Working with Computers, Constructing a Developing Country: Introducing, Using, Building, and Tinkering with Computers in Cold War Taiwan, 1959-1984
WORKING WITH COMPUTERS, CONSTRUCTING A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: INTRODUCING, USING, BUILDING, AND TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS IN COLD WAR TAIWAN, 1959-1984 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Hong-Hong Tinn January 2012 © 2012 Hong-Hong Tinn WORKING WITH COMPUTERS, CONSTRUCTING A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: INTRODUCING, USING, BUILDING, AND TINKERING WITH COMPUTERS IN COLD WAR TAIWAN, 1959-1984 Hong-Hong Tinn, Ph. D. Cornell University 2012 This dissertation uses a developing country’s appropriation of mainframe computers, minicomputers, and microcomputers as a lens for understanding the historical relationships between the digital electronic computing technology, the development discourse underlying the Cold War, and the international exchanges of scientific and technological expertise in the context of the Cold War. It asks why and how, during the Cold War, Taiwanese scientists, engineers, technocrats, and ordinary users—all in a so-called developing country—introduced digital electronic computing to Taiwan and later built computers there. To answer the why question, I argue that these social groups’ perceptions of Taiwan’s developmental status shaped their perceptions of the importance of possessing, using, and manufacturing computers. As for the how question, I propose that Taiwanese computer users modeled their practices after the existing successful practices of using mainframe computers and later started to build and tinker with minicomputers and microcomputers. The beginning chapter of this dissertation discusses that a group of Taiwanese engineers, technocrats, and scientists advocated the introduction of ‘electronics science’ and digital electronic computing from the United States to Taiwan for expanding the industrial sector of Taiwan’s economy in the late 1950s.
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