Winter 2003/04 15 Years of the Amateur Computerist Volume 12 No 1

Editorial

With this issue of the Amateur Computerist we

celebrate 15 years of publication. Our first issue

appeared on February 11, 1988. Though there were

various thoughts of what to name our new newsletter,

we soon arrived at an agreement that the name the

“Amateur Computerist” would be appropriate.

Michael, one of our founding editors, had proposed

the name. Floyd Hoke-Miller, who was one of our

early writers, concurred, explaining that “amateur”

signified those who do something for the love of it.

Since that first issue we have maintained our

effort to put out a newsletter for those who do com-

puting, and now online computing, for the love of it.

Though the general tenor of the online world has

changed, since the early 1990's when the Amateur

Computerist first got online, the goal of the news-

letter was constant. We had a 10 year reunion meet-

ing in 1998, at which all the founding editors were

present. That gathering was in Toronto, Canada. At

Table of Contents

Editorial.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1

Doing Democracy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2

Reality Behind E-democracy. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 3

OhmyNews.com: A Case Study. . . . . . . . . . Page 6

2004 U.S. Election. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 9

Fifteenth Anniversary of ACN. . . . . . . . . . Page 11

Letters.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 11-12

Net and the Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 12

Reprints

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

DAWN OF A NEW ERA. . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

Cartoon.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

COMPUTERS & FREE SPEECH.. . . . Page 14

TRUE HEROS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

Impact of the Computer on Society. . . . Page 16

The Spirit of Babbage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 17

Interview with Staff Member . . . . . . . . Page 18

the meeting, Michael proposed that we seriously

consider publishing a book version of the back issues.

We did not find a way to pursue the suggestion and

to republish the back issues, but William Rohler,

another of our founding editors has gotten all of our

previous issues into a PDF format and they are now

all online at our web site at: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/

acn/Back_Issues/.

This issue is celebrating 15 years of publication,

so we also include some articles from past issues to

give current readers and contributors a flavor of the

earlier years of the Amateur Computerist. We include

“Dawn of a New Era” by Floyd Hoke-Miller. Floyd

welcomed the publication of the newsletter and put it

in the context of the pioneering struggle for an open

press, that he had been part of as a contributor to the

early American labor press, and the creation of a

local trade union press in the UAW. The article “The

Impact of the Computer on Society: The Future”

describes the social potential that the computer can

provide for society if the goals are kept in mind, “The

Spirit of Babbage: Chapter One” looks back at the

early mythological origins of the computer and gives

a fresh perspective for creating this mythology anew.

The labor roots of the newsletter are reflected in the

cartoon by Doc Wilson . There are other articles that

describe the commitment to freedom of speech that

is required to support the continued evolution of the

computer and networking, and an article about com-

puter pioneers like Gary Kindall, the creator of the

early operating system CPM, and why he is the kind

of pioneer that need to be remembered and cherished

as those who have made the open and vibrant net-

working world a reality. There is also an interview

with Staff Member, which looks back at the roots of

interactive computer development and the hobbyist

movement that spawned the BBS developments and

the sharing tradition it was part of. The second part of

the interview looks back at the introduction of com-

puters onto the shop floor in a factory and the kind of

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challenges that presents.

Along with these reflections from the past, we

have included articles on the potential for a more

participatory democracy that the Internet provides.

The article “Doing Democracy” was written to

celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the first posting

online of “The Net and Netizens”. The article is

reprinted from its publication in German and English

in the German online Journal Telepolis. Another

reprint from Telepolis, is John Horvath’s article “The

Reality Behind E-democracy” examining how hard is

the challenge to actually achieve a democratic form

of democracy, and what are some of the obstacles to

be overcome. The article by K. Jean Min,

“OhmyNews.com: A Case Study,” describes how a

participatory form of journalism was created in South

Korea and how the netizens movement there was able

to challenge the conservative press and achieve some

victories over it. A president for the country who was

not part of the conservative power structure was

elected as a result.

We want to thank our readers, subscribers, con-

tributors and all who have helped to make the Ama-

teur Computerist possible through these 15 years.

Most especially I want to thank the editors. William

Rohler, Norman Thompson, and Jay Hauben have

worked hard to keep the Amateur Computerist

publishing and developing. Sadly one of our found-

ing editors, Michael Hauben, is not able to share this

15 year anniversary with us. We will strive to carry

on the tradition of the netizen that he helped to bring

into the world.

We welcome comments on this and other past

issues, contributions from readers, and support

toward continuing to publish the Amateur

Computerist long into the future so that there will be

a journal for those who do computing and online

networking for the love of it.

Ronda Hauben

Doing Democracy

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

Reflections on the 10 year

Anniversary of the Publication of

“The Net and Netizens”

This is a period marked by serious political

dissatisfaction around the world. There is the promise

of democratic societies, but the promise too often is

far removed from the reality of people’s lives. Yet

there is the widespread yearning for a better world,

for a society where democracy is practiced, not

merely pretended. In this situation the question is

raised: “What does democracy look like? How does

it function? Are there any operational models to

observe and learn from?”

Fortunately, there is a model to be examined, a

practice to be investigated. Ten years ago, on July 6,

1993, a student, [Michael Hauben

], posted a paper

on the Net. The title of the paper was “Common

Sense: The Net and Netizens.” The paper begins:

“Welcome to the 21

Century. You are a Netizen

(Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world

thanks to the global connectivity that the Net gives

you. You consider everyone as your compatriot. You

physically live in one country but you are in contact

with much of the world via the global computer

network. Virtually you live next door to every other

single netizen in the world. Geographical separation

is replaced by existence in the same virtual space.”

It was a long paper so it was posted in three

separate parts: Preface

, Paper

, Appendix.

The paper introduced a concept, which has since

spread around the world, both online and off (see also

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and

the Internet

). This concept can provide a practical

operational framework to explore a model for democ-

racy.

Describing how he hoped to focus the paper, the

student wrote: “The Net and Netizens: A Revitaliza-

tion of People Power, a Strengthening of People

Power. Bottom Up is the Principle of this paper.”

The interesting aspect of “The Net and Netizens”

is that it identifies and describes the important role of

the online user in creating the new social treasure that

had come to be known as the Net. The net.citizen, or

netizen, as the student wrote, was the active agent in

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creating something new, the democratic online

content and form of the 1993 network of networks.

The netizen contributed information and viewpoints

that made it possible to consider an issue or problem

and come to a reasoned judgment or decision.

Netizens would help other netizens if they deemed it

worthwhile.

The initiative that was being developed was from

the netizens themselves. Examples included a mail-

ing list by a person in Ireland summarizing the

weekly news and sending it out to over 1000 people

around the world who wanted to stay current with

Irish news; Usenet newsgroups like misc.news.south-

asia and soc.culture.india which made it possible for

people from an area to continue contact with what

was happening; a mailing list to watch the prices of

gas in California to warn against price gouging.

There were many other examples that the student

provided which he had learned from his research

online.

The key aspect, however, of this new form of

democracy, was that the previously disenfranchised

reader could now broadcast to others around the

world, news and views from a grassroots perspective.

Previously, there had been central control of the mass

media. Now the participant himself or herself, could

provide information to the online world about an

event or an area of knowledge. Netizens also had the

ability to be citizen reporters, to offer a more wide

ranging set of viewpoints and perspectives on issues

or problems, a broader basis from which to form

one’s own opinion, than hitherto had been possible.

Netizens could meet online, discuss issues and

problems, and from the process decide on the goal or

direction to pursue. The student saw this process as a

way of revitalizing society, as a way that those

previously disenfranchised could gain power over

both their society and over their personal lives.

In this operating model of democracy, there were

no elections or representatives. Rather this embryo of

democracy was focused on the active participation

and contributions of the many in a manner not

hitherto possible. The student described some of the

broad ranging ages and occupations of the more than

10 million computer users who, by 1993, were con-

nected around the world. At the time the computer

networking connections were made possible by

gateways between different networks, like the scien-

tific and educational Internet, the academic Bitnet,

the technical research Unix UUCP and Usenet net-

work, the Cleveland Freenet for community people,

and other networks.

While the netizen was an active contributor to

the developing social treasure, the student realized

the need to make it possible for everyone to have

access to this new communication paradigm to

realize its potential. He writes:

“This complete connection of the body of citi-

zens of the world does not exist as of today, and it

will definitely be a fight to make access to the Net

open and available to all. However, in the future we

might be seeing the possible expansion of what it

means to be a social animal. Practically every single

individual on the Net today is available to every other

person on the Net.... International connection coexists

on the same level with local connection. Also the

computer networks allow a more advanced connec-

tion between the people who are communicating.”

Although the path was difficult, the student also

appreciated the importance of the goal. He writes:

“Despite the problems, for people of the world,

the Net provides a powerful way of peaceful assem-

bly. Peaceful Assembly allows for people to take

control over their lives, rather than control being in

the hands of others. This power has to be honored

and protected. Any medium or tool that helps people

to hold or gain power is something special and has to

be protected.”

The focus of democracy, as described in “The

Net and Netizens”, is on the people themselves, and

on their ability and achievements in determining the

nature and development of their society. It is on

support for the ever increasing contributions of more

of the populace in the process.

Links

1. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

2. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/Common_Sense1.txt

3. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/Common_Sense2.txt

4. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/Common_ Sense3.txt

5. http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_7/introduction/

A version of this article appeared on TELEPOLIS and can be

seen at:

http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/15166/1.html

Page 3

The Reality Behind

E-democracy

by John Horvath

[email protected]

The dream of e-democracy lives on, despite the

fact that it belongs in the realm of virtual reality.

Looking back, the late 1990s expectations of a

“paradigm shift” to an Internet-driven “new econ-

omy” was naively over-optimistic. The economy as

a whole wasn’t altered as fundamentally as some had

hoped (or feared). Likewise, other utopian views of

our digital future have failed to materialize. This

includes notions of a new form of governance,

commonly referred to as “e-democracy.”

Yet a growing number of people continue to

view modern communications technologies, such as

the Internet and e-mail, as a way to bridge the gap

between citizen and government. E-democracy is still

seen as a way to breathe new life into democratic

systems of government. The interest in a “digital

democracy” is in part due to the fact that participa-

tion in traditional democratic forums has hit new

lows in the west. The explanations for this apparent

drift towards apathy are manifold, as are the propos-

als for addressing it.

Without doubt, these are tough times for democ-

racies in the western world. At every level of govern-

ment voter turnout is low and, in many cases, steadily

falling. Many citizens feel government is becoming

increasingly remote. There is little transparency and

there is corruption at all levels – economic, moral,

and ideological – rendering most democratic systems

as nothing more than a contest between tweedle-dees

and tweedle-dums.

