I found the Vannevar Bush article from The Atlantic very interesting. Through this article, he discussed the progression of technology through time and the economics of progress. Through his article, Bush was trying to convince the readers of the benefits of digital switches for use in a number of applications namely for AT&T’s phone system. The article was opened by Bush’s talk about the economics of certain technology such as the Leibnitz calculating machine which was similar to a contemporary keyboard. The problem with the Leibnitz machine was the “economics of the situation were against it: the labour involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labour to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper.” It was not feasible in Leibnitz’s time and was not dependable.
Bush foresaw this for the digital switches for which he was advocating. He wanted digital switches may have fallen into the same predicament as the adding machine of two centuries prior. These switches may have been economically straining at the time of installation, 1945 in this case, but they would have been cost-effective and technologically sound in the long run. They switches were turned down by AT&T but Bush felt that his switches would be incredibly beneficial to the dawn of the computer age so he allowed other companies to use his switches and computer designers used them to create computers.
Three topics to research:
- Intellectual property rights
- The early cell phone
- Paper tablet technology