Computer Hobby Movement in Canada

加拿大的计算机业余爱好者运动

In the mid-1970s, there were just a few computers in Canadian homes. A decade later, a worldwide personal computing frenzy was on and all kinds of computers for home and personal use were manufactured by the millions. The computer hobby movement—activities of hobbyists interested in computing—was one of the main contributing factors to that sudden change which Computer Hobby Movement in Canada exhibit intends to affirm and chronicle.

20世纪70年代中期，加拿大家庭中的计算机寥寥无几。十年后，全球范围内掀起了一股个人计算热潮，各种用于家庭和个人用途的计算机被数以百万计地制造出来。计算机业余爱好者运动——即对计算感兴趣的爱好者所开展的活动——是促成这一突变的主要因素之一，而“加拿大的计算机业余爱好者运动”展览旨在肯定并记录这一历史。

This exhibit is dedicated to a decade-long computer hobby movement in Canada and its role in bringing computing into the homes of Canadians. It chronicles the movement’s development and contributions by focusing on the Toronto Region Association of Computer Enthusiasts (TRACE) — arguably the earliest Canadian computer hobby organizations. Its history (1976-1985), as recorded in the club’s newsletter, documents, and oral histories, offers unique insights into a vibrant Canadian hobbyists’ movement interfaced with the electronics industry and society.

本次展览致力于展示加拿大长达十年的计算机业余爱好者运动，及其在将计算技术引入加拿大家庭中所发挥的作用。展览通过聚焦多伦多地区计算机爱好者协会（TRACE）——这可以说是加拿大最早的计算机业余爱好者组织——来记录该运动的发展与贡献。其历史（1976-1985年）通过俱乐部的通讯、文件和口述历史记录，为我们提供了独特的视角，展现了一个与电子工业和社会紧密相连、充满活力的加拿大业余爱好者运动。

It reflects and demarcates the main phases in personal computing’s development. It points to the similarities between the Canadian and the American hobby movements as well as to their distinct features. TRACE history also reveals the challenges faced by the global North American computer hobby movement in its struggle to continuously redefine itself and stay socially relevant, a battle which it ultimately lost in the late 1980s but not without leaving a rich cultural legacy, not without making personal computing relevant and inclusive.

它反映并划分了个人计算发展的主要阶段，指出了加拿大与美国业余爱好者运动之间的相似之处及其各自的独特特征。TRACE的历史还揭示了北美全球计算机业余爱好者运动在不断重新定义自我并保持社会相关性方面所面临的挑战。尽管这场斗争最终在20世纪80年代末失败了，但它留下了一份丰富的文化遗产，并使个人计算变得具有相关性和包容性。

The origins

起源

The computer hobby movement grew out of a more than half-a-century-long tradition of radio and electrics hobbyism backed by a large variety of magazines such as the American Modern Electrics (renamed The Electrical Experimenter) and Popular Electricity in Plain English both launched in 1908, Radio-Craft, first published in 1929 (renamed Radio-Electronics), and Popular Electronics—perhaps one of the most influential hobby electronics magazines of the last century—which was launched in 1954.

计算机业余爱好者运动源于半个多世纪以来的无线电和电子业余爱好传统，并得到了多种杂志的支持，例如1908年创刊的美国《现代电子》（后更名为《电气实验家》）和《通俗电力》，1929年首次出版的《无线电工艺》（后更名为《无线电电子学》），以及1954年创刊的《大众电子》——这或许是上个世纪最具影响力的电子业余杂志之一。

The radio and electrics hobbyism tradition in other countries also goes back a long way. In the U.K., Popular Wireless was offered in 1922, The Boys’ Wireless News was launched in Australia in the same year, and Радиолюбитель [Radio Amateur] and Радио всем [Radio for Everybody] started to appear in the Soviet Union in 1924 and 1925, respectively.

其他国家的无线电和电子业余爱好传统也由来已久。在英国，《大众无线电》于1922年面世；同年，澳大利亚创办了《男孩无线电新闻》；而在苏联，《无线电爱好者》和《全民无线电》分别于1924年和1925年开始出现。

Since the end of the 1940s, computer enthusiasts and dedicated educators had been involved in a range of computing-related activities from the design of computer toys and educational aids to publishing and setting up computer social groups and organizations. In 1966, the first such organization—the Amateur Computer Society (ACS)—was launched in the U.S. The ACS Newsletter was a forum for the exchange of information on computing among the growing number of computer enthusiasts.

