Historians and Microcomputing, 1989

Historians, like other scholars of the 1980s, have incorporated word processing into their work lives. But only a tiny minority uses other applications, such as database management, spreadsheets, or classroom simulations. This article first focuses on the exceptional cases—those few historians who have embraced and applied computer technology to teaching and research. It describes ways of integrating software into the history classroom. Second, it sketches online research and teaching possibilities open to historians who communicate via modem. Finally, it closes with some projections on the future potential and problems that face computing historians. Keywords: history, historian, social science, humanities, teaching, archaeology, research, archive, simulations.