Emobility and the New Cinema of Complexity
The ‘Cinema of Complexity’ describes the condition of film in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in which the form itself is no longer film as it was once understood, but a complex interaction of no longer mechanical production techniques and their attendant human readings and responses. ‘Post-digitalism’, a condition in which mobile technologies are at the fore, draws its discourse and its modes from a sense of space and time not necessarily connected with location. However, this is a technological revolution in which Europe has led the way. Its impact on European culture and European individuals is itself revolutionary, although it has so far been little discussed.
Media,Technology and Society : A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet
Introduction: The Storm from Paradise: Technological Innovation, Diffusion and Suppression:Part One: Propogating Sound at Considerable Distance 1. The Telegraph: The First Electrical Medium 2. Before the Speaking Telephone 3. The Capture of Sound Part Two: The Vital Spark & Fugitive Pictures 4. Wireless and Radio 5. Mechanically Scanned Television 6. Electronically Scanned Television 7. Television Spin-Offs and RedundanciesPart Three: Device for Casting Up Sums Very Pretty 8. Mechanising Calculation 9. The First Computers 10. Suppressing the Mainframes 11. The Integrated Circuit 12. The Coming of the MicrocomputerPart Four: The Intricate Web of Trails 13. The Beginnings of Networks 14. Networks & Recording Technologies 15. Communications Satellites 16. The Satellite Era 17. Cable Television 18. The Internet Conclusion: The Pile of Debris From the Boulevard des Capucins to the Leningradsky Prospect
Memories of the Bureau of Standards' SEAC
Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the memories of the Bureau of Standards' SEAC. The work of Sam Alexander was remembered, who was the moving force in the Bureau's hardware work on computers. Sam's group in 1948 had developed several computer components, particularly, involving pentode vacuum tubes and pulse transformers. The group had also developed some of the input–output equipment for the Institute for Advanced Study computer. When the National Bureau of Standards Interim Computer became operational, it was renamed as SEAC for Standards Eastern Automatic Computer. The logic design included integer multiplication, integer division, and logical multiplication. The hardware had two rather unusual features. One of these was that, except for the memory circuits, all of the pulse amplification was performed by a single type of pentode vacuum tube driving step-down pulse transformers. Another feature of the computer was the logic through the machine was done by germanium diodes.