Fall 2025 Colloquium - Honghong Tinn

History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota

Title: Island Tinkerers and Incompatible Computer Dreams: Contested Computer Exports from Taiwan to the United States in the 1980s

Abstract: Tinn's first book, Island Tinkerers: Innovation and Transformation in the Making of Taiwan and Computing Industry, tells a critical history of how Taiwan rose to global prominence in high tech manufacturing. From computer maker to the world’s leading chip manufacturer, Taiwan boasts the likes of Acer, Foxconn, Asus, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Island Tinkerers argues that local technologists—a group of technology-savvy professionals, technocrats, technology users, and engineers-turned-entrepreneurs—led the transformation of Taiwan from a former Japanese colony and defeated Chinese Nationalist’s last fortress to a country that calls itself the Silicon Island. Over six decades, Taiwanese technologists tinkered; they engaged in a process of technology transfer in which acts of imitation, emulation, experimentation, and innovation overlapped with one another. Their improvised attempts and astute innovations were critical to their commitment to ensure the technological system of computers was rooted in new soil. Read more.