{"id":3182,"date":"2013-04-22T09:56:58","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T15:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=3182"},"modified":"2013-04-22T10:07:39","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T16:07:39","slug":"fold-spindle-mutilate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=3182","title":{"rendered":"Fold, spindle, mutilate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The mainframe is the eternal computing platform,” writes<\/a> Rudolf Winestock in a pithy essay about the circular path of computing’s history, from time-sharing on central mainframes to time-sharing on central clouds. The “PC is dead” storyline has been around for a while now, but what’s really dying is the practice of “personal computing,” at least if we take that phrase to imply personal ownership of the means of computing\u2014processors, software, data.<\/p>\n

The desktop computer won’t completely disappear. Instead, the outward form of the personal computer will be retained, but the function \u2014 and the design \u2014 will change to a terminal connected to the cloud (which is another word for server farm, which is another word for mainrack, which converges on mainframes, as previously prophesied). True standalone personal computers may return to their roots: toys for hobbyists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The original mainframe era provoked, in the mid-60s, a revolt by the young against the central, corporate control of personal information. The reduction of the self to a string of numbers stored in a database\u2014a database that was a component of the military-industrial complex, no less\u2014seemed to pose a threat not just to privacy but to individual autonomy, to freedom. It was viewed as a form of imprisonment. “I am not a number” became a rallying cry that rang through popular culture.<\/p>\n