Protean machine

Michael Mahoney's term, from his 2005 essay "The Histories of Computing(s)," for the early computer as an indeterminate schema — "a machine that could assume many forms" — rather than a device with an inherent nature or a single trajectory of its own. Underlies his rejection of machine-centred, inevitability-narrative history: because the early computer had no fixed shape, what it became in any given setting reflects the agenda of the community that shaped it, not the machine's own "evolution." Watching for recurrence before promotion to a full hub.

References

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