Abstract

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) has aggressively and persistently supported technologies key to the personal computer (PC) revolution. Uncovering this political-economic link provides an important corrective to the popular lore surrounding the origins of the PC. In their emphases on private sector initiative and entrepreneurial risk-taking, conventional PC histories conform to orthodox market-based explanations of technological and economic progress. In contradistinction, this article "brings the state back in" to the PC realm of apparent market purity.

Recommended Citation

Fong, Glenn R. (2001) "ARPA Does Windows: The Defense Underpinning of the PC Revolution," Business and Politics: Vol. 3 : Iss. 3, Article 1.
DOI: 10.2202/1469-3569.1025
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/bap/vol3/iss3/art1