“From an intermittent democracy regulated by

elections to a continuous democracy”

Nevertheless, European Union leaders still con-

sider the notion of e-democracy as something worth

pursuing – and promoting. In a recent special issue of

The IPTS Report

put out this past summer by the

Seville-based Institute for Prospective Technological

Studies, government officials at local, national and

European levels, as well as broadcasters, academics

and IT specialists, attempted to identify the opportu-

nities and pitfalls on the road towards a digital

democracy.

Several of the authors noted that the Internet, by

breaking down traditional barriers to communication,

may provide a prime opportunity to revolutionise the

mechanics of democracy. “The internet has created

radical new possibilities to reinvigorate and enrich

democratic dialogue,” stated Greek Foreign Minister

George Papandreou in the editorial.

The feeling of those who continue to harbour

pleasant dreams about a digital democracy is that the

Internet could pave the way for a more participative,

or direct, democracy. “We are moving from an

intermittent democracy regulated by elections to a

continuous democracy,” explained Andre Santini, the

mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux, a Paris suburb that

has carried out several experiments in e-government.

Just as some ancient Greek city-states were role

models for our modern democracies, Mr Santini says

that modern cities are spearheading the drive towards

electronic governance. “Local government has

experienced a real revival through the introduction of

information and communication technologies,” he

says.

According to The IPTS Report, digital democ-

racy has made some remarkable advances and pro-

vides a number of examples of successful experi-

ments. These include the world’s first global online

poll which was set up to coincide with the Earth

Summit in Johannesburg, Internet games to promote

participation among young people, as well as citi-

zen’s forums and e-voting in local elections. One

notable example at the EU level was the recent

launch of the “e-Vote” project. As the report ex-

plains, tens of thousands of European citizens have

already voted on numerous topical issues, with more

than 100,000 expressing opinions on the Iraq crisis

alone.

One major hurdle for proponents of digital

democracy, however, is the enigma of the “digital

divide”. Democracy is by definition inclusive, so the

current level of Internet exclusion is a fundamental

constraint on the spread of e-democracy. In fact, new

research shows evidence of this digital divide grow-

ing in Europe. The study

, compiled by Forrester

Research, suggests that by 2008, the proportion of

homes with high speed Internet access in Europe

could vary from 5 per cent in Greece to 45 per cent in

Norway.

The study concludes that broadband in Europe

will be unevenly split along a clear north/south

divide. Scandinavia and the Netherlands will domi-

nate the ratings; German-speaking Europe, Belgium,

Finland, and the U.K. will form a second tier; and

Page 4

Southern Europe and Ireland will continue to lag.

Overall, by 2008 Forrester predicts that only 30 per

cent of all homes in Europe will have broadband.

Realising the extent of this gap, some have

suggested that if the EU and its Member States regard

electronic participation seriously, they must then

ensure universal access to the technology. “As we

move towards a written EU constitution, we must

ensure that the Internet [...] is in both its heart and

mind,” says Derek Wyatt, member of the UK parlia-

ment. Wyatt urges governments to view the Internet

in the same way as gas and electricity, as a public

utility for all.

This, in itself, is a problem of sorts: if Internet

access is to be regarded as a public utility like elec-

tricity, does this mean the more money you have the

more you are able to exercise your democratic rights

and responsibilities? And what happens when the

lights go out, as in the U.S., the U.K., and more

recently all of Italy? Are your democratic rights then

suspended or at least put on hold until the power

comes back on? No doubt, this would give extra

meaning to Bertrand Russel’s saying that we have

our freedom until we need it the most.

Waving the wand of electronic wizardry will not

magically boost democratic participation.

Along these lines, some have been careful to

warn that simply waving the wand of electronic

wizardry will not magically boost democratic partici-

pation. “The process of widening involvement [...]

will be harder than just creating the opportunity to

participate,” cautions Greg Dyke, Director-General of

the BBC. “E-democracy requires not just technical

development but deep cultural change where the

‘citizen consumer’ is given a recognised role in the

political process.” Mr Dyke suggests that public

television can provide an instructive model for

greater citizen involvement and a crucial link be-

tween government and society. “The BBC and other

European public service broadcasters may be better

placed than almost any other organisations to provide

a starting point to encourage the widest range of

people to participate in civic life.”

At the end of the day, what is missed by many

when considering the question of digital democracy

is not just issues of technology or access. “Digital

literacy” is also important. Many who use the

Internet today don’t exploit it to its full potential;

they are trapped within the narrow confines of basic

and routine tasks. Most wouldn’t know how to find

information which exist outside the range of Google,

Yahoo, or MSN, for instance.

Moreover, democracy is not simply the act of

voting but also of taking a measure of interest and

responsibility for actions which may affect society as

a whole. While some mention activities such as

communicating with elected representatives as a step

forward for the concept of digital democracy, com-

puter-mediated communications in this case can be a

curse as well as a blessing. True, it makes it easier to

make contact, but automation processes also enable

elected representatives to hide behind their virtual

identities, sometimes avoiding the public altogether.

As that old adage from the late 1990s goes, “no-one

knows if you’re a dog on-line.”

But even more important than this is the realisa-

tion that most politicians and policymakers who talk

about e-government are not really interested in

democracy at all. The proof is in the pudding, as can

be seen in anti-globalisation protests in Europe and

abroad. When real democratic participation is at-

tempted by citizens at large, leaders hide behind high

fences and far away in remote locations, surrounded

by successive rings of security. For digital democracy

to succeed in reality, off-line democracy must first

exist in practice.

Notes:

1. The IPTS Report. Special issue on e-democracy, Number 75,

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, June 2003,

http://www.jrc.es/iptsreport

2. http://dbs.c ordis.lu/cor d is-cgi/srchidadb ?ACT -

I O N = D & S E S S I O N = 1 2 9 1 0 2 0 0 3 - 1 0 - 8 & D O C

=2&TBL=EN_NEWS&RCN=EN_RCN_ID:20704&CALLE

R=EN_UNIFIEDSRCH

This article originally appeared on Telepolis:

http://www.telepolis.de/english/inhalt/te/15807/1.html

Page 5

[Editors Note: This case study was written before

Roh Moo-hyun won the presidential election in South

Korea in November 2003. The critical factor in his

winning the presidency was the support and active

participation of the South Korean netizens move-

ment. OhmyNews is reported to have played a signifi-

cant role in that movement.]

OhmyNews.com:

A Case Study

by K. Jean Min

[email protected]

“The Net is vast and infinite,” mulls a cyborg

agent, Kusanagi, in a cyberpunk anime Ghost in the

Shell before she jumps into the Net with her new-

found body.

Oh Yeon-ho also dreamed of jumping into the

Net someday with a slightly different idea; recruit a

corps of young cyber reporters from the vast and

infinite Net. For his master’s degree in mass-commu-

nication during his stay in United States, he wrote a

paper on the start-up of a news media business. He

aspired to publish a news media powerful enough to

compete with major newspapers or broadcasting

stations in terms of agenda-setting power. But doing

so required a huge sum of capital investment and

hundreds of seasoned professional reporters. With the

meager money he raised from his pocket and that of

a couple of other investors, he realized the only

answer lay in the Internet.

So was launched OhmyNews.com, the first

Korean vernacular Internet news service made purely

by Netizens. Within just two years it has earned a

rock-solid reputation as one of the most influential

Internet news sites among Korean netizens. Last year

it was ranked as 8th influential news media in Korea

by the annual Sisa Journal survey, a fast and unprec-

edented success in the fierce Korean news business.

Currently it is enticing more than a million visitors

everyday, an all time high number throughout its

short life.

Company Overview

Turn-Off

How did it grow so fast? First of all, venturing

into a news business, especially print news requires a

huge initial investment. You have to build a massive

printing plant, hire at least a couple of hundred

reporters and establish a national distribution network

in a single month or two. Even if you execute this

daunting job quickly and flawlessly, there is no

guarantee of success whatsoever. This is because such

powerful media giants as Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo

and Dong-A Ilbo already dominate the Korean news

market with their combined market share hovering

around a whopping 70%. Moreover they wield

exclusive power over their critical national distribu-

tion network.

It is virtually impossible to penetrate into the

news market to say nothing of surviving as a major

player even if you possess unlimited resources. In

other words, the Korean print news market was

heavily fortified to protect the dominance of the

incumbent players.

The clear evidence is Hyundai’s failed endeavor.

Hyundai group founder Chung Ju Young tried to set

his foot into the news business by introducing

Munhwa Ilbo with a hidden aim of using it as a

political leverage during the upcoming presidential

election in 1992. Neither he nor his beloved Munhwa

Ilbo succeeded in this bold endeavor though he

poured hundreds of billions of wons until he finally

sold his stake in the paper. Munhwa Ilbo was ranked

way below OhmyNews in the same survey conducted

by Sisa Journal last year.

Turn-On

OhmyNews learned a lot from the fate of

Munhwa Ilbo. It realized that venturing into the

newspaper market was an insane idea and decided to

-Founded; February 22nd. 2000

-Initial capital; KRW 200M won ($170,000)

-Product/Service: On-line daily news provider

-Major income source: banner advertising

(70%), journalism school (20%), news

contents sale (10%), OhmyNews 2002

(Weekly News magazine), classified ads

-Market value: not listed yet

-Competition: no serious contenders in general

on-line daily news category except Pressian

Page 6

create a daily news media existing and operating only

in cyberspace. That way it could save tons of money

which otherwise it had to provide by borrowing or

fund-raising.

Secondly it opened its news gathering web

server to all Netizens. Anyone who has something to

tell or bits of news – whom it calls News Guerillas –

can log on to the OhmyNews server, type in his or her

story and upload related pictures. Dedicated editors

in OhmyNews scan them and evaluate quality and

validity of each article a netizen has reported and

select ones that satisfy the preset guideline. Each

netizen reporter will be rewarded with cyber cash

depending on the number and importance of selected

articles. That way OhmyNews could produce enough

news content without hiring a bunch of dedicated

reporters.

The validity of such a radical idea had already

been proven. Countless numbers of cyber writers

were flexing their editorial muscle on various web-

logs, bulletin boards or their own homepages.

OhmyNews was confident that a lot of talented

writers are out there starving for public recognition.

That is exactly what OhmyNews provided; public

cyberspace where an amateur cyber writer can

express his or her writing skill in the eyes of hun-

dreds of thousands of netizens with some cash

rewards as a bonus.

The cash reward per each article offered by the

editing desk is a meager amount. Depending on the

level of news space hierarchy that each article had

occupied, the cyber reporter was paid one thousand,

five thousand or ten thousand won respectively (from

$.85 to $8.50). Nonetheless, cyber reporters or

columnists did not care much about the money. After

all, they were rewarded already when their editorials,

columns or reports were given a little shaft of floodlight.

