FLOSS Manuals: Pure Data (2006–)

Pure Data (or Pd) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. Pure Data is commonly used for live music performance, VeeJaying, sound effects, composition, audio analysis, interfacing with sensors, using cameras, controlling robots or even interacting with websites. Because all of these various media are handled as digital data within the program, many fascinating opportunities for cross-synthesis between them exist. Sound can be used to manipulate video, which could then be streamed over the internet to another computer which might analyze that video and use it to control a motor-driven installation.

GNU General Public License version 2

PDF (PDF)
PDF (EPUB)
View online (HTML)

Laszlo Solymar: Getting the Message: A History of Communications (1999)

The past century has seen developments in communications technology that rival those in any other field of human activity. Significant advances are made every year, and the impact on our day-to-day lives has been tremendous. Getting the message explores the fascinating history of communications, starting with ancient civilizations, the Greeks and Romans, then leading through the development of the electric telegraph, and up to the present day with e-mail and cellular phones. In clear, non-technical language the book explains the details of each new development while interweaving ideas from politics, economics, and cultural history. The book concludes with a look at the possible future developments and how they may further transform how we live. Lavishly illustrated and including many original illustrations, the book is an informative and highly entertaining guide to this lively field.

Published by Oxford University Press, 1999
ISBN 0198503334, 9780198503330
311 pages

Key terms: optical fibres, waveguide, carrier wave, AT&T, field effect transistor, integrated circuits, Morse Code, capacitor, Minitel, Second Industrial Revolution, personal computers, electromagnetic waves, p-n junction, Bell Laboratories, Robert Noyce, Poldhu, Claude Chappe, pulse code modulation, teleprinter, semaphore

publisher
google books

PDF

Howard Rheingold: Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Extending Technology (1985)

“The digital revolution did not begin with the teenage millionaires of Silicon Valley, claims Howard Rheingold, but with such early intellectual giants as Charles Babbage, George Boole, and John von Neumann. Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay.”

Publisher Simon & Schuster, 1985
ISBN 9780262681155

HTML