Throughout history, clear connections can be traced between science fiction and ideas of computer technology and the digital world. The tail end of the 1930’s saw Russian-born writer Isaac Asimov, often considered as the ultimate utopian science fiction writer. Asimov’s writings introduced the world to the idea of a artificially intelligent efficient machine capable of serving humans in almost any way possible. These complex algorithms also known as Robots where products of Asimov’s imagination.
This paved the way for the 2nd generation of science fiction writings which included authors like Philip K Dick and Arthur C Clark. These writers presented another angle of technology, a darker and dystopian view.
In the 1980’s however, a new cult of science fiction writing emerged, with writers such as William Gibson and his great noel, Necromancer. This novel soon gained the cult status by being one of the first novel in a new science fiction genre called Cyberpunk. The term cyberpunk was associated with ideas of personal empowerment through technology and spread rapidly through the young generation of computer junkies. Cyberpunk can be considered a post-modern view of looking at technology; a belief that the future has imploded into the present and that data and human minds were now battlefields.
The cult of the Cyberpunks perhaps lead to one of the most revolutionary ideas and concepts of the binary world. It lead to a new school of hackers who today are largely responsible for developing the computer system into what it is today. Hacker culture during the 80’s was very different from what it has turned into now. Infact, godfathers of hacking like Steve Wozniak (Apple) and Keven Mitnick are perhaps some of the underlined names in computer evolution textbooks. The concepts of hacking and technology are furthered explored in Gorden’s article.
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