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| List of figures | |
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| Acknowledgements | |
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| A storm from paradise -- technological innovation, diffusion and suppression | |
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| The Information Revolution as hyperbole | |
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| Modelling change | |
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| 'Invention' | |
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| Propagating sound at considerable distances | |
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| The telegraph | |
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| Scientific competence to ideation: static electrical telegraphs | |
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| Prototypes, necessity and 'invention': dynamic electrical telegraphs | |
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| Suppression and diffusion: owning the telegraph | |
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| Before the speaking telephone | |
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| Scientific competence: the telephone | |
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| Ideation: speech transmitted by electricity | |
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| Prototypes: electrical speaking telephones before 1877 | |
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| The capture of sound | |
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| Supervening necessity: the telephone and the office | |
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| 'Invention': creating the telephone to order | |
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| Suppression and diffusion: the telephone after 1900 | |
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| 'Inventing' a spin-off: the record | |
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| The vital spark and fugitive pictures | |
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| Wireless and radio | |
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| Scientific competence to ideation: from spark to wireless | |
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| Necessity, diffusion and suppression: ironclads and telegrams | |
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| 'Invention': from wireless telegraphy to radio | |
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| Ideation and necessity: the idea of broadcasting | |
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| Suppression and diffusion: valves/tubes, FM and cartels | |
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| Living with radio | |
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| Mechanically scanned television | |
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| Scientific competence: light and electricity | |
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| Ideation: faxes and 'fugitive pictures' | |
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| Prototypes: mechanical scanning | |
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| Electronically scanned television | |
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| Invention I: electronic scanning | |
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| Invention II: alternative electronic scanning | |
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| Necessity and suppression: entertainment | |
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| Suppressing television: 1935-48 | |
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| Suppressing television: 1948 to the mid-1950s | |
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| Television spin-offs and redundancies | |
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| Spin-offs and redundancies: VCRs, CDs et al. | |
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| Redundancy: 1125-line analogue television | |
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| Inventions for casting up sums very pretty | |
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| Mechanising calculation | |
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| Scientific competence I: 'thinking machines' | |
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| Scientific competence II: Babbage | |
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| Scientific competence III: calculators -- mechanical to electrical | |
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| Prototypes: electro-mechanical calculators | |
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| The first computers | |
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| Electronic prototypes I: ENIAC and 'the firing table crisis' | |
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| Electronic prototypes II: Colossus vs. Enigma | |
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| Ideation: 'the store' | |
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| Supervening social necessity: the H-Bomb | |
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| 'Invention': incunabula | |
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| Suppressing the main frames | |
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| No buyers | |
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| No languages | |
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| No babies | |
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| The integrated circuit | |
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| Suppression (cont.): ignoring solid state electronics | |
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| Scientific competence: cat's whiskers to transistor | |
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| Transistors vs. valves | |
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| Ideation and prototype: the integrated circuit | |
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| 'Invention': the microprocessor | |
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| The coming of the microcomputer | |
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| Suppression revisited: the computer industry | |
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| Diffusion and spin-offs: PC production | |
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| The intricate web of trails, this grand system | |
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| The beginnings of networks | |
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| The first wired network | |
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| The telephone network | |
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| Networks and recording technologies | |
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| Broadcasting networks | |
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| Digression: broadcasting networks and recording technologies | |
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| Pre-satellite international radio links | |
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| International wired links | |
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| Communications satellites | |
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| Scientific competence and ideation: the communications satellites | |
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| Prototypes: low and medium orbits | |
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| Social necessity and invention: the geostationary satellite | |
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| Suppression: the international network | |
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| The satellite era | |
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| Domestic satellites | |
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| Direct broadcast satellites | |
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| Cable television | |
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| The return of the wire: cable television | |
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| The impact of domestic satellites | |
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| The impact on broadcast television | |
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| The Internet | |
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| Prototypes and ideation: computer networks | |
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| From necessity to diffusion: ARPANET to Internet | |
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| The pile of debris -- from the Boulevard des Capucins to the Leningradsky Prospect | |
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| Notes | |
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| References | |
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| Index | |