Between Human and Machine:

Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics

JHU Press, Aug 29, 2002 - Computers - 439 pages

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 Machine: 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 wars: 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 Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics

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Selected pages

Title Page

Index

References

Introduction A History of Control Systems	1

Naval Control Systems The Bureau of Ordnance and the Ford Instrument Company	19

Taming the Beasts of the Machine Age The Sperry Company	69

Opening Blacks Box Bell Labs and the Transmission of Signals	105

Artificial Representation of Power Systems Analog Computing at MIT	138

Dress Rehearsal for War The Four Horsemen and Palomar	175

Organizing for War The Fire Control Divisions of the NDRC	185

The Servomechanisms Laboratory and Fire Control for the Masses	207

Analogs Finest Hour	231

Radar and System Integration at the Radiation Laboratory	260

Cybernetics and Ideas of the Digital	276

Conclusion Feedback and Information in 1945	307

Notes	339

Bibliography	393

Index	417

Copyright

Other editions - View all

Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics

David A. Mindell
Limited preview - 2004

Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics

David A. Mindell
Limited preview - 2003

Common terms and phrases

aircraft analog computing antiaircraft antiaircraft director antiaircraft fire control army automatic ballistic battleships became Bell Labs Black Blandy Bode Brown BuOrd Bureau of Ordnance Bush Bush's calculating circuit components contracts Control Engineering cybernetics developed device diary differential analyzer Division Electrical Engineering electronic Elmer Sperry engineering culture ENIAC feedback amplifier feedback loop fire control systems folder Ford Instrument Ford Rangekeeper George Stibitz Gordon Brown gun directors gunnery gyrocompass Harold Hazen History of Control human operators ibid industrial input integraph integrated Laboratory machine mathematical mechanical military MIT's NDRC NDRC's Norbert Wiener Nyquist officers OSRD OSRD7 GP output prediction problem production project file radar Radiation Lab range rangefinders Rangekeeper relay Rockefeller Science Servo Lab servomechanisms SGC Papers Shannon ship signals speed Sperry Corporation Sperry Gyroscope Sperry's stability target technical techniques telephone theory tion tracking transient transmission U.S. Navy Warren Weaver wartime World

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References from web pages

MIT World � : Between Human And Machine:Feedback, Control and ...
Between Human And Machine:Feedback, Control and Computing Before Cybernetics David A. Mindell Today, the relationship between feedback, ...
mitworld.mit.edu/ video/ 20/

Larry Owens - Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and ...
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics. By David A. Mindell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ technology_and_culture/ v044/ 44.4owens.html

Between human and machine: Feed-back, control and computing before ...
logic, control, statistics, information. theory, semiotics, machine translation,. economics, game theory, biology, and. computer programming. By the follow- ...
ieeexplore.ieee.org/ iel5/ 37/ 27285/ 01213609.pdf?arnumber=1213609

Resources
RESOURCES. MARCH 2003. n. W. Between Human and Machine:. Feedback, Control, and. Computing before Cybernetics. By David A Mindell ...
portal.acm.org/ ft_gateway.cfm?id=637405& type=pdf& coll=GUIDE& dl=ACM

Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before ...
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics - Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cyb ...
www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/ 1P3-489959511.html

ebscohost Connection: Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control ...
Journal of American History: Reviews the book "Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control and Computing Before Cybernetics," by David A. Mindell.
connection.ebscohost.com/ content/ article/ 1035573445.html;jsessionid=476B537DF82DDAFDB816F018F200F3E0.ehctc1

Year-End Index: IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics (Mindell, da; 2002). Stephan, kd, TAS-M Fall 04 42-43 ...
www.ieeessit.org/ technology_and_society/ index.asp?IssueID=45

History of Cybernetics: Additional References
Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics. David A. Mindell Johns Hopkins University Press - 2002 ISBN: 0801868955 ...
www.asc-cybernetics.org/ foundations/ historyrefs.htm

The Rutherford Journal - The New Zealand Journal for the History ...
... 18(4):42�48 and David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics, The John Hopkins University Press, ...
www.rutherfordjournal.org/ article020106.html

About the author (2002)

David A. Mindell is the Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor, which was awarded the Society for the History of Technology's Sally Hacker Prize and is also available from Johns Hopkins.

Bibliographic information

Title	Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing Before Cybernetics Between Human and Machine Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology
Author	David A. Mindell
Edition	illustrated
Publisher	JHU Press, 2002
ISBN	0801868955, 9780801868955
Length	439 pages
Subjects	Computers › History Computers / History Science / History Technology & Engineering / Automation Technology & Engineering / Engineering (General) Technology & Engineering / History

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