Around 1950, computers learned how to sort numbers and words. Immediately, many questions arose. What could be done with such a machine? How should its space be set up and governed?
Moving the world into the computer meant rethinking many things. Bank transactions, spa guests, and terrorists, to name but a few, had to be “formatted” so that they could be dealt with in the machine. In doing so, managers, programmers, and users created a digital world that offered new ways of classifying things and organizing complex relations. Some people even linked machines, combined data, and shared programs. And computers designed ...