Computer Hardware and Literature

Novelists have always had a love/hate relationship with computer hardware.

Dysfunctional embrace

Author Daniel Akst wrote in the New York Times that writers and computers are, “locked in such an enduringly dysfunctional embrace…We both rely heavily on memory, for instance. We are both calculating, complex and crash-prone.”

Comparing the mind of an author to computer hardware doesn’t sound so far fetched. It is comprised of complex parts like those that can be found at SCH Trade and other specialists.

Computer hardware inspires authors

And the similarities don’t just end there. Computer hardware has, since it was first introduced to civilization, inspired authors. Science fiction writers in particular have often featured malfunctioning computer hardware in their stories. At first, perhaps the idea that computer hardware would colonize and take over human beings was born from a fear of what computers could do. Since computer hardware was used to construct robots, and especially since the arrival of Artificial Intelligence, a latent fear of being taken over by robotic creatures can be seen in science fiction.

Understanding computer hardware

It is unfortunate then that many artists and authors are notoriously bad at understanding the computer hardware they so depend upon. What is even more unfortunate for authors is that computers themselves have started writing – without the need of writers. Selmer Bringsjord, a computer scientist who knows a thing or two about computer hardware along with I.B.M. researcher David A Ferrucci, developed a computer programme known as Brutus.1 that can write bursts of fiction. Another programme that can run on computer hardware is the StoryBook, also designed by computer scientists. But the human authors aren’t too worried about computer hardware writing the Great American Novel. Perhaps because computer hardware can’t know what life experience or emotions are all about – yet!

Computers and Generation X

Computer hardware and software continues to inspire authors. In the early 1990s Generation X hit the literary world and catapulted author Douglas Coupland into cult status. His novel Microserfs looked at the world of Silicon Valley and the peculiar techno-talk of people who deal with computer hardware for a living. The Bill Gates inspired novel has now taken an iconic place in literature.

Hackers and cyberpunks

The 1990s saw a deluge of fiction inspired by computer hardware and software, including the anthology, Hackers. Cyberpunk writers such as William Ford Gibson told the story of hackers who specialized in computer hardware and software, profiling a new way of committing crime. Identity theft using computer hardware and software became another on-going theme, as well as hacking computer hardware to uncover secrets and covert or corrupt information.

Dysfunctional embrace

How computer hardware and software will impact on future authors isn’t known. One thing is for sure though; computers will continue to influence writers who will inevitably continue to be locked in their enduringly dysfunctional embrace.