Re: You missed off...
Yes, Wiener coined "cybernetic" to refer to any self-regulating mechanism.1
Then Clynes and Kline co-opted it for their daft "cyborg" portmanteau, which doesn't even make sense, since all organisms are already self-regulating to some extent. Why they thought "cybernetic" meant "biomechanical" I do not know.
In their article they begin by referring to the "cybernetic aspects" of biological homeostasis, which is fine; but then they coin cyborg to mean "the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system functioning unconsciously". Now, I admit the latter phrase is a bit of a mouthful (though I am tempted to drop it into conversation whenever possible2), but surely the "homeostatic" part is not the innovative aspect vis-a-vis the extant a priori organism, as C&K might put it. (Their piece is well worth reading just for the prose, which leaps beyond "turgid" to some new realm of awesomely over-written.)
Anyhoo, Clynes and Kline started the rot in "cybernetic" in 1960 with their "cyborg", which then became popularized by Halacy, Kaidin, and others. Donna Haraway3 introduced it to critical-theory circles in 1985, which then trickled down to middlebrow venues. Meanwhile there was some use of "cyber" and other forms in IT; the CDC Cyber range launched in the early '70s, for example. And "CYBER" was a standard Library of Congress index term in 1990, and probably earlier.
But the term didn't really pick up steam until the early 1990s, judging by Google Books Ngram data, as people began to tire of prefixing everything with "e-" to indicate it had something to do with IT. Then it snowballed.
It was always etymologically unfounded for this use, though. And it carries rather a non-technical whiff; someone who sprinkles their conversation with cyber-this and cyber-that rather comes across as the sort of person whose expertise is derived mostly from reading the popular press.
It's long past time to retire "cyber-".
1From Greek "kybernetes" or "steersman", which now of course has been adopted by the Cloud People.
2It's never possible.
3Much of whose work I like. Not this piece, though.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