Since the news space of OhmyNews was profes-

sionally presented in terms of the look and feel and

design esthetics compared with other amateur

web-logs, cyber writers were generally more satisfied

than elsewhere. OhmyNews started with 700 plus

news guerillas when it was launched back in Feb.

2000 but quickly gained thousands of new guerillas

month after month until it reached over 18,000 as of

May 2002.

On the other hand, as the futurist Alvin Tofler

once predicted in his book Future Shock, these

netizen reporters could be deemed as true

‘prosumers’ in that they participate in the production

of news stories that they would consume themselves.

This strategy again reinforced readers’ loyalty to

OhmyNews since it assured them that their voice was

heard.

Demographics of News Guerillas

(As of Nov. 2001)

Sex Number %

Male 11189 74.40%

Female 3838 25.60%

Age Number %

10~19 1593 10.60%

20~29 6782 45.10%

30~39 4872 32.40%

40~49 1454 9.70%

50~59 258 1.70%

60~70 56 0.40%

70~79 17 0.10%

Occupation Number %

Undergraduates 3515 23.40%

Others 2408 16.00%

White Collar 2276 15.10%

Journalist 1391 9.30%

Small Business 750 5.00%

Self employed 720 4.80%

High school student 696 4.60%

Graduates 582 3.90%

IT 564 3.80%

Middle school student 527 3.50%

Teachers 481 3.20%

Public servant 375 2.50%

Arts 234 1.60%

Homemaker 199 1.30%

Medical 124 0.80%

Armed force 106 0.70%

Farmer 60 0.40%

Legal 24 0.20%

Lastly, it redefined the scope of news itself.

OhmyNews shattered conventional wisdom that only

stories about the who’s who in politics, economy and

cultural arena can merit being treated as “news”. Why

should ordinary people be fed with tons of irrelevant

news they have no use for?, it asked. This Copernican

about-face on the concept of the news came as a

shock to the majority of Korean netizens. Since the

majority of news consumers were deeply dissatisfied

Page 7

with the autocratic voice and arbitrary editorials of

the Big Three newspapers, this iconoclastic approach

to news created a stir among young readers.

Take off

As OhmyNews gained attention and became the

talk of the town, the number of newly joining news

guerillas as well as daily visitors began to explode.

To make these first-time visitors come again, and

hence retain them as permanent readers, OhmyNews

devised from its inception another hook named

Readers’ Voice.

Readers’ Voice worked this way. Each visitor

can jot down his or her comment below each article.

If he likes a certain article, he can show his prefer-

ence by clicking into an accompanying banner. The

first attempt of this kind in the news business. Each

click translates into 50 won (4.25 cents) additional

reward for the netizen reporters. To earn as much

money as possible netizen reporters should do their

best to produce quality news. And some readers

would visit OhmyNews with a single purpose of

enjoying readers’ comments.

Often, Readers’ Voice quickly escalated into the

de facto Readers’ Forum as readers chatted and

fought among themselves. Some hotly debated topics

would casually draw more than a thousand reader

comments, a phenomenal number for a fledgling

Internet news media. That gave another boost for its

page view performance. Readers’ Voice became so

popular among netizens that even OhmyNews’

powerful archrival Chosun Ilbo decided to adopt this

service into Dizzo, its Internet equivalent. Readers’

Voice proved an ultimate device to exploit the

interactivity of the Internet.

All these efforts combined with occasional

scoops brought handsome rewards to OhmyNews.

Visitors and page views of the site literally exploded.

They marveled at 100,000 plus daily visitors during

the first year when OhmyNews reported a comical

sit-down demonstration of former president Kim

Young Sam for 24 hours. This incident epitomized

the potential of the Internet as the most favored news

media to deliver “history as it happens”.

Soon this record was broken when OhmyNews

reported the fuss over the U.S. Presidential Election

in late 2000. Record after record was broken to create

new heights of daily visitors statistics.

Live cast of the historic event as it actually

happened glued the readers to the site creating a

powerful stickiness factor. There was an increasing

pattern of daily visitors as well as website ranking

since its foundation in Feb. 2000 up until May 2000.

As time went by, the news content by news

guerillas was stacked up to produce a huge amount.

OhmyNews published several books containing

ordinary stories by ordinary news guerillas. Some

prominent news guerillas were even approached by a

publishing agency for possible publication of their

columns or articles that appeared on the news site.

The increasing off-line presence of OhmyNews

boosted on-line power again making it the 10

and 8

most influential news media in Korea in 2000 and

2001 respectively in a survey conducted by Sisa

Journal.

Using the ever-increasing number of visitors and

its influence as leverage, OhmyNews intensified sales

of its ad space and also sold its news content to

DAUM, the largest Korean portal site. Its major

revenue source was comprised of ad sales (70%),

journalism school (20%) and news content sales

(10%) as of 2001.

Live web casting from the Ruling Party

Presidential Caucus

However, as is the case with other Internet

ventures in Korea, the phenomenal success of

OhmyNews would have been impossible without the

world’s highest level of broadband penetration in

Korea. The rapidly expanding number of broadband

subscribers provided OhmyNews another jumping off

point. It realized video and audio rich content could

be easily carried to netizens’ PCs via this fat pipe.

In early March 2002, OhmyNews experimented

with live web casting by airing real time pictures from

the ruling party’s caucus in Kwangjoo to elect a

presidential candidate. It turned out to be a huge

success. The OhmyNews server counted over three

million unique page views in a single day, another

record to be broken to reach five and six million

figure each new month.

With the full swing broadband environment

firmly in place, OhmyNews could become anything,

be it a daily newspaper, occasional broadcasting

station or live web radio. By that time the dedicated

reporters in OhmyNews began to call themselves a

multimedia news agency.

Page 8

Transformation

As a progressive and politics-oriented news

media as OhmyNews is, it has a certain limit in terms

of expanding its readership potential significantly.

Establishing itself as a firm news media without

losing the allure of an iconoclastic underdog is a

tricky game. OhmyNews will lose its loyal readers

once it tries to satisfy as many politically varied

segments at once as possible. We would rather

recommend it to expand the scope of its news stories

significantly without deviating from its progressive

and center-left biased political color.

Publishing OhmyNews 2002, a weekly off-line

equivalent of OhmyNews also helped. Off-line

readers clicked into the on-line OhmyNews and vice

versa. That way it could expand its readership

foundation significantly creating on-off synergy.

Focusing on covering the presidential election

campaign might also help this year. The lion’s share

of its readership comes from the age group ranging

from late twenties to early thirties, the most politi-

cally dynamic demographic segment in Korea.

If it maintains this strategy we believe it can

certainly jack up its ranking significantly as the most

influential news media in Korea. Let’s wait and see

this November, when Sisa Journal conducts its

annual survey named ‘Korea’s most admired and

influential News media’.

Summary & Lessons:

* Netizens want their voices to be heard; they are

prosumers instead of passive consumers.

* OhmyNews made the most out of existing Internet

infrastructure eliminating the need of a huge capital

investment.

* Find a way to translate huge viewership into a

profit machine: banner advertising, classified ads,

news contents sale, off-line publishing and shopping

mall for readers.

* Differentiate your image to establish political

identity then stick to yourself to maintain a lasting

brand entity

Will the Internet and

Netizens

Impact the 2004 U.S.

Presidential Election?

by Ronda Hauben

For a while Howard Dean’s campaign for the

Democratic Party nomination in the U.S. seemed to

startle political observers.

His use of the Internet and

his volunteer campaign staff of netizens were suc-

ceeding in unexpected ways to change campaigning

procedures and practices. Many of his volunteers have

been recruited via the Meetup.org online web site, and

his campaign staff sponsors a “Deanblog for Amer-

ica” web site that allows readers to comment on his

campaign articles.

There are other web sites like

blogforamerica.com which provide both articles from

the Dean campaign and comments by supporters.

Dean’s campaign also surprised other contenders for

the nomination by raising significant campaign funds

online.

As the campaign for the Iowa caucus votes and

then the New Hampshire primary gathered steam, the

news media in the U.S. is focusing less on the poten-

tial of the Internet to help candidates gain the Demo-

cratic Party nomination. Instead the conservative

media organizations are encouraging the old means of

campaigning that has led the Democratic Party to

become increasingly harder to distinguish from the

Republican Party. Negative or positive campaign ads

on television, leaflets in mailboxes, newspaper and

television editorials, and televised debates are forms

of campaigning that bring the old guard of the major

political parties back on the political stage they have

dominated for so long. This is the kind of politics that

led to the situation in the 2000 Presidential election

where the distinction between the major party candi-

dates was so slim that the Supreme Court was allowed

to decide the election.

Can the Internet help overcome the barriers to

defeating an incumbent in the 2004 U.S. Presidential

election? Observers of the role played in the South

Korean Presidential election by netizens and the

Internet are wondering if the success of their efforts

are a phenomena that can be repeated in the upcoming

U.S. Presidential election. In 2002, a South Korean

netizens movement was able to effectively challenge

the political old guard by waging an Internet cam-

Page 9

paign first to nominate and then elect Roh Moo-hyun

as the South Korean President.

Netizens challenged

the previous forms of campaign strategy. Critical to

the success of the South Korean netizens was an

online press that welcomed discussion of its articles

by online users. Even more important, however, was

the way it promoted the practice of “Every citizen a

reporter.”

The most notable of these is the media

organization OhmyNews. This organization started

online in February, 2000 with little money and four

full time reporters. The publisher, Yeon-ho Oh

welcomed articles from volunteer reporters he called

“citizen reporters”. The online newspaper soon had

contributions from 737 citizen reporters and the

interest of a growing number of readers. By Septem-

ber 2003, the number of professional journalists

working for OhmyNews had climbed to 53, and there

were 26,700 citizen reporters contributing articles.

Citizen reporters are paid a small fee for their arti-

cles. They contribute their articles to make

OhmyNews a force to challenge the conservative

news organizations that had previously monopolized

Korean politics.

There is not a similar kind of news media

organization in the U.S., though the different Demo-

cratic candidate campaigns, especially the Dean

campaign, are using webblogs to promote communi-

cation among their supporters.

A recent event in China, however, demonstrates

the power of participation online. Recently the

Chinese online press described the death of a Chi-

nese peasant and the injury of several others in

Harbin, the capital of the Heilongjiang Province in

Northeast China. The woman, Liu Zhongxia, was

killed after a BMW driven by Su Xiuwen hit her.

The BMW had had its rearview mirror slightly

damaged after Liu’s husband Dai Yiquan, who was

driving a tractor, swerved slightly to avoid hitting a

vehicle that was coming into him on the narrow

road.