自20世纪40年代末以来，计算机爱好者和敬业的教育工作者参与了一系列与计算相关的活动，从设计计算机玩具和教学辅助工具，到出版刊物以及建立计算机社交团体和组织。1966年，美国成立了第一个此类组织——业余计算机协会（ACS）。《ACS通讯》成为了日益增长的计算机爱好者之间交流计算信息的重要论坛。

Although the computers of the 1960s were too big, too complex, and too expensive to be replicated by a hobbyist, ACS reported that some of its members constructed and experimented with their own rudimentary computers as early as 1966. The introduction of the microprocessor (“a computer on a chip” as the device was informally referred to) onto the market in the early 1970s triggered the outbreak of homebrew computer activities that spawned the North American computer hobby movement.

尽管20世纪60年代的计算机体积太大、太复杂且太昂贵，业余爱好者无法复制，但ACS报告称，其部分成员早在1966年就开始构建并试验他们自己的简易计算机。20世纪70年代初，微处理器（该设备被非正式地称为“芯片上的计算机”）进入市场，引发了自制计算机活动的爆发，从而催生了北美计算机业余爱好者运动。

From 1974, electronics enthusiasts were buying, building, and experimenting with rudimentary low-cost microprocessor-powered computers (or microcomputers) frequently offered to them in a kit, do-it-yourself form. All of a sudden, the movement found itself in the front line of personal computer revolution.

从1974年开始，电子爱好者们开始购买、构建并试验简易的低成本微处理器驱动的计算机（或称微型计算机），这些计算机通常以套件或DIY的形式提供。突然之间，这场运动发现自己处于个人计算机革命的最前沿。

The computer hobby movement in the U.S. had a strong influence on the early developments of personal computing worldwide. However, the computer hobby activities of the 1970s and early 1980s were neither restricted to the U.S. nor were they homogeneous. Hobbyists in Asia, Australia, and Europe were frequently building and experimenting with locally designed and manufactured computers. Their hobby activities were influenced by local conditions and had a considerable impact on domestic home and personal computer markets which were developing in unique ways and at a unique pace, providing further evidence that technological developments are not always globally uniform and that technology is culturally dependent.

美国的计算机业余爱好者运动对全球个人计算的早期发展产生了深远影响。然而，20世纪70年代和80年代初的计算机业余活动既不局限于美国，也不尽相同。亚洲、澳大利亚和欧洲的爱好者们经常构建并试验当地设计和制造的计算机。他们的业余活动受到当地条件的影响，并对以独特方式和节奏发展的国内家庭和个人计算机市场产生了相当大的影响，这进一步证明了技术发展并不总是全球统一的，且技术具有文化依赖性。

TRACE is born

TRACE的诞生

In late 1975, several employees of R&D division of Control Data Canada (CDC) located in Mississauga, Ontario, began their informal after-work meetings to talk about advancements in microelectronics and the possibility of designing rudimentary microcomputers for personal use. The person who played the central role in bringing hobby computer enthusiasts together at CDC and who felt most strongly about forming a hobbyists’ club was Harold Melanson, an American software engineer “on loan” to CDC which was a Canadian subsidiary of Control Data Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota. “I was familiar with microprocessors both from the professional journals and the hobby magazines,” Melanson later recollected.

1975年底，位于安大略省密西沙加市的加拿大控制数据公司（CDC）研发部门的几名员工开始在下班后进行非正式会面，讨论微电子技术的进步以及设计用于个人用途的简易微型计算机的可能性。在CDC将计算机业余爱好者聚集在一起并强烈主张成立业余爱好者俱乐部的人是Harold Melanson，他是一位“借调”到CDC的美国软件工程师，CDC是位于明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯的控制数据公司的加拿大子公司。Melanson后来回忆道：“我通过专业期刊和业余杂志对微处理器都很熟悉。”