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Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics
Today, we associate the relationship between feedback, control, and computing with Norbert Wiener's 1948 formulation of cybernetics. But the theoretical and practical foundations for cybernetics, control engineering, and digital computing were laid earlier, between the two world wars. In Between Human and Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics , David A. Mindell shows how the modern sciences of systems emerged from disparate engineering cultures and their convergence during World War II. Mindell examines four different arenas of control systems research in the United States between the world naval fire control, the Sperry Gyroscope Company, the Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Vannevar Bush's laboratory at MIT. Each of these institutional sites had unique technical problems, organizational imperatives, and working environments, and each fostered a distinct engineering culture. Each also developed technologies to represent the world in a machine. At the beginning of World War II, President Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee, one division of which was devoted to control systems. Mindell shows how the NDRC brought together representatives from the four pre-war engineering cultures, and how its projects synthesized conceptions of control, communications, and computing. By the time Wiener articulated his vision, these ideas were already suffusing through engineering. They would profoundly influence the digital world. As a new way to conceptualize the history of computing, this book will be of great interest to historians of science, technology, and culture, as well as computer scientists and theorists. Between Human and Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics
456 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 2002
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About the author
David A. Mindell
9 books27 followersElectrical engineer, historian, and entrepreneur. Co-Founder and partner at Unless, an investment firm focused on supporting companies at the forefront of industrial transformation.
A Professor of Aerospace Engineering at MIT, David is an expert on robotic navigation and human interactions with autonomous systems in air, sea, and space. As Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, David is a leading authority on generations of inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and workers within the great arcs of technological change. He has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions, written seven books, and is an inventor on 34 patents in RF navigation, autonomous systems, and AI-assisted piloting. He also spent five years as a Department Head at MIT. David co- Chaired MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future. Founder and Executive Chairman at Humatics with a mission to revolutionize how people and machines locate, navigate and collaborate. David has undergraduate degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. from MIT.
A Professor of Aerospace Engineering at MIT, David is an expert on robotic navigation and human interactions with autonomous systems in air, sea, and space. As Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, David is a leading authority on generations of inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and workers within the great arcs of technological change. He has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions, written seven books, and is an inventor on 34 patents in RF navigation, autonomous systems, and AI-assisted piloting. He also spent five years as a Department Head at MIT. David co- Chaired MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future. Founder and Executive Chairman at Humatics with a mission to revolutionize how people and machines locate, navigate and collaborate. David has undergraduate degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. from MIT.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 10, 2022
This is a fascinating look at the origin before and during World War II of concepts that would be combined in and key to cybernetics and control theory developed after the war. It is an academic history focusing on American academic engineers at MIT working on servo mechanisms, researchers at AT&T's Bell Labs and researchers and developers in fire control at Sperry Gyroscope and other US military contractors. It draws connections between diverse developments and clarifies misunderstandings fostered by later narratives that emerged.
The strength of this book is in examining the development of a few key technical concepts like negative feedback amplification at Bell Labs and explaining there context not only in terms of technical issues like what specific problem is being solved, but also in terms of how the telephone company had developed to this point, the ethos of its researchers and the special interests of its owners and employees. The book is sometimes more focused on the narrative of events but it tells a disparate set of stories that I think it succeeds in linking to together to support its intellectual thesis that these developments were important and contribute to later and perennial issues in computation, communication and control. The technical detail on specific machines can be a little schematic at times, but there are some diagrams and lots of good pictures of various items of interest.
The ebook I had did not interact well with my Kobo e-reader. The epub I purchased from the publisher included links between endnotes and those notes at the end of the book as seen in Adobe Digital Editions, however I could not use those links in my e-reader. This made reading those notes, which were mostly citations but included some commentary, difficult.
The strength of this book is in examining the development of a few key technical concepts like negative feedback amplification at Bell Labs and explaining there context not only in terms of technical issues like what specific problem is being solved, but also in terms of how the telephone company had developed to this point, the ethos of its researchers and the special interests of its owners and employees. The book is sometimes more focused on the narrative of events but it tells a disparate set of stories that I think it succeeds in linking to together to support its intellectual thesis that these developments were important and contribute to later and perennial issues in computation, communication and control. The technical detail on specific machines can be a little schematic at times, but there are some diagrams and lots of good pictures of various items of interest.
The ebook I had did not interact well with my Kobo e-reader. The epub I purchased from the publisher included links between endnotes and those notes at the end of the book as seen in Adobe Digital Editions, however I could not use those links in my e-reader. This made reading those notes, which were mostly citations but included some commentary, difficult.
April 2, 2014
An automatic control system typically has an electronic digital computer running a real-time program that reads inputs from sensors, compares them to desired values, and if they are different, sends commands to actuators to bring them closer. For a semi-automatic control system, some of the inputs come from human operators and some of the commands are sent to them. What was there before electronic digital computers were invented? The computer may have been mechanical or electromechanical instead of electronic, analog instead of digital, and specialized for the task instead of running a program, but the overall scheme was the same.
The most important task for automatic control in the first half of the twentieth century was control of artillery fire directed at warships and aircraft. The first such computers were invented in Great Britain prior to World War I; during the Battle of Jutland the single British warship with a mechanical computer showed the best shooting performance. An American inventor realized the significance of this, and formed a company producing fire director computers (yes, they were called computers) for the U.S. Navy; the 1930 model corrected for wind, the earth's rotation and gun barrel wear. The next steps were to adapt them for firing against aircraft, which move in three dimensions, and to allow them to take electrical signals from a radar. During World War II automated antiaircraft artillery systems were developed, with a radar sending information to a fire control computer, which drove antiaircraft guns using servomotors. In 1944, they were remarkably successful against the V-1 cruise missile, aided by the fact that the missile flew straight and level, without trying to evade antiaircraft fire.
During the early Cold War air defense systems grew in size and complexity. The biggest one was SAGE, which coordinated the air defense of the United States and Canada with the physically biggest computer ever built, which could fire BOMARC interceptor missiles and direct F-106 fighters against Soviet bombers. However, the principle was the same as for the earlier warship and antiaircraft fire control systems. They used the notions of communication, control and feedback from cybernetics before Norbert Wiener had invented the word.
The most important task for automatic control in the first half of the twentieth century was control of artillery fire directed at warships and aircraft. The first such computers were invented in Great Britain prior to World War I; during the Battle of Jutland the single British warship with a mechanical computer showed the best shooting performance. An American inventor realized the significance of this, and formed a company producing fire director computers (yes, they were called computers) for the U.S. Navy; the 1930 model corrected for wind, the earth's rotation and gun barrel wear. The next steps were to adapt them for firing against aircraft, which move in three dimensions, and to allow them to take electrical signals from a radar. During World War II automated antiaircraft artillery systems were developed, with a radar sending information to a fire control computer, which drove antiaircraft guns using servomotors. In 1944, they were remarkably successful against the V-1 cruise missile, aided by the fact that the missile flew straight and level, without trying to evade antiaircraft fire.
During the early Cold War air defense systems grew in size and complexity. The biggest one was SAGE, which coordinated the air defense of the United States and Canada with the physically biggest computer ever built, which could fire BOMARC interceptor missiles and direct F-106 fighters against Soviet bombers. However, the principle was the same as for the earlier warship and antiaircraft fire control systems. They used the notions of communication, control and feedback from cybernetics before Norbert Wiener had invented the word.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews