When viewed through a political lens the act of defining terms in natural language arguably
transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate military academic
and professional values shaped efforts to define computer terminology and establish an
information engineering profession as a precursor to what would become computer science.As the
Cold War heated up U.S. federal agencies increasingly funded university researchers and labs
to develop technologies like the computer that would ensure that the U.S. maintained economic
prosperity and military dominance over the Soviet Union. At the same time private corporations
saw opportunities for partnering with university labs and military agencies to generate profits
as they strengthened their business positions in civilian sectors. They needed a common
vocabulary and principles of streamlined communication to underpin the technology development
that would ensure national prosperity and military dominance. investigates how language
standardization contributed to the professionalization of computer science as separate from
mathematics electrical engineering and physics examines traditions of language
standardization in earlier eras of rapid technology development around electricity and radio
highlights the importance of the analogy of the computer is like a human to early explanations
of computer design and logic traces design and development of electronic computers within
political and economic contexts foregrounds the importance of human relationships in decisions
about computer design This in-depth humanistic study argues for the importance of natural
language in shaping what people come to think of as possible and impossible relationships
between computers and humans. The work is a key reference in the history of technology and
serves as a source textbook on the human-level history of computing. In addition it addresses
those with interests in sociolinguistic questions around technology studies as well as
technology development at the nexus of politics business and human relations.
