Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Professor W. Patrick McCray
Episode: README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025)
Date: February 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the central thesis of Professor W. Patrick McCray’s book, README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines. Instead of focusing solely on the technology or the companies typically credited with the rise of computing, McCray investigates the pivotal role of books—spanning from technical manuals to bestsellers—in shaping the understanding, development, and societal reception of computing. Through the stories of key books and their authors, McCray reveals how the printed word both reflected and influenced computing culture and communities from the postwar era to the present.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of the Book and McCray’s Approach (01:30–04:39)

• Inspiration and Motivation:
  • The project began during the pandemic, as McCray sought to combine his love of history with the constraints of limited archive access.
  • Initially thought it would be logistically "easy," but research proved more complex.
• Defining Scope:
  • Chose to focus on nonfiction books, intentionally leaving out fiction and film to make the project manageable.
  • Sought a diversity of books: technical, popular, bestsellers, and obscure volumes.

“One of the challenges in doing a project is to decide how to draw the box... Just keeping it to nonfiction books was kind of my way of making this project manageable.”
— W. Patrick McCray [03:04]

2. Groundbreaking Books and Authors in Computing History

Edmund Berkeley & Giant Brains (04:39–07:46)

• Background:
  • Berkeley, an actuary, wrote Giant Brains to explain digital computers (then often called "electronic brains").
• Notable Contributions:
  • First popular book on computing devices.
  • Used "brain" as a metaphor for computers, which laid an early foundation for later discussions about AI.
  • Addressed both technical and social/moral implications of computing.

“He was one of the first authors to think about how digital computers would be deployed throughout society and also what some of the ethical and moral conundrums associated with that might be.”
— W. Patrick McCray [07:46]

Norbert Wiener & Cybernetics (08:09–10:47)

• Key Works:
  • Trilogy: Cybernetics, The Human Use of Human Beings, God and Golem, Inc.
• Societal Concerns:
  • Explored human-machine relationships, automation, and industrial/military applications.
  • Publicly refused military funding, positioning himself against certain applications of technology.
  • Helped make cybernetics and the sociotechnical aspects of computing prominent, despite complex content.

“He ends up writing a trilogy of books that deal with cybernetics, and at least two of them become surprise bestsellers… people were mystified as to why they were drawn to reading about this obscure combination of engineering and mathematics and computers.”
— W. Patrick McCray [10:47]

3. Emergence and Ethical Debates Around AI (11:14–13:02)

• Early AI Dialogue:
  • The "brain" metaphor fostered proto-AI discussions even before the term became widespread.
  • 1950s-60s: Debates on what computers might be able to do—subject to exaggeration and skepticism.
  • The culture oscillated between technological utopianism and critical caution—patterns still seen today.

“A lot of these ideas were breathlessly reported on by journalists... claims oftentimes made by computer scientists that many of their fellow computer scientist colleagues found difficult to swallow because they had yet to be proven.”
— W. Patrick McCray [13:02]

4. Military, Industry, and Ethics (13:22–15:35)

• Rise of Computer Science:
  • Postwar period: The field itself was emerging; deep ties to military funding and research.
• Ongoing Debates:
  • Ethical questions about the use and purpose of computation—particularly in warfare—echoed in contemporary issues (e.g., Silicon Valley-DoD relationships).

5. Stories from the Margins: Trenton, New Jersey and Personal Computing (15:35–18:41)

• Focus on Place:
  • Highlights stories outside the standard Silicon Valley narrative.
  • Spotlights teenagers and local computer clubs in Princeton, NJ, and their interactions with iconoclastic figures like Ted Nelson (Computer Lib/Dream Machines).
• Personal computing as an activity, not just a device.

“I thought it was just kind of interesting to recover little bits of this lost history... Their activities in New Jersey and [Ted] Nelson's writing this book about personal computing was a way of kind of closing that particular circuit.”
— W. Patrick McCray [18:41]

6. Books, Publishing, and Commodification (19:51–22:15)

• Books as Objects and Commodities:
  • Postwar publishing history intertwined with the rise of computing.
  • Books not only reflect ideas but are commercial products—authors and publishers with sometimes divergent interests.

“One of the things I joke about... most authors are pretty unhappy with their publishers. Most authors believe that their publisher could do better and have a more creative marketing plan...”
— W. Patrick McCray [21:56]

• Best-selling and Community-building Books:
  • Future Shock (Tofflers): Mass-market success, changing the authors’ fortunes and perspectives.
  • Dummies series: Monumentally commercial, taught computing basics to millions.

7. Books as Seeds for Communities (25:03–28:58)

• Books Foster Technological Communities:
  • Books help communities of practice coalesce: typesetting, programming, or learning new tools.
  • Prefers "community" over rigid academic terms—emphasizing flexibility and inclusivity.

