Pioneers of the digital. The hackers and bulletin board systems scene of the 1980s

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Axel Schildt (†)
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2015 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 274898043

Within the 1970s years, the development of the microprocessor created new possibilities in use for computers, on which the home computer first showed consequences of the "computerization" up to the private area.Influenced by the Californian Counterculture, its development was connected with new promising opportunities and freedom in the development for the individual.In connection with the Alternative Milieu of West Germany, this lead in the beginning of the 1980s to the emergence of a youth scene of hackers and mailbox operators. The scene experimented with the home computer, and by the connection of the computer to the telephone network, they explored new communication possibilities.This way they set their own concepts against the government-planed "way into the information society" and got into conflicts with the telecommunication monopoly. By "foresighted dealing with laws" (Wau Holland) they ignored this monopoly until it was finally ended by the privatization of the telecommunication sector.This project asks for the context, the outline, the changes, the effects and the media perception of this scene between 1978 and 1996, in consideration of the decline of the Alternative Milieu.It does research on the influence of the hacker and mailbox scene in the dynamic development of computer and communication technology, its role within a transnational culture transfer as well as of the emerge of a new, technology driven belief in progress through the 1980s.It makes a contribution to the better understanding of the recent past, particular to the cultural prehistory of the Internet and for the development of the "information society" from the 1970s until the 1990s.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Frank Bösch