Download or read book Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer written by Maurice Vincent Wilkes and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1985 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maurice Wilkes was one of the leading scientific explorers in the development of the modern digital computer. He directed the Mathematical Laboratory (later named the Computer Laboratory) at Cambridge University, where he and his team built the EDSAC, the first stored program digital computer to go into service. Wilkes describes in nontechnical detail the growth of EDSAC and its successor, EDSAC 2, his introduction of microprogramming, and the first experiments with time-sharing systems. In the 1950s, when machines were still getting larger rather than smaller, Wilkes was one of the few who foresaw a time when nonspecialists would be using computers almost universally, and he reviews his anticipatory efforts to develop simple programming systems. But his book is more than a history of computing, it also recounts the allied scientific effort when he was one of those scientists and engineers ("boffins" as they were called by the RAF) who were in the thick of it, his electronics skills enlisted in the new and exciting development of radar. In this absorbing autobiography, Wilkes is as concerned with people and places as he is with computer components and programs of development. He deftly sketches his childhood in the English midlands and his student days at Cambridge where he studied mathematical physics, and his boyhood fascination with radio matured. He conveys the excitement of sudden insights and long-sought breakthroughs against life's simpler pleasures and trials. His account brims with assessments and anecdotes of such contemporaries as Turing, Hartree, von Neumann, Aiken, and a dozen others. And with his impressions of America and Germany formed during his scientific journeys.
Download or read book A History of Modern Computing second edition written by Paul E. Ceruzzi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-04-08 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first digital computer to the dot-com crash—a story of individuals, institutions, and the forces that led to a series of dramatic transformations. This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five key moments of transition: the transformation of the computer in the late 1940s from a specialized scientific instrument to a commercial product; the emergence of small systems in the late 1960s; the beginning of personal computing in the 1970s; the spread of networking after 1985; and, in a chapter written for this edition, the period 1995-2001. The new material focuses on the Microsoft antitrust suit, the rise and fall of the dot-coms, and the advent of open source software, particularly Linux. Within the chronological narrative, the book traces several overlapping threads: the evolution of the computer's internal design; the effect of economic trends and the Cold War; the long-term role of IBM as a player and as a target for upstart entrepreneurs; the growth of software from a hidden element to a major character in the story of computing; and the recurring issue of the place of information and computing in a democratic society. The focus is on the United States (though Europe and Japan enter the story at crucial points), on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities.
Download or read book Memoirs of a Computing Pioneer written by Maurice V. Wilkes and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Howard Aiken written by I. Bernard Cohen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography of Howard Aiken, a major figure of the early digital era, by a major historian of science who was also a colleague of Aiken's at Harvard. Howard Hathaway Aiken (1900-1973) was a major figure of the early digital era. He is best known for his first machine, the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or Harvard Mark I, conceived in 1937 and put into operation in 1944. But he also made significant contributions to the development of applications for the new machines and to the creation of a university curriculum for computer science. This biography of Aiken, by a major historian of science who was also a colleague of Aiken's at Harvard, offers a clear and often entertaining introduction to Aiken and his times. Aiken's Mark I was the most intensely used of the early large-scale, general-purpose automatic digital computers, and it had a significant impact on the machines that followed. Aiken also proselytized for the computer among scientists, scholars, and businesspeople and explored novel applications in data processing, automatic billing, and production control. But his most lasting contribution may have been the students who received degrees under him and then took prominent positions in academia and industry. I. Bernard Cohen argues convincingly for Aiken's significance as a shaper of the computer world in which we now live.
Download or read book International Biographical Dictionary of Computer Pioneers written by John A. N. Lee and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1995 with total page 1250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Learn Earn Return written by Harlan E. Anderson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of Harlan E. Anderson, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), includes an appendix "The Rise and Fall of a Computer Empire" chronicling DEC's amazing growth and decline during the period after Anderson resigned and many photos which have never been seen before. Anderson writes on learning about computers and writing programs when the first stored program computers were still under construction. He writes about his earning days which were closely tied to the co-founding of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957. For the first time, Anderson discusses his close relationship with co-founder Ken Olsen and how it came apart during the first decade of DEC's existence. Anderson also writes about his returning days which are still going on through his contributions to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and many other organizations.--harlaneanderson.com/
Download or read book Life in Code written by Ellen Ullman and published by MCD. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The never-more-necessary return of one of our most vital and eloquent voices on technology and culture, the author of the seminal Close to the Machine The last twenty years have brought us the rise of the internet, the development of artificial intelligence, the ubiquity of once unimaginably powerful computers, and the thorough transformation of our economy and society. Through it all, Ellen Ullman lived and worked inside that rising culture of technology, and in Life in Code she tells the continuing story of the changes it wrought with a unique, expert perspective. When Ellen Ullman moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s and went on to become a computer programmer, she was joining a small, idealistic, and almost exclusively male cadre that aspired to genuinely change the world. In 1997 Ullman wrote Close to the Machine, the now classic and still definitive account of life as a coder at the birth of what would be a sweeping technological, cultural, and financial revolution. Twenty years later, the story Ullman recounts is neither one of unbridled triumph nor a nostalgic denial of progress. It is necessarily the story of digital technology’s loss of innocence as it entered the cultural mainstream, and it is a personal reckoning with all that has changed, and so much that hasn’t. Life in Code is an essential text toward our understanding of the last twenty years—and the next twenty.
Download or read book Jean Jennings Bartik written by Kim D. Todd and published by Truman State University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a young girl in the 1930s, Jean Bartik dreamed of adventures in the world beyond her family's farm in northwestern Missouri. After college, she had her chance when she was hired by the US Army to work on a secret project. At a time when many people thought women could not work in technical fields like science and mathematics, Jean became one of the world's first computer programmers. She helped program the ENIAC, the first successful stored-program computer, and had a long career in the field of computer science. Thanks to computer pioneers like Jean, today we have computers that can do almost anything.
Download or read book The Computer in the United States written by James W. Cortada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies how a technological innovation -- in