“Books provide a seed, crystal around which communities can form... this idea of communities of people forming and coalescing around particular technologies.”
— W. Patrick McCray [25:03]

Conway & Mead’s Introduction to VLSI Systems (26:59–30:56)

• Textbook as Revolutionary:
  • Upended how electronic chips were designed by targeting students.
  • Textbooks can be agents of paradigm shifts—not merely consolidators of knowledge.
  • Cited influence on TSMC’s founder Morris Chang.

“She set out to write a textbook, which we don’t think of normally as revolutionary sorts of books ... But that’s exactly what she set out to do...”
— W. Patrick McCray [28:58]

8. Shifting Narratives in the 1980s and 1990s

1984 & Emergence of Technology Journalism (31:21–34:32)

• Evolving Focus:
  • By the 1980s, too much was happening to focus on single authors/books.
  • The era saw the birth of the tech journalist as a crucial cultural figure.
  • Books (and journalists) helped the public understand Silicon Valley’s rise, from economic opportunities to environmental impacts.

Disappearance of the Computer, Rise of the Internet (35:15–39:20)

• From Hardware to Cyberspace:
  • By the 1990s, attention shifted from machines to networks and online culture.
  • Example: The Whole Internet Catalog (1991) explained the Internet—crucial before people could “Google” answers.
• Reflexivity of Media:
  • The book (an old information tech) explained the new (the Internet), illuminating a larger theme of informational technology being explained/mediated by prior media.

“You have the world’s oldest form of information technology, the book itself, being used to explain and describe it.”
— W. Patrick McCray [38:26]

• Rise of cyber-libertarianism and the early Internet’s idealism.

9. Epilogue: AI, Authorship, and the Future (39:32–42:24)

• Writing About Generative AI:
  • The final chapter reflects on AI, LLMs, and their implications for authorship.
  • Notes the strange new necessity: assuring readers that the book was written by a human.

“The point that I wanted to make with that epilogue was the idea, which sounds kind of absurd, or would have sounded absurd when I started this project, but doesn’t sound absurd now, is to tell the reader that everything that is in my book I wrote myself. I didn’t rely on an AI product to do it for me.”
— W. Patrick McCray [41:02]

• How AI and algorithms now shape not only what is written but also how books are discovered and consumed.

10. McCray’s Future Projects (42:35–44:54)

• Research Directions:
  • Studying “habitability” in extreme environments and astrobiology.
  • Exploring intersections of outdoor recreation and natural history in the 19th and 20th centuries.
  • Plans to develop orphaned ideas and side stories left out of README.

Memorable Quotes

• On Drawing Boundaries:
  “One has to draw boundaries somehow to be able to go into things.”
  — Miranda Melcher [04:39]

• On Communities:
  “Books provide a seed, crystal around which communities can form...”
  — W. Patrick McCray [25:03]

• On the Reflexivity of Technology and Media:
  “You have the world’s oldest form of information technology, the book itself, being used to explain and describe it.”
  — W. Patrick McCray [38:26]

• On Human Authorship in the Age of AI:
  “Everything that is in my book I wrote myself. I didn’t rely on an AI product to do it for me. And just the fact that I had to include that note in my own book, I found rather remarkable.”
  — W. Patrick McCray [41:02]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:30] – McCray introduces himself and the genesis of the book
• [03:04] – Deciding which books to include (and not include)
• [05:09] – Edmund Berkeley and Giant Brains
• [08:09] – Norbert Wiener and the trilogy on cybernetics
• [11:14] – Early debates on AI and computer metaphors
• [13:22] – Rise of computer science, military-industry dynamics, ethics
• [15:58] – New Jersey as a site of personal computing history
• [19:51] – The intertwined histories of publishing and computing books
• [22:15] – Bestsellers, book communities, and commercial impacts
• [25:03] – Books as catalysts for tech communities
• [26:59] – Introduction to VLSI Systems and transformational textbooks
• [31:21] – The year 1984: technology journalism and Silicon Valley
• [35:15] – The 1990s: the Internet, the fading of hardware, and the rise of cyberspace
• [39:32] – Epilogue: Generative AI and the human author
• [42:35] – McCray’s future research plans

Episode Tone

• Engaging, scholarly, and conversational. McCray provides both critical reflection and narrative flair, while Melcher asks incisive, friendly, and sometimes playful questions.

For Further Exploration

• Book: README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025)
• Notable Works Cited: Giant Brains (Edmund Berkeley), Cybernetics and related works (Norbert Wiener), Future Shock (Alvin & Heidi Toffler), Computer Lib/Dream Machines (Ted Nelson), Introduction to VLSI Systems (Conway & Mead), Whole Internet Catalog.

This episode is a rich exploration of the surprisingly central place of books in the story of computer history: not only as vessels of technical knowledge, but as fulcrums for community, imagination, critique, and sometimes, controversy.