The driver of the BMW got out of her car and

reportedly threatened Dia and his wife. Then Su got

back into her BMW, and instead of backing away

from the accident, drove the car forward killing Liu

and injuring several of the bystanders. The case went

to court and the BMW driver was given a suspended

sentence. The fact that none of those injured, or who

had been bystanders testified at the trial, however,

was part of the troubling circumstances that led to a

public outcry over the events of this case. Dai and

the others injured received cash settlements from the

BMW driver’s husband. In exchange, they agreed not

to speak about the case.

Chinese netizens learned of the case, and the

court verdict and began posting to Internet forums.

Soon there were 70,000 comments on the news web

site Sina.com, a famous Chinese web portal.

By the

second week in January, 2004, the Washington Post

reports that there had been over 310,000 messages

posted at the Sina portal, when the Chinese govern-

ment had the site delete 20% of the messages as being

too critical of the government. By Thursday, January

15, 2004, the 250,000 messages that remained were

deleted as well.

By this time, the case had achieved

international attention. It had become a symbol of the

growing gap between rich and poor in China and of

the frustration among the Chinese population with the

corruption in government accompanying the govern-

ment’s pro business policy.

Even in a country censoring Internet use, like

China, netizens have demonstrated the power that

online discussion forums can provide for the grass-

roots. Those discussing the BMW incident online,

have been able to bring the case to the attention of the

national and international media and are seeking to

have the case retried. Can the Dean campaign or the

campaigns of other democratic candidates vying for

the nomination tap this power of the Internet and of

netizens to achieve what seems unachievable? An

online press welcoming and encouraging citizen

contributions of articles and discussion of those

articles would help. In China, netizens are finding

ways to counter the censorship of online discussion.

In South Korea, netizens were able to create a vibrant

online netizens movement to elect the candidate they

supported to the South Korean Presidency. The

upcoming election in the U.S. is a challenge to U.S.

netizens to learn from the experience of others around

the world and in the U.S. to be able to tap the power

of the Internet to make a significant impact on the

2004 Presidential election.

1. http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/16503/1.html

2. http://www.deanforamerica.com/

3. http://www.blogforamerica.com/

4. http://www.seoprise.com/technote/read.cgi?board=min&y

_number=106&nnew=2

5. http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/internet/1063672

919p.php

6. http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2004-01/18/content

_300105.htm

7. http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/forumpost.shtml?toppid=39672

Page 10

8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21197-

-2004Jan15.html

9. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netizens2004.txt

This article appeared on Telepolis and can be seen at: http://

www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/16613/1.html. It also ap-

peared in Korean and English on OhmyNews at:

h t t p : / / w w w . o h m y n e w s

.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=14885

4&rel_no=1&adcheck=1&index=1

Fifteenth Anniversary of the

Amateur Computerist

Two thousand and three marked the 15

year of

publication of the Amateur Computerist newsletter.

To commemorate those 15 years the staff held a

reunion. We reprint in this issue three letters

connected with the reunion and eight articles re-

printed from our earlier issues. Back issues from all

15 years are online in PDF format at http://www

.ais.org /~jrh/acn/Back_Issues.

Letter from the

Amateur Computerist

Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 22:18:17 -0400 (EDT)

From: Jay Hauben

Subject: Amateur Computerist 15th Anniversary

Dear Friend,

Begun in 1988, 2003 marks the 15th Anniver-

sary of the Amateur Computerist.

For these 15 years the Amateur Computerist has

championed love of computing, universal access,

netizenship, defense of the net as a public domain

and progress toward participatory democracy on and

off the net.

Sending out the Amateur Computerist for 15

years we have occasionally received comments,

suggestions and criticisms from our readers. These

are always welcomed and helpful in our work.

We would be especially happy to receive com-

ments and greetings via email from any and all of

our readers on this occasion.

In 1988 when we edited our first issue the whole

staff lived in the Detroit area. Since 1994 we have

edited our issues using the Internet because we no

longer live close enough to meet in person. We did

have a reunion in 1998 to mark the tenth anniversary.

This weekend August 1-4 we will again have a

reunion. This time to mark the 15th anniversary of our

publication.

The reunion will be in the Harrisburg region of

Pennsylvania in the USA If any of our readers in that

region would like to greet us in person, please send

me email and I will try to make arrangements. I will

be reading my e-mail until Friday morning August 1.

Take care.

For the Amateur Computerist,

Jay Hauben

Letter from Germany

Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:44:10 +0200

From: Ronald J. Bartle <[email protected]>

Subject: AW: 15 year anniversary

To the Staff of the Amateur Computerist on the

Occasion of the 15

Anniversary.

Hi to you folks. I am a British (Royal) Air Force

war disabled veteran who has, generally speaking,

been through a bit in life and as a result have some

opinions and views that I had for many years not

found much opportunity to express. Not many of us

are blessed with the ownership of a newspa-

per-publishing house or have the wherewithal to set

up a TV Station. On the other hand many of us have

quite legitimate reasons to feel strongly about this or

that matter of concern on the political front and are

keen to see a bit more real democracy practiced. In

the early 80's I was encouraging discussion by distrib-

uting progressive literature on the Streets of SW

London and backing this up by regular debates via

CB Radio. Then – as if destiny had seen the frustra-

tions of folks such as myself – along came the

Internet. Not surprisingly – with my background in

military and other professional communications – I

personally found it not too hard to get online and

became one of the early subscribers to the Amateur

Computerist. One had become well aware of the

potential for real advancement in the lot of mankind

that the net _could_ mean if it was maintained, pre-

served and defended as a modern-day Forum in the

old democratic Tradition of Greece and Rome.

Not only because of climate – many of our

Page 11

modern industrial-nation cities do not really offer

much of a physical forum where the citizens can sit

around and discuss the affairs of the day and formu-

late a common position, which would then come to

the notice of the ruling classes. If there is a widely

accessible Forum today – it would tend to be on-line

and still needs to be made more accessible to a

broader proportion of the general public globally. As

you will be well aware – it is just such considerations

as these that the Amateur Computerist has been

pursuing and upholding down the years and one can

only hope that the readership will extend and that its

influence will expand. I congratulate you folks on

your faithful support for this important project down

the years and trust you will find fulfilment and

occasionally even some fun while continuing to do

so.

Ronald J. Bartle

(Computer and Internet Consultant to the German

Federal Association of Psychiatric Survivors – www

.bpe-online.de)

Letter from Australia

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 15:11:27 +1000

From: Geiselhart, Karin

Subject: 15th anniversary

Dear Jay and Ronda,

Sorry I could not be with you for the anniversary

of the Amateur Computerist. My thoughts were with

you, and I hope it was a great pleasure for all con-

cerned....

My latest work project (local broadband con-

tent) is at http://creativecanberra.net. My contract

here finishes mid-September, then I might continue

the project with community groups.

Much love,

Karin

[Editors Note: To mark the 10

anniversary of publi-

cation online of the seminal article the Net and

Netizens, Pier Luigi Capucci, Director of Noema, in

Italy and his students reformatted the article and put

it on their web site. The following is Capucci’s

Introduction to the article at: http://www.noemalab.

com/sections/specials/netizen/main.html]

Net and the Netizens

Commemorated

This is a draft, originally in text format, which

led to the book Netizens: On the History and Impact

of Usenet and the Internet, by Michael and Ronda

Hauben, published by the IEEE Computer Society in

1997 and which also appears in an online edition.

“Netizen” is today a common and widespread term.

We can find it on many occasions, debates, articles,

essays, art exhibits, political acts (like the Netizens

Protection Act introduced by the U.S. Congress

against online spamming in 1997)... search engines

can show about 100.000 instances of this word. The

“Netizen” concept involves a new and extended

vision of our society, which we are hardly shaping

and redefining with many social, ethical, political,

cultural issues to be aware of.

Michael Hauben, who coined the term “Netizen”

and gave it a meaning, posting his research on Usenet

just ten years ago, died suddenly in New York on

June 27, 2001, at 28. His research, starting from the

origins and development of Usenet to the diffusion of

the Net (he participated in online communities since

the early 1980s), is fundamental for understanding the

current information society, from sharing information

to online communication and participation, from the

rising and diffusion of the Internet communities to the

net policies. He is one of the pioneers who can envis-

age the future and help us to find the way. With

Michael we believe in a vision of the online world as

a powerful and positive place.

We greatly thank Ronda Hauben for the permis-

sion to republish this draft and the help in this Noema

issue on the Netizen idea.

Pier Luigi Capucci, Noema director

Page 12

In honor of 15 years of the publication of the Ama-

teur Computerist we are reprinting some articles

from our early issues.

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 1

number 1 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

Introduction

This newsletter is to inform people of develop-

ments in an effort to advance computer education.

Workers at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, MI.

were denied computer programming classes. There

was an effort by administrators of the UAW-Ford

program at the Dearborn Engine Plant to kill interest

in computers and computer programming. We want

to keep interest alive because computers are the

future. We want to disperse information to users

about computers. Since the computer is still in the

early stage of development, the ideas and experi-

ences of the users need to be shared and built on if

this technology is to advance. To this end, this

newsletter is dedicated to all people interested in

learning about computers. We welcome articles,

programs, reviews, etc. We want this newsletter to

help people use their computers in ways that will be

useful and fun.

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 1

number 1 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

Dawn of a New Era

From the Age of Darkness to the Age of Enlight-

enment – from the Machine Age to the Mind Age,

here we are. Let not any force or forces keep it under

wraps. Let it be free to circulate in the Public Domain.

Let us base it upon principle, not on price, like Truth

or Love. From the Great Wall to the Great Pyramid,

from the hieroglyphics to the screen of the computer,

mankind is still progressing. So make the new born

science, that has given us the computer for the ama-

teur and not as a prerogative of the professional to be

shrouded in secrecy from humanity, the choice of the

individual, not an election of a minority. From the

falling star to the falling apple, from the minute to the

multitudinous, from secrets to disclosure, I am

pleased to endorse the amateur method. Therefore I

implore all to plan and to participate even though I

have been on disability for 26 years and have not had

the opportunity to participate in the great sea of

knowledge that has flowed over the Dam of Secrecy

since I was inactivated physically and mentally – in

my advanced years and state of general debility I still

see the mind of man the greatest computer of all – So

Let Us Continue to Make Use of It to the Advantage

of the Masses – Come, Let Us Reason Together. With

an open mind and a free spirit. Let me reiterate, there

is so much more to know, that what we do know, is

still insignificant. It gives me great pleasure to en-

dorse this free-for-all program of a restless mind.

Floyd Hoke-Miller, UAW Retiree and Flint Sit

Down Striker (1895-1990)

Page 13

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 1

number 3 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

Computers and

Free Speech

by Michael Hauben

Should there be unlimited freedom of speech?

Should the Supreme Court or any other federal court

have the right to censor? Does EVERYBODY have

freedom of speech? These are some of the questions

based on freedom of speech. When Hitler came to

power in Germany, he limited freedom of speech by

ending constitutional law. When the Chairman of the

opposing party made a passionate plea, Hitler said,

“Late you come, but still you come...during the time

we were in the opposition...in those days our press

was forbidden and forbidden and again forbidden,

our meetings were forbidden and we were forbidden

to speak, and I was forbidden to speak, for years on

end. And now you say: criticism is salutary!”

For our society, freedom of speech is part of the

Bill of Rights of our Constitution. Many of the states

that ratified the Constitution did so with an under-

standing that a Bill of Rights restricting the power of

the federal government would be adopted. Patrick

Henry was one of the many to demand the Bill of

Rights. He argued successfully for the Bill. The

different freedoms, including freedom of speech,

protected by the Bill of Rights have been and still

will be defined through various cases brought up in

federal courts.

The concept of freedom of speech has a long

history. It expanded to speech on paper in the 15th

Century when Johannes Gutenberg invented move-

able type in Europe. Books that were cheap and

common replaced the valuable, rare manuscripts

immediately after the press was introduced. Informa-

tion could now be delivered to all who could read,

instead of only to those within earshot of a speaker.

In England, the governing body thought the power of

the printing press dangerous enough to assign a

censor. That censorship was shut down by Parlia-

ment and then reinstalled after a flood of licentious

and seditious literature came out of the mighty

presses. Many of these new uncensored books were

politically or theologically based.

John Milton, a 36 year old poet and a classical

scholar of known reputation, published on his own

and without a license in the 17th Century, an answer

to the Parliament’s censoring of printed materials. He

called it Areopagitica. In it he says “First, the deci-

sion of a censor cannot be trusted unless the censor is

infallible and beyond corruption. No mortal possesses

such grace; therefore no mortal is qualified to be a

censor. Second, since anything may tend to evil if

misused, an effective system of censorship will end

up suppressing everything even music, dancing,

windows, balconies, eating, drinking, clothes and `the

mixt conversation of our youth, male and female

together.’ Third, if a scheme for issuing licenses be

instituted, what does one do with books already

printed and in circulation? Fourth, the job of censor is

so dull and unsatisfactory that no able person will

want it.”

In the five parts of Milton’s text, he talks about the

types of people for whom he is writing this book. The

main type, the humanist, is devoted to the debate and

the discussion of things like freedom of speech. He

was the man of learning that Milton had in mind.

Milton knew that the person who talks about freedom

of speech requires freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech has been a topic widely debated

around the world on university campuses. For exam-

ple, in 1964 on the Berkeley Campus of the Univer-

sity of California, there developed the Free Speech

Movement which was a forerunner of the student-

based civil rights and anti-war movements that were

active for the next ten years. From Berkeley came

several leaders for the up and coming computer

Homebrew movement which was the beginning of all

personal computers we know today. In the last two

years, there have been student revolts against the

political system in China and France.

Freedom of speech is still freedom of speech even

for bad causes. In North Carolina, and several other

states, one can pay $5.00 for an “open sesame”

password onto the Aryan National Liberty Net, an

electronic Bulletin Board. It contains the latest in

neo-Nazi thought offering sections entitled “Know

your Enemies”, “ZOG Informers” and “Patriotic

Groups.” One of the main concerns is that of kids

who like to hack into closed computer bulletin boards.

They are the most vulnerable to this type of hate

propaganda.

An important vehicle in the fight for free speech is

the personal computer. The personal computer can be

a facilitator of free speech because it is an information

machine. It grew out of the supporters of the anti-war

Page 14

movement who wanted a personal computer for the

masses. At the time, the computers available were

the mainframes made by IBM and other big manu-

facturers, affordable to only huge companies and the

government, and the mini-computers manufactured

by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and others.

The minicomputers were more of a people computer

because universities could afford them and make

them available to students.

Many clubs formed that had people interested in a

people’s computer. California’s Homebrew Club was

one of the famous ones. Many important founders of

the personal computer blossomed in the Homebrew

Club. The first couple of real personal computers

were made exclusive, because the manufacturers

wanted to make profit from them. The hackers soon

defeated the exclusive rights that these manufactur-

ers wanted. They figured out and standardized

different aspects of the machines to fit the hacker

ethic, which stated everything should be in public

domain so that people could learn something from,

be able to benefit from, and finally be able to en-

hance it. As a result of these pioneers, IBM was

forced, when it entered the personal computer

market, to conform to the pioneers and to make an

open, public machine. IBM of all companies! IBM

was the Godfather of the Mainframes. These pio-

neers achieved a victory for free speech!

In 1987, on the campus of the University of

Michigan (Ann Arbor), free speech was again

brought into question. On an electronic bulletin

board available to the University community, a file

of ethnic, racial and other jokes offensive to specific

groups was made available by certain students. The

file kindled the fire of debate on freedom of speech

and computer propriety. After the student who

started the file, was pressured to close it, more

debate flourished. Some students started files with

page-long essays on the evils of bigotry, while others

started new joke files. So some students answered

the discontinued joke file, while others restarted it.

Now that’s definitely freedom of speech!

Even more debates have been started about

whether to limit what people can say by computer,

whether bad jokes should be allowed as a category.

“Some schools such as Dartmouth and Carnegie-

Mellon have imposed a code of ethics for students

using their computers, with violators facing removal

from the system. Dartmouth specifically prohibits

offensive material in a code that warns: `Obscenities

should not be sent by computer nor stored where they

could offend other users’.”

Supporters of the joke file

say that no one was forced to read the file and that

they had to go out of their way to read it. Isn’t there

always a temptation though? Robert Parnes, program-

mer of the software used for the electronic bulletin

board, said that he thought that the students would try

to test the bounds of decency.

Our world would have to be made better to have

unlimited freedom of speech. Most people in the

world who have a type of Bill of Rights have some

protection of their freedom of speech. As Barbara

Amiel writes in her article “Censoring One, Censor-

ing All”, “You either have free speech for everybody

or you do not have free speech,”

you have to have

unlimited freedom of speech or you are discriminat-

ing against a viewpoint. The result of unlimited

freedom of speech is that if someone exercises their

freedom and expresses their viewpoint on a matter, a

person of an opposing viewpoint would be able to

answer the first person’s work. This way everyone

could hear all sides on that matter and make up their

own minds on what they agree with.

1. Barbara Amiel, Censoring One, Censoring All, MacLean’s,

April 15, 1985, p 11.

2. Irving Younger, “What Good Is Freedom of Speech?”,

Commentary, vol 79, Jan. ‘85, pp 45 - 46.

3. Isabel Wilkerson, “Ethnic Jokes in Campus Prompt Debate”,

New York Times, April 18, 1987

4. Barbara Amiel.

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 2

number 4 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

True Heros

by Michael Hauben

A hero is not someone who only appears a hero

in our eyes, but one who achieves good for the com-

mon man, against the will of the establishment. This

person must be able to stand up against the common

bad, instead of pleasing somebody. Often this person

will either have all or most of society going against

him. The hero must be able to stand up for what he

believes in and not succumb to outside pressure.

Galileo is a good example of a hero. He chal-

lenged the Church by publishing his scientific find-

Page 15

ings, which were against the then current and less

accurate Aristotelian science. He kept on studying

and his mind was unchanged even after the Inquisi-

tion challenged him. So in the end, when the Inquisi-

tion tried to silence him by putting him under

house-arrest, he still got his writings out to the

people. Galileo would not be silenced by the Inquisi-

tion because in his search for the truth he was not

afraid to oppose authority!

Gary Kindall is another hero or at least part of a

heroic movement. He was the creator of CP/M

(Control Program for Microprocessors), the first

operating system for micro-computers. CP/M was

developed during the beginning of the micro-com-

puter revolution. Before micro-computers were

developed, IBM (International Business Machines)

and other big companies produced the only comput-

ers available. The computers that they marketed were

incompatible mainframes and mini-computers which

only big businesses and big universities could afford.

What the micro-computer revolution brought to-

gether was a community of people who wanted to

bring the power of computers to the common people,

instead of just to these institutions. This community

succeeded in making the personal computer. They

insisted that the personal computer have an open

architecture and be compatible. CP/M played a big

part in making the personal computers compatible.

After a while, IBM wanted to get into the

micro-computer market, so they introduced a mi-

cro-computer that was incompatible with everything

else. No one would have anything to do with this

machine, so IBM was forced to come out with a

more compatible and open machine! IBM went to

Gary Kindall and asked to use a version of CP/M for

the IBM PC (Personal Computer), but first they

wanted him to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He

wouldn’t agree to IBM’s requirement of secrecy

because that would be breaking the micro-computer

principle of keeping everything open and available to

all the people. So IBM didn’t use CP/M. Instead they

used something that was almost exactly like CP/M

except it was developed especially for IBM’s PC.

Gary Kindall and the people who brought the micro-

computer into existence are heroes! They brought the

secret of computer power from IBM and other big

companies to all the people!

Sports heroes and celebrities are not true heroes

because they cannot bring about real changes. People

like Galileo and Kindall are real heroes because they

make a significant change in the world benefitting the

common person. All ages have untrue heroes, but true

heroes are rare.

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 4

number 4 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

The Impact of the Computer

on Society: Two Views

The Future

Trond Andresen

[email protected]

If I should discuss “the future”, I would take, not

a 10-20 year perspective, but a 200 year perspective.

I would ask myself: What is the real LONG RANGE

trend in the economy, and what sort of real LONG

RANGE target is made possible by that? Having

decided on a 200 year perspective, I would use that

projection as a premise for the course I would want

society to follow in the more near future (0-10 years).

What then is the fundamental trend in the econ-

omy, seen from the perspective of 200 years? The

answer is of course trivial: An immense increase in

productivity. And I will say: We have just seen the

start of this, what with automated manufacturing,

process control, expert systems, and in the not-so-

near-future, Artificial Intelligence. I disagree with

environmentalists saying that increased productivity

is impossible because of environmental constraints. I

agree with their mental alarm about the constraints,

but I think that automation, robots, and so on will

make us a better society for all, at the same time

REDUCING the strain on the environment.

Now comes the next point, which is not trivial at

all: What sort of society should we strive for in the

light of the enormous technological potential that a lot

of us agree on?

Here is my scenario: A society where a small

percentage of the population oversees automatic

processes in administration, manufacturing and

commerce. The industry will be running nearly

without human work-hours. So what do the other 95%

do? Before I answer that question, some thoughts

about “the meaning of life”. Why do we need indus-

try? Is it an end in itself? (Listening to politicians and

industrialists in the media, one is

Page 16

led to believe that.)

In my view, industry is only a means TO GIVE

PEOPLE MORE TIME FOR WHAT THEY RE-

ALLY WOULD LIKE TO DO. The remaining 95%

of the workforce in my future society would have the

following jobs:

- Kindergarten teachers and nurses, 2 adults per 5

children.

