Douglas Engelbart in his office at SRI, Menlo Park, 11th February 2009
I've just returned from a week in Silicon Valley, where I met many fascinating people - some old friends, some new acquaintances - and taken quite a few photos. This was just the first research trip, and there will be more. This time around, in date order, I met with Fred Turner, Rob Swigart, Andrea Saveri, Eugene Miya, Lee Felsenstein, other members of the Hackers Conference (see Flickr), Douglas Engelbart, Erik Davis, Stewart Brand, and Jim Fadiman. Amongst other places, I visited The Computer History Museum, Stanford Research Institute, Stanford University, and the nearby resort of Half Moon Bay in a quest to discover where geeks go at the weekends.
So many conversations. So many networks. I've learned a lot about the imperatives behind the early days of computer history and this week I'll be writing up my notes and triangulating the different perspectives in relation to my thesis that the California landscape was crucial in the formation of the concept of cyberspace.
If anyone thinks of people in California that I should be speaking to who are not on this list (and of course this is only the beginning) please do drop me a note.
