title: Mediating the microcomputer: The educational character of the 1980s British popular computing boom.
abstract: In the early 1980s the computer entered the British home in significant numbers for the first time as many thousands of people purchased their first personal 'microcomputer'. In this paper I explore the educational character of the home computer boom, a response to unease over the impact of new information technologies. Media, government, social movements and computer manufacturers constituted a systematic effort to enhance the public understanding of a new technology that was anticipated to change the world.
authors.affiliation: The British Library, London, UK.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lean
keywords: acquisition of new technologies; history of science; innovation; public understanding of science; representations of science; science communication; studies of science and technology