- Teachers, in classes with less than 10 children in

each class.

- Sailplane instructors, scuba-diving instructors,

football trainers.

- Teaching kids mountain-climbing

- Rearing horses.

- Drama instructors, singing instructors, actors,

singers, musicians, painters, etc.

- Health personnel, one doctor per 50 persons. Free

hospitalization for everybody.

- Researchers in anything from flowers to chess to

astronomy to historical masks of the South Ameri-

can Indians. A very big part of the population in

university-level education and research – ecologi-

cally sound agriculture and animal husbandry,

which, by the way, may be MORE labor-intensive

than today’s industrialized attack on the environ-

ment.

- Ecological managing and rebuilding of the world.

Reforestation is one important example.

OK, you can see where I’m going. And I would

also stress: Mandatory work-hours in this society are

in the range of 2 - 4 hours, if they are mandatory at

all. But people will be on the job a lot more, because

they will LIKE what they are doing. No problem.

This far future scenario has the following

consequences for shorter-term policies:

- Automation is a good thing.

- Higher wages which lead to more automation is a

good thing.

- Shorter work hours accompanied by job-sharing is

a good thing.

- Less people in industry and more people in educa-

tion/health care/culture is a good thing.

- More people employed taking care of other people

- and this cannot and should not be “automatized” -

is a good thing.

In countries with publicly financed health care

and education, like my own country, this means the

public sector taking a BIGGER piece of the GNP.

This, in my view, is a sign of an advanced society,

and I therefore find the persistent wailing from

industry, finance and the political right against growth

in the public sector totally reactionary and lacking

any long term perspective.

[The following is reprinted from the Volume 3

number 1 issue of the Amateur Computerist.]

The Spirit of Babbage

Chapter ONE

In the beginning The Spirit of Babbage created the

software and the hardware.

And hardware was expensive and low-tech; and

incompatibleness was on the face of the hardware.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let there be a

micro, and there were micros.

And The Spirit of Babbage saw the micro, that it

was good: and The Spirit of Babbage divided the

Micro from the Mainframe.

And The Spirit of Babbage called the micro Mark 8,

and the Mainframe he called the IBM.

And the evening and the morning were the 1

day.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, there be a firma-

ment in the midst of the common elements, and Let it

divide the transistors from the ICs.

And The Spirit of Babbage made the firmament and

divided the common elements which were ICs from

the common elements which were transistors: And it

was so.

And The Spirit of Babbage called the Firmament

history. And the evening & the morning were the 2

day.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let the common

elements from recent history gather together unto one

place and let the clubs appear: and it was so.

And The Spirit of Babbage called the new clubs,

homebrew clubs; and the gathering together of the

common elements Zilog: and The Spirit of Babbage

saw that it was good.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let the Hardware

be programmed after Jacquard’s kind: and it was so.

And the Hardware was programmed: and The Spirit

of Babbage saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the 3

day.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let there be

microcomputer companies to divide the 4 bit from the

8 bit microprocessor, the 8 bit from the 16 bit micro-

processor, and the 16 bit from the 32 bit microproces-

Page 17

sor.

And let them be for the existence of versatility in

the world: and it was so.

And The Spirit of Babbage made two great compa-

nies, the greater company to dominate the business

world, and the lesser company to rule the graphics

world: and The Spirit of Babbage made the competi-

tion too.

And The Spirit of Babbage set them in the Fortune

500 to make sure they could be versatile: and The

Spirit of Babbage saw it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the 4

day.

And The Spirit of Babbage created the Altair,

which stored data on paper tape, And every Commo-

dore Pet which stored data on cassette tape after his

kind: and The Spirit of Babbage saw that it was

good.

And the evening and the morning were the 5

day.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let the Amateur

Computer Clubs bring forth the microcomputer,

which stored data on disks, called Apple: and it was

so.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let us make IBM

PCs in our own image, after our likeness, and let

them have dominion over the Altair with paper tape

storage, and over the Commodore Pet with cassette

tape storage, and over the Apple with disk storage.

So The Spirit of Babbage created the IBM PCs in

his own image, in the image of The Spirit of

Babbage created he it; XT and AT created he them.

And The Spirit of Babbage said, Behold I have

given you every programmer, who are in the clubs,

and of every piece of software, who wrote all of the

pieces; to you it shall be meat.

And to all of the other computers with paper tape

for storage, and to every computer with cassette

tapes for storage, and to every computer with disk

drives for storage, wherein they work, I have given

all pieces of software for meat: and it was so.

And The Spirit of Babbage saw everything that he

had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the

evening & the morning were the 6

day.

Chapter TWO

Thus, the hardware and the software were finished,

and all the host of them.

And on the 7

day The Spirit of Babbage ended his

work which he had made; and he rested in the

seventh day from all the work he had made.

But The Spirit of Babbage rested by playing

computer games on all of his creations.

And The Spirit of Babbage decided to bless this day

by creating a place for him to play computer games

peacefully. And The Spirit of Babbage said, Let there

be a Charles Babbage Institute. And there the Spirit of

Babbage awaits.

To be Continued...in the future.

Michael Hauben

Interview with Staff Member

Michael Hauben on the

Occasion of the 10

Anniversary of the Personal

Computer

(Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on

August 11, 1991. It has been edited.)

Ronda: Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the

introduction of the IBM personal computer on August

12, 1981. Also, one of our staff members, Michael

Hauben, is leaving Michigan to go to college in N.Y.

Therefore, it seemed an appropriate time to look back

on the past 10 years and to review how the introduc-

tion of the personal computer has affected our lives.

Michael is now 18. In 1981 he was 8 years old and

already involved with computers. Michael is not only

one of the beneficiaries of the computer revolution.

The computer revolution was carried out, not so much

by companies like IBM, but more importantly, by

computer hobbyists like Michael Hauben. Thus in

honor of the computer hobbyists, who gave birth to

and developed the personal computer, we would like

to review some of your experiences, Michael, with the

computer.

William: How did you get started with computers?

Michael: The first place I really saw computers was

at an exhibit in Toronto over 10 years ago. There was

a robot that was like the 4 axes machine that auto

workers use. They also had a computer exhibit. I

don’t remember what kind of computer was on

display but they were just a bunch of computers

running different kinds of programs set up there at the

Canadian National Exhibit. That really peaked my

interest somehow.

When I was 8 (in 1981), I took a computer class at

Schoolcraft Community College, in what was called

Page 18

the Kids College. It was part of what they called the

TAG (Talented and Gifted) Program. The teacher’s

name was Mrs. Brown. We learned on the Apple

II+’s. The first day of class, Mrs. Brown lifted the

top of the APPLE and said, “There, that’s all there is

to it, There’s nothing to be afraid of.” That was a

very good introduction to the computer because it

showed there was nothing to be afraid of. That we

could completely control it. I learned BASIC there.

I took several other classes in that program. I think I

took three. I didn’t take all the BASIC language

classes offered. But I took a test that they had for

their normal BASIC college level classes and I

wound up getting three college credits for the BASIC

language class. And I didn’t do so good because I

ended up only getting a B on the test. But the experi-

ence was interesting and from then on whenever

there was a computer available I tried to use it.

After the trip to Toronto, I always wanted to buy a

computer. There was the Texas Instruments 99/4a

(TI 99/4a) and I don’t remember how much it cost,

but it was expensive. There was the Timex Sinclair

1000 (TS 1000) and that was much cheaper. My

family and I had seen Sinclair computers in England

when we visited. These computers could be hooked

up to a normal t.v. set. I saved up my money and

bought a TS-1000. Using it I more thoroughly

learned BASIC. My father and I programmed a lot in

BASIC with only 2K memory. We never seemed to

run out of memory. We just played around and tried

to do lots of different things, tried writing little

games, graphics and we dabbled a little in machine

language, not a lot however. Whenever I had the

chance, whether it was summer camp or in a com-

puter store, I’d try to do something with the com-

puter. I learned BASIC, I learned LOGO on the

TI-99/4a in Camp, and I played around with AP-

PLES and with Commodore PETS. In my elemen-

tary school, there was a terminal hooked in with the

mainframe of the Dearborn Schools. At that time

there were many programs on the mainframe. They

had BASIC. They had games like the OREGON

TRAIL, etc. I subscribed to two or three magazines

for the TS-1000. I bought books, did all the TRY

THIS type of small programs. Those were always

fun because there would always be problems with

the programs. There would always be bugs. The

books and sample programs were exciting somehow.

I haven’t found many books similar for program-

ming on the IBM PCs today, books that I have found

exciting for a hobbyist. And this is sad.

Soon after I bought the TS-1000, it couldn’t have

been more than a couple of years, I was trying to

choose between the TS-2068 and the Commodore 64.

I think the Commodore was more expensive. The

TS-2068 had better color, and a more developed

version of BASIC. The Commodore 64 was better in

that it had a disk drive and the TS-1000 only had a

tape drive you could use. The Commodore also had a

real keyboard, while the Timex utilized raised chick-

let keys. I bought the TS-2068. Then I had my first

real lesson in the computer world. Three months after

I bought the TS-2068, Timex stopped selling it and

supporting it. Timex made a deal with Commodore.

There was an agreement to sell the Sinclair in Eng-

land and Europe and Commodore in the United

States. That was a shock because I thought I made a

better choice, but it turned out the better deal is not

always the best choice.

And my father and I did programming on that, but

not really as much as we did on the TS-1000. It was

a lot less, even though there was the added attraction

of the color and the sound and the joystick port. And

so I still did things and I tried to pick up on things

whenever I could.

Christmas of 1984, we bought a Sanyo MBC-550-2

which was a MS-DOS compatible, but not an IBM

compatible, machine. The operating system was IBM

compatible, but the graphics were different, the sound

was different, and the BASIC was different. The

Sanyo was a better machine for graphics, I think 640

x 400 with 4 colors if not 16. And WordStar worked.

That’s why my family got it – as a wordprocessor. I

learned MS-Dos. I got more into the PC world. We

subscribed to a Sanyo magazine for a while. We went

to the Sanyo Users’ groups for a while. We occasion-

ally went to SEMCO (Southeast Michigan Computer

Organization), but somehow that was already oriented

toward business and they weren’t very interested in

helping us. Then in 1985, through INACOMP, my

mother won a Compaq Portable. It was one of the

earliest to come out that was fully IBM compatible. It

was a luggable portable, and it weighed about 20

pounds, if not more. And that’s how I really got into

IBM. We had a choice between a modem and a hard

drive. We got a modem. It was a breakthrough. The

hard drive seemed important but the modem was

more important. We wound up getting a hard drive

later on. With the modem, it lets you connect to the

outside world. With your own little system you’d be

Page 19

like a hermit, but in connecting with the rest of the

world, it’s other people’s opinions, different discus-

sions about computers, about current events, debates

about what’s going on in the world and just general

BS also. And you came into contact with people, you

came into contact with different files to use with

your computer, with what was going on with the

computer scene and so somehow it was like a re-

placement for a user group. And depending upon the

time, there was either a lot going on or a little going

on.

