Doctoral Dissertation Research: Honghong Tinn: 'Tinkering with Computers, Constructing a Developing Country: The History of Computing inTaiwan, 1945-1985'

This project on the history of computing in Taiwan is funded by NSF's Science, Technology, and Society Program. It focuses on the intertwined history of computing and more generally of development in postwar Taiwan. Tinkering with computers, instead of inventing computers, was part of the development project in Taiwan during the Cold War period. 'Tinkering' in this project refers to the practices of emulating, adapting, modifying, assembling in an innovative manner, and otherwise working creatively with technologies. This project will expand the boundaries of the history of computing during the Cold War outside the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union.

Tinkering with computers was the foremost issue for scientists, engineers, technicians, and users who participated in the development projects in Taiwan during this period. The project focuses on three historical cases. The first one is a technical-aid program involving mainframe computers that the United Nations established at National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU) in Taiwan in the early 1960s. The second case involves a project in which an NCTU graduate program, although able to buy a minicomputer from various suppliers, built a minicomputer from scratch between 1968 and 1971. The third case investigates two intriguing phenomena that surfaced between 1976 and 1985: why many of Taiwan's personal computer users preferred to build their own microcomputers and how this preference initiated a series of debates about whether legal institutions allowed Taiwanese companies to make Apple compatibles.

The project intends to make three theoretical contributions to the literature in Science and Technology Studies. First, it aims to address the lack of scholarship in the history of electronic computing in East Asia and its connection to the politics of science and technology during the Cold War. Second, the proposed broadening of the concept of tinkering expands the field of user studies in science and technology studies. This project contributes to the movement away from studying a traditional site of invention and innovation by studying a broader category of users?tinkerers. Third, this project will contribute to the studies of the meanings of science and technology in the development projects of postcolonial countries. The focus is not on the success of technology transfer but on local interpretations of and local actions regarding introducing electronic computing to Taiwan.