Removing the center from computing: biology's new mode of digital knowledge production.

This article shows how the USA's National Institutes of Health (NIH) helped to bring about a major shift in the way computers are used to produce knowledge and in the design of computers themselves as a consequence of its early 1960s efforts to introduce information technology to biologists. Starting in 1960 the NIH sought to reform the life sciences by encouraging researchers to make use of digital electronic computers, but despite generous federal support biologists generally did not embrace the new technology. Initially the blame fell on biologists' lack of appropriate (i.e. digital) data for computers to process. However, when the NIH consulted MIT computer architect Wesley Clark about this problem, he argued that the computer's quality as a device that was centralized posed an even greater challenge to potential biologist users than did the computer's need for digital data. Clark convinced the NIH that if the agency hoped to effectively computerize biology, it would need to satisfy biologists' experimental and institutional needs by providing them the means to use a computer without going to a computing center. With NIH support, Clark developed the 1963 Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC), a small, real-time interactive computer intended to be used inside the laboratory and controlled entirely by its biologist users. Once built, the LINC provided a viable alternative to the 1960s norm of large computers housed in computing centers. As such, the LINC not only became popular among biologists, but also served in later decades as an important precursor of today's computing norm in the sciences and far beyond, the personal computer.

Evolution of microcomputer-based medical instrumentation.

This paper provides a historical review of the evolution of the technologies that led to modern microcomputer-based medical instrumentation. I review the history of the microprocessor-based system because of the importance of the microprocessor in the design of modern medical instruments. I then give some examples of medical instruments in which the microprocessor has played a key role and in some cases has even empowered us to develop new instruments that were not possible before. I include a discussion of the role of the microprocessor-based personal computer in development of medical instruments.

A brief history of nursing informatics in the United States of America.

From the beginning of modern nursing, data from standardized patient records were seen as a potentially powerful resource for assessing and improving the quality of care. As nursing informatics began to evolve in the second half of the 20th century, the lack of standards for language and data limited the functionality and usefulness of early applications. In response, nurses developed standardized languages, but until the turn of the century, neither they nor anyone else understood the attributes required to achieve computability and semantic interoperability. Collaboration across disciplines and national boundaries has led to the development of standards that meet these requirements, opening the way for powerful information tools. Many challenges remain, however. Realizing the potential of nurses to transform and improve health care and outcomes through informatics will require fundamental changes in individuals, organizations, and systems. Nurses are developing and applying informatics methods and tools to discover knowledge and improve health from the molecular to the global level and are seeking the collective wisdom of interdisciplinary and interorganizational collaboration to effect the necessary changes. NOTE: Although this article focuses on nursing informatics in the United States, nurses around the world have made substantial contributions to the field. This article alludes to a few of those advances, but a comprehensive description is beyond the scope of the present work.

[Dutch computer domestication, 1975-1990]. / De domesticatie van de computer in Nederland 1975-1990.

A computer seems an indispensable tool among twenty-first century households. Computers however, did not come as manna from heaven. The domestication and appropriation of computers in Dutch households was a result of activities by various intermediary actors. Computers became household commodities only gradually. Technophile computer hobbyists imported the first computers into the Netherlands from the USA, and started small businesses from 1975 onwards. They developed a social network in which computer technology was made available for use by individuals. This network extended itself via shops, clubs, magazines, and other means of acquiring and exchanging computer hard- and software. Hobbyist culture established the software-copying habits of private computer users as well as their ambivalence to commercial software. They also made the computer into a game machine. Under the impulse of a national policy that aimed at transforming society into an 'Information Society', clubs and other actors extended their activities and tailored them to this new agenda. Hobby clubs presented themselves as consumer organizations and transformed into intermediary actors that filled the gap between suppliers and a growing group of users. They worked hard to give meaning to (proper) use of computers. A second impulse to the increasing use of computers in the household came from so-called 'private-PC' projects in the late 1980s. In these projects employers financially aided employees in purchasing their own private PCs'. The initially important intermediary actors such as hobby clubs lost control and the agenda for personal computers was shifted to interoperability with office equipment. IBM compatible PC's flooded the households. In the household the new equipment blended with the established uses, such as gaming. The copying habits together with the PC standard created a risky combination in which computer viruses could spread easily. New roles arose for intermediary actors in guiding and educating computer users. The activities of intermediaries had a lasting influence on contemporary computer use and user preferences. Technical choices and the nature of Dutch computer use in households can be explained by analyzing the historical developments of intermediaries and users.

LINC: biology's revolutionary little computer.

The 1963 LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) stands at the center of two stories: the computerization of the biologist's laboratory and the advent of small-scale computing. The brainchild of Wesley Clark, 'the most brilliant computer designer of his generation', LINC was developed specifically to address the failure of biologists to adopt computer technology. To meet their unique needs, Clark built a machine the radical design of which defied and subverted the then dominant conventions of computer architecture.

Original PC developer doesn't hold much stock in paperless practice.

Ed Roberts, MD, helped invent one of the first home computers and once worked closely with two fledgling computer junkies: Bill Gates and Paul Allen. But three decades later, the former electrical engineer says computers can help a small medical practice be more efficient, but they aren't advanced enough to handle every task.

Microcomputadores / Personal computers

O advento dos microcomputadores, talvez, tenha antecipado o futuro. O uso sempre crescente destas máquinas em todos os ramos da atividade humana é o assunto desse artigo. Uma breve história, a descriçäo da máquina, a introduçäo de alguns termos usuais, como säo programados os microcomputadores, suas linguagens e aplicaçöes no campo da anestesiologia, säo os tópicos desenvolvidos neste trabalho