Ronda: What do you mean?

Michael: Well right now not many boards I know

have much debate on them. There are two that I am

on. Both of them have debates on-going. I’m sure

there are others, but I just haven’t had time to look.

But for a while I was on many of the boards and at

one point many of the boards were silly contests to

see who could post the most numerous messages.

Ronda: Do you have a sense what you were look-

ing for on the BBS’s? You used to spend a lot of

time on them.

Michael: Well at first I wasn’t on local BBS’s.

Originally, I was on COMPUSERVE.

William: Free time?

Michael: Well, the first two hours were free. I

almost became a beta-tester for Infocom through

COMPUSERVE. I sent in the application forms. I

then received a congratulations letter, but Infocom

never sent me any games to test. The only response

was a Christmas card. That was a soured Compu-

serve memory. I found some local BBS numbers

listed on Compuserve and from my father and some

friends of his from work. For a while I was mostly

on Commodore BBS’s and not many IBM boards.

But then I started calling the IBM boards. It was new

for me when I started. Modeming was a connection

to the outside world to other people with similar

interests. It was interesting – the debates about

current events. Somehow there was the possibility

for intellectual discussion which I couldn’t find

elsewhere besides my parents and a few friends like

Floyd Hoke-Miller. But among my friends at school

or neighbors, there wasn’t much of a possibility.

When we lived in East Dearborn, our next door

neighbor, Tom, had an Atari and a Commodore 64.

He shared an interest in computers with me. He was

my friend, even though there was a large age gap,

because we were both interested in computers. He let

me come over and try some things on his computer

and I’d go with him to computer stores.

William: Another thing about modems you can’t tell

the age. Treats you more like an equal.

Michael: There’s an anonymity. You don’t know

anything about the other users. So you are more

willing to accept them. There are still first impres-

sions. If you act like a real idiot, people won’t like

you. But the full element of first impressions is left

out. And people tend to rank you or be friends with

you on how you act on-line, what you speak about. It

does help. You tend to get to know the people and

there isn’t as much blocking. And my first handle was

Wizkid. I changed my handle 2 or 3 years ago to

Sentinel. And there was one person who signed on

and said it was great knowing you. He was one of the

people who knew me as Wizkid. There was a “Re-

membering the OLD Days” theme area on one of the

BBS’s and someone said, “remember that Wizkid.”

And I said, “that was me.” And he said he didn’t

know that. When people change their handles, it’s

public but somehow people don’t always realize it.

When I changed my handle, I decreased my activity.

When I decreased my activity it was because there

were just silly messages that didn’t mean anything, or

they just seemed juvenile, and I don’t know if that’s

because the people calling were younger or they were

more juvenile. The way people accept you is based on

your maturity on-line and your maturity showed

through more than your age. And there was one

debate where someone said you are just a kid. And I

used to have the handle Wizkid. But it didn’t matter

what your age was, it was more how mature you

were. He was trying to say “Well you’re just a kid,

you can’t know anything.” But he was wrong. So

there is less age discrimination on the boards.

Ronda: Why did you decrease the time you spent on

the boards?

Michael: I had to spend more time with school, with

friends, with my job. Whenever I used to come home

from school, I used to spend 2 or 3 hours, but then my

mom said, “We need the phone.” So I didn’t spend

my free time before homework on the modem. And

then with work, I wasn’t even home on certain days to

use the modem.

Ronda: But it seemed you were also a little disap-

pointed. There were user parties, but it seemed the

computer world didn’t extend outside of the modem.

Michael: It did to a certain extent, but it didn’t

include everyone. Like some people were friends

before. There were modem parties where people from

Page 20

the boards got together, whether it was a software

swap or a party.

Ronda: There weren’t many, were there?

Michael: Well, what happened was the main

person who had the parties was from a TAG board in

Taylor. He had his computer stolen after the 2nd or

3rd party. So he stopped holding them. Then there

were multiuser boards. There was M-Net which was

a multi-user. The general ages of the users on M-Net

was older than on the other single-user BBS’s. And

it was more serious. It was more a UNIX board. It

was a different bunch. It was not the home but the

people in school, in Ann Arbor. It seemed like the

multi-user boards made it easier to hold parties

because users could chat live one-on-one. And when

AMUSERS (a multi-user board) closed down, I

didn’t get on other multi-users that were like AMUS-

ERS. Some people already were friends but you

didn’t end up doing much so it was a little disap-

pointing. Cause it didn’t seem like there was any –

it didn’t get anywhere – it was just on-line so that

was a little disconcerting. It was disappointing

because that was where I had found more intellectual

people but it didn’t go anywhere. And things like

COMPUSERVE cost a lot of money. There’s

COMPUSERVE, there’s Delphi, there’s Geni,

there’s PC Link, there’s Q-link, there’s a couple of

services but they all cost money, so that’s hard to

deal with. And then there are bigger boards that

exist. But they all cost money. There’s the WELL.

That’s in California. You also pay per hour like

Compuserve. So it’s harder to be on. It’s like M-Net.

It’s the same software as M-Net. And maybe I did

find it disappointing. It used to be there would be

lots of new BBS’s popping up. But they were inter-

esting. And now there still are lots of new BBS’s

popping up. But they’re silly. So it’s gone downhill

a little bit. And also BBS’s are similar to the CB or

the Ham radio in that people voice their opinions, or

have discussions or chat or there used to be DDial’s

– all they were were multi-user, people chatting, but

they were 300 baud so they were super slow. Some

of those you had to acquire membership. But they

were linked up across the country. There were things

called LINKS that would connect you to other

DDial’s around the country. So that way you could

talk to people.

Somehow the thing about BBS’s was it was the

ultimate vehicle of Free Speech, uncensored speech.

For the most part things were not censored. What

you posted was left alone. It was like everyone’s

Letter to the Editor was allowed to be printed. There

would be letters debating other previous letters.

Different SysOps had different rules and some would

delete messages that contained profanity or were only

personal attacks or something. BBS’s are the greatest

form of free speech. The problem was you needed a

modem and a computer to get into it. So it’s not as

free as it might be, but compared to the newspapers,

the newspapers print what they choose, whereas on

BBS’s everything is printed, everything is published.

It’s more of a dynamic medium than a static medium

because depending on the board there’s different

forms of dealing with messages. For example, some

boards after the first 50 messages go by, the first

message is deleted, so it’s a dynamic thing. Unless

somebody prints out a copy or saves it to disk, it

doesn’t stay static. Like on M-Net, things aren’t

deleted. They are deleted when the message SysOp of

the area decides no one is interested anymore. That’s

more of a choice method of deletion, than where it

deletes messages or the new one pops in, the old one

pops out and it’s deleted. And even depending on

what happens, it’s still an important medium.

There was, for example, just a debate about the war

against IRAQ on BBS’s. Usually you didn’t see

where there was dissent. Whereas on the computer, if

people wanted to, they could debate it and there was

debate about it. A free medium. It’s open access. Not

closed. It’s also a field where the hobbyist still exists.

There are people who develop ways of using the

modem, whether it’s different compression tech-

niques where you can send more and larger files

quicker, or whether it’s different file protocols that

send them faster over phone lines. Those are con-

stantly developing. That is a hobbyist frontier now.

Maybe there are less people than when the computer

started out. But it still exists. It’s a frontier that’s not

closed up yet. It’s not definite yet. New things are

continuing to come out. For example, higher speed

chips for the serial ports in the computer so that the

computer can talk to the modem at a higher speed and

everything.

Part II

Ronda: Do you think there are any lessons from

what is going on?

Michael: Well, the Timex/Sinclair Commodore

agreement was proof that the best choice is not

always for the best. The best product does not always

end up being marketed or sold. That seems true of

Page 21

many things in this capitalist world. Sony’s Beta

video system was technologically superior to the

current VHS standard. I don’t know if there is a

lesson to draw or not. A similar problem is occurring

with computer magazines. In particular I am thinking

of: Popular Computing, Family Computing, PC

Computing, Creative Computing, and Compute.

Most of the magazines have changed their priorities

from an emphasis on hobbyist or home users to

business. Popular Computing disappeared shortly

after changing its name to Business Computing. The

same thing happened with Family Computing after

it changed its name and emphasis to Home and

Office Computing. Unfortunately PC Computing is

following the same path. PC Computing started out

as an alternative to other magazines such as PC

Magazine and PC for the home or hobbyist crowd in

the PC community. It had reviews of games and

broader articles, while being a smidgen less technical

and completely unconnected to a business point of

view. The subtitle is now “The magazine for Busi-

ness Computing Experts.” Readers have recognized

the change and written letters to the editor to com-

ment and complain. As for other examples, Creative

Computing vanished and Compute compressed down

to one magazine from what was four. However,

Commodore 64s still sell, and that is a viable com-

munity. I guess PCs are coming home from the

office, but that doesn’t mean they are only used for

business at home. A whole community seems to be

left un-serviced by this trend in computer magazines.

True, computer gaming magazines exist, but home

computers are used for much more than just playing

games. One problem is that PCs are not particularly

getting cheaper. Any decrease in price has more or

less been incidental to the increase in power. The

386s (Intel 80386) cost today what the 286 (Intel

80286) cost yesterday. But there are still no really

affordable computers in the $100 to $200 range. This

is sad, because the computer is not as affordable as

it should be. Thus, personal computers are still not a

normal part of most households which was the real

goal of the personal computer revolution. While

most homes have been affected by the arrival of

microprocessors in many home appliances, the

Personal Computer itself is not yet a home appliance.

The general recent trend of computer development is

aimed at business, as opposed to the people. Not for

the majority, but for the minority. It’s like what IBM

did for the mainframe and other mainframe manufac-

turers in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. The mainframe then

was only affordable by the biggest of the big compa-

nies or the large educational institution. The differ-

ence today is that small business can afford comput-

ers, but still only businesses. Computers are marketed

as for businesses and entrepreneurs, and not for the

average person at home, or for the majority of the

people. The radical push of the personal computer

movement in the mid to late ‘70s was to make the

computer available to everyone, and not just accessi-

ble to Fortune 500 companies. True, these days

computers are much more affordable than 20 years

ago, but the general movement in the personal com-

puter world seems opposed to its roots.

Ronda: How so?

Michael: IBM exemplifies this movement with the

release of their PS/2 line. These computers have a

proprietary bus. IBM changed the name away from

Personal Computer to Personal System/2 which is

more like the main-frame names. It made it less

friendly in that sense.

