ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we traced how the computer, as a machine for augmenting human capabilities, became a potent counter-culture icon. Young computer workers and enthusiasts who identified with counter-culture values sought to create machines that would change the world into one more conducive to those values. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the cream of American computing talent had pursued a project of using computers to augment human capabilities: first under the auspices of the military and then as employees of Xerox PARC. However, during the mid-1970s another group consisting of young computer hobbyists came to see that the wide availability of microprocessors – computers on a chip – made possible a computer cheap and small enough to be owned by an individual. In the process of following this vision they created the personal computer market. At this point commercialism replaced radical idealism in the history of multimedia. Radical ‘hackers’ now became entrepreneurs and, as the market developed, established capitalist media corporations were drawn in.
