The Prospect for Geography in the 1990s

Geography now exhibits a better balance among competing emphases than it has enjoyed at any period since the second world war. The last several decades have witnessed a healthy resurgence of physical geography. Human geography has been enriched bya broad array of methodological tools and innovative perspectives. Both human and physical geographers are reclaiming geography's birthrights of regional expertise and research. The challenge the discipline faces in the 1990s is the need to increase geography's effectiveness by augmenting the number of geographers obtaining advanced degrees, strengthening undergraduate curricula in colleges and universities, and adopting larger-scale modes for investigating major geographic problems. Substantively, geographers would be wise to give priority to regional approaches, to ecological problems, and to building a corps of practitioners who will address practical problems. A better balance between anaysis and synthesis would broaden the discipline's appeal and constitutencies

Microcomputer laboratory design.

A microcomputer laboratory was designed and implemented to support Airborne Digital Computation, AE 4641, a course involving a study of the methods used for digital computation in airborne weapons systems. Programming projects in both macnine language and assembly language were written, tested, and provided -for student exercise. All required operating and driving so-ftware was procured or written. Supporting notes, help -files, and tutorials were composed. Upon completion o-f the hardware and so-ftware implementation o-f the laboratory, the laboratory portion o-f the course was taught by the author, permitting rigorous testing and debugging of all equipment, operating systems, and programs.http://archive.org/details/microcomputerlab00ableCommander, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Mastering Inner Space : Telecommunications Technology and Geography in the 20th Century

The following paper presents an Inmted Plenary Address at the 29th International Geographical Congress, 16 August 2000. Ronald F. Abler, Prof essor Emeritus of Geography at Penn State University, has been Executive Director of the Association of American Geographers since 1989. He was elected as Executive Secretary of the IGU (Seoul IG Congress, 2000). Pr. Abler is one of the founding fathers of telecommunications geography. He worked as a telephone equipment installer and as a postal clerk before beginning graduate work at the University of Minnesota, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on The Geography of Intercommunications Systems : Postal and Telephone Systems in the United States, in 1968. He has subsequently taught and written extensively on how different societies have used intercommunications media at different times and places. He has written in 1991 : “Research on geographical aspects of telecommunications... is scare. Despite the fundamentally geographical natures of telecommunications and the industries that provide such services... the topic remains underdeveloped in geography. Nor have large numbers of other social scientists expressed great interest in the topic. Given their importance in both advanced and developing economies, there exists a serious lack of detailed research on telecommunications in general and on geographical aspects of telecommunications industries in particular. The absence of research is matched by a corresponding lack of instruction that might interest more students in telecommunications topics” (Netcom).Abler Ronald F. Mastering Inner Space : Telecommunications Technology and Geography in the 20th Century. In: NETCOM : Réseaux, communication et territoires / Networks and Communication Studies, vol. 15 n°1-2, september 2001. Geocyberspace: building territories on the geographical space of the 21th century (I) pp. 17-28

Geography among the sciences

Speech at the inauguration ceremony of the new building of the Department of Geography of the University of Helsinki