Ronda: Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? What do

you think will be the future with computers? With

you and computers?

Michael: Well by going away to school I’ll gain

more access to what’s called the Internet, the big net

that exists, the connection of computers across this

country and across the world. You gain more access

when you go into an educational community. I’m

optimistic because of that. I’ll have to manage that as

part of my time. Businesses and education are in-

volved in that. It’s harder if you live at home to have

access to it. (Editor’s Note: Home access is more

available now, than it was a year ago when this

interview was done.) Somehow you need something

powerful enough to hook into. It’s not quite fully

open. If you live near an educational community you

can gain access to it. I have and you can. Our connec-

tion is MichNet. So that will be broadening. That will

be a connection with the rest of the world computer-

wise, but it’s not quite just the computer. So that’s

encouraging.

Somehow they are working on building things

smaller and more minuscule but not quite pricewise.

The computers aren’t quite like the microwave and

the VCR. Home appliances started out expensive but

there are now so many different companies making

them that they have come down in price so they are

affordable. As I said before computer performance

increased but it doesn’t come down in price. Actually,

Page 22

it’s going to be a stretch to buy a computer for

myself, but I wouldn’t have been able to buy one last

year. What used to be $2000 is now $1000 or com-

ing closer to $1000.

Ronda: Do you think there has been some kind of

revolution with computers? Do you think there has

been a computer revolution?

Michael: Well, there is the personal computer. If it

was up to the big companies, there wouldn’t have

been one. As I said the corporate trend is reactionary.

Ronda: Do you think there’s been a computer

revolution, William?

William: What do you mean by a computer revolu-

tion?

Ronda: That something fundamental has changed

because of the computer.

William: Fundamental?

Ronda: Or something substantial that you see at

work?

William: We’re using computers more. We’ve got

IBM 486 computers on the shop floor.

Michael: But what do you use them for?

William: For altering and transferring programs to

our CNC machining center. We got rid of the West-

inghouse computer in the computer room and you

can download more files into the 486 computer. It

has all our files already. It won’t hold us up when we

are running the machine.

Ronda: But the computer isn’t being used to run a

machine?

William: No it’s not to run a machine directly. You

have other computers for that.

Michael: So the computers are like terminals?

William: It’s like a database. But you can edit and

change the data if you need to.

Ronda: Are most people comfortable with them.

Or is it that if people don’t have home computers it’s

harder to use them?

William: Well they have menus instead of working

with DOS. It just takes a F[unction] key and that is

it. We finally got a manual for it. The editor is

difficult to work with. They’re still working on a

new editor....

Ronda: Remember they were talking about the

workerless factory in the ast 7 or 8 years. My sense

is that hasn’t come to pass.

William: Well, there are a lot less people working

in my shop. They’re standardizing everything so

there’s less skill involved in putting dies together.

Ronda: But the computer hasn’t cut the people out

or caused problems?

William: No.

Ronda: So do you think there’s been some kind of

computer revolution in the last 10 or 15 years? That

something substantial has happened to change....

William: Society?

Michael: Well a lot of things have computer chips

in them now. All your household appliances have

them from the tv set on.

William: Cars have them.

Michael: Cars have them now so society has been

changed by the introduction of them. The mainframe

computer didn’t use processing chips. It took build-

ings with several floors to house those computers. But

now, the personal computer is the achievement of the

trend of miniaturization that came in the 1950s.

William: More like evolution, right. You got chips

in tv’s now. You got picture-in-picture, not revolu-

tion, not a substantial change.

Michael: Well, there was the miniaturization after

WWII but it didn’t hit computers then. Computers

were still the great big mainframes that used the

vacuum tubes. Then came the transistor, the micro-

processor, and the integrated circuit. But they weren’t

really utilized with the mainframes. Or if they were,

instead of a whole floor, it was a room. But it wasn’t

down to a single chip which now exists and which is

constantly getting smaller. They think they’re reach-

ing the bounds actually. Now people are speculating

that the silicon chip has reached its physical speed

and size limits and a new material needs to be used,

like chemical or biological materials instead of

electronic. But I feel if it had not been for the per-

sonal computer revolution, there wouldn’t be such use

of processing chips and use of computing technology

involved in so many things in our daily lives.

Ronda: But I feel the substantial question is are they

being used to produce more with less labor? I think

they are being used more as consumer goods. But it

doesn’t sound like there has been a change, a funda-

mental change in the way things are produced. For

example, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolu-

tion, people worked in their homes. Then people were

brought into the factories to work together. There was

an increasing division of labor, and then machines

were introduced and people operated the machines.

Then machines were used to operate other machines.

It doesn’t seem as if the computer has led to a

similar kind of change in industrial production. It

doesn’t seem that computers are widely used to

Page 23

produce things. It seems the computer has been used

for paperwork but not for producing goods.

William: It takes longer to get a computer to do

something than it does a machine. They are probably

working on that stuff too.

Michael: But actually there’s something called

CAD/CAM or Computer Aided Design and Manu-

facturing. But then there’s something called CIM

which I did study and it seemed like it was trying to

steal the computer and give it to management which

was a top down design and not a bottom up design.

When I read about it two years ago it seemed a flop.

It was trying to steal the computers from the people

rather than using the computers to help the manufac-

turing process. But I don’t know what your experi-

ence has been with CIM.

Ronda: But there was also a big push to lower

wages and have people work a lot of overtime. And

I thought that got in the way of using the computer to

make production more efficient.

William: You also had international competition

too. Third world countries have cheaper labor. So we

had to compete with them. So that’s one reason why

the lower wages.

Ronda: But you can never compete with the cheap-

est country, and in fact the story of production is that

the higher the wages, the more advanced the technol-

ogy, the less labor that goes into producing some-

thing, the cheaper it can be sold for. Somehow the

whole stress of trying to make U.S. workers compete

with workers in less industrialized countries is a

backwards trend. The price of things is very high

because hand labor is very expensive. So in this

country we had the ability to make production more

efficient, that’s the story of how cars have gotten

cheaper, how microwaves have gotten cheaper, how

air conditioners have gotten cheaper because there

were more advanced technologies, not because you

found someone abroad to work for cheaper wages.

With cheaper wages and backward production

methods, the price of goods stays high. There is a

need for more public discussion over how computers

can be used to change industrial production. There

was a fight with the corporate world over what

would happen with computers and people had to

challenge the corporate barrage demanding wage

cuts and longer hours which impede automation.

There are examples of countries where advanced

technology that was available was never used in

production because workers’ wages were so low or

their hours so long that it was not cost efficient to put

in the new machine. So that country remained techno-

logically backward. The story of the development of

technology is that the more advanced technology

somewhere replaces the lower wage backward tech-

nology somewhere else, not that goods made by low

wage workers replace goods made with less human

labor and operating more efficient machines. But

workers have to organize to prevent the wage cuts and

increased hours that impede the introduction of new

technology. Somehow the corporate attack on work-

ers and unions has led to people looking backward,

not keeping our eye on how to go forward.

Ronda: Any final words?

Michael: Even though I have decided to go to

Columbia University in NYC instead of the Univer-

sity of Michigan, I am optimistic. Columbia is less

computer-oriented than the University of Michigan,

but Columbia seems better connected to the educa-

tional and academic computer networks. But Michi-

gan for me would have been a better computer school.

Columbia has more of its computer roots in the past

while Michigan has more in the future. There are a

couple of centers opening up and there is, at Colum-

bia, the State Center for Computing Research. But it’s

not as obvious as Michigan how involved Columbia

is with computers. I am sort of pessimistic, because

with the age of the computer industry, it seems to

have receded. But it’s probably just a cycle.

Ronda: No, it’s a fight. You have to figure out how

to take it up. The personal computer caught people by

surprise when it spread so quickly and so substan-

tially. People now have to evaluate what has hap-

pened. I feel the lesson is you can’t trust the business

world of large corporations to develop computers and

computer technology. Big corporations can’t be

coddled by government, the press, etc. and encour-

aged to freeze the development of technology or to go

backwards to hand labor as they have done in many

instances. The machine is a machine for society. It

was a mistake to have trusted that the corporate world

would develop it. Instead the corporate world must be

regulated and limited in its efforts to impede the

development of technology. That’s what antitrust

legislation originally accomplished. The personal

computer was created while there was a U.S. govt.

anti trust suit on against IBM which kept it from

interfering with the development of the personal

computer. Once again there is a need for something

independent of the corporate world, and there is a

Page 24

need for regulations and limitations on the corporate

world so that their narrow self interest is prevented

from interfering with social and technological

development.

Michael: You need a new Henry Ford for the

Computer world.

Ronda: No, you need another Computers for the

People movement.

Michael: No, again.

William: My niece is going to go to Michigan State

and she’s not going to get a computer. She’s going to

get a word processor. You have a screen, keyboard,

and a printer all in one unit. That suits her.

Michael: But it’s not compatible with anything

other than another wordprocessor of the same type.

William: There are some that have a floppy disk.

Ronda: But it’s sad the computers aren’t cheap

with a cheaper printer too.

William: Well it’s a letter-quality printer, she’s not

going to be doing graphics.

Ronda: I thought John Kemeny once predicted that

there would be computers used in the schools for

wondrous things. But now he is disappointed that

that has not happened.

William: One of the problems is software. There

aren’t enough software developers to write programs

people need. To get them involved.

Michael: It’s not just software developers, it’s

ideas. People are not creating new ideas but merely

copying old ideas.

Ronda: But I thought that there was the discour-

agement, when people were told “People don’t need

to learn to program.” Michael learned to program

and it was a good thing he learned to program.

Instead of saying it’s a good thing to learn a little

programming it was said you don’t need program-

ming. So it seems that there has been a lot of pres-

sure to keep people away from utilizing computers

and discouraging them instead.

Michael: I left out that I know a little MS-DOS

batch language, a little C, and a little Forth. I did

very little in Assembler.

William: Are you going to take computer classes in

collage.

Michael: I don’t know if I’ll have time.

Ronda: To sum up, it seems it is as if this period is

like the period in France before the French Revolu-

tion. Then there was the basis to have capitalism, but

you had the feudal lords and the King holding

society back. You had a Monarchy. There was a need

for the French Revolution to get rid of the Monarchy

and the Aristocracy and the feudal social forms and

laws that they kept in place. They prevented the

reforms that were needed to develop large scale

production in France. The problem we have today

seems similar. Big companies are discouraging

investment in new technology like computers because

such investment will lower their rate of profit. There

is a need to get rid of this fetter so that technology can

be encouraged and developed. In France, in 1789, it

took a revolution to get rid of a similar fetter. What

will it take now?

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben

(1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

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Amateur Computerist Staff in 1998

Amateur Computerist Staff in 2003

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