by early computers through the close analysis of two films, Desk Set (1957) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The first digital computers were developed by the American and British military during World War II, then spread to business in the 1950s and 1960s. Filling entire rooms with vacuum tubes and flashing lights, these mainframes were most often represented as "hulking giants," massive embodiments of military and industrial authority. In the romantic comedy Desk Set, a happy ending cannot completely paper over the anxieties provoked by the computerization of the workplace. In 2001, on the other hand, a pessimistic view of computing is explicitly personified in the character of HAL, a malevolent artificial intelligence. The film’s ambivalent embrace of technology, however, complicates its critique.
 
 
Chapter Two: Inventing the PC
 
    Chapter Two looks at the new vision of computing which emerged with the invention of the personal computer in the mid-1970s.
    Part I, "Before the Altair," surveys the cultural and technological developments which made the PC conceivable, including the rise of time-sharing, the development of the BASIC programming language, the invention of the microprocessor, and the emergence of cheap portable calculators.
    Part II, "The Altair," looks closely at the emergence of the first personal computer. The Altair, first introduced in a January 1975 Popular Electronics cover story, was a do-it-yourself kit, the product of an intense hobbyist subculture. Through close analysis of manuals, hobbyist magazines, and user newsletters, I trace the ideological context and utopian imaginary of this subculture, to specify how these devices were first used, understood, and dreamed about by their inventors.
    Part III, "The California Hackers," then turns to a discussion of a more politicized group of computer users, centered around the Homebrew Computer Club of San Francisco. While the inventors of the Altair primarily thought of themselves as apolitical technicians, many of the subsequent developers of early PCs came out of the California counterculture, and saw the PC as a political tool for the left. Tapping into the long-standing American tradition of technological utopianism, "cybertopian" ideologues  idealized the machine as a force for personal liberation, a way for ordinary users to take information into their own hands and challenge the corporate and governmental authority represented by the mainframes. This rhetoric was inspiring, but also limiting. Its simplistic critique of authority and celebration of individualism would leave it open to co-optation from the laissez-faire right. Through a close analysis of cybertopian manifestoes such as Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib, I demonstrate how the inventors of the personal computer succeeded in inverting cultural assumptions about computing, and discuss the mixed historical legacy of this strategy.
 
 
Chapter Three: Marketing the PC
 
    Chapter Three looks at how the emerging computer industry of the early 1980s successfully transformed the PC from a hobbyist’s tool into a mass-market product. In the process, the companies popularized the cybertopian vision of the early PC pioneers, while draining it of much of its political content.
    Part I, "IBM’s Modern Times," looks at IBM’s marketing campaign for its successful line of PCs. To counter public anxiety over the consequences of computerization, the ads starred a Charlie Chaplin look-alike who uses his PC to transcend the contradictions of capitalism.
    Part II, "Apple’s 1984," studies the launch of Apple’s Macintosh computer. The landmark "1984" commercial, famously broadcast during the 1984 Super Bowl, successfully repackaged cybertopian ideology for mass consumption. The ad promised that the purchase of a Macintosh could free the consumer from Orwellian conformity.
    Part III, "Cyberpunk Resistance," looks at the critique of this corporate vision of computing offered by the emerging genre of cyberpunk science fiction in the early 1980s. Through close analyses of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash, I discuss the merits and limitations of their "rhapsodic dystopianism," and of their romanticization of the "hacker" as a rebellious alternative to corporate hegemony.
 
 
Chapter Four: The Semiotics of Software
 
    Chapter Four turns to the experience of computing itself, looking closely at the process of playing two contemporary computer games, SimCity and Civilization.
    Part I, "Mapping SimCity," draws on theories of film and architecture to account for the new forms of textual engagement made possible by interactive software. I argue that simulation games such as SimCity promote an aesthetic of "cognitive mapping" with potentially radical consequences.
    Part II, "Civilization and Its Discontents," develops these arguments further while questioning the ideological presumptions behind a second computer game, Civilization. I conclude that while interactivity might become a powerful tool for radical critique, its present use is often conservative in practice.
 
 
Conclusion

    My conclusion will briefly address the rise of the Internet, discussing how the ideological assumptions about computing forged in the 1970s and 1980s continue to frame debates over the Internet in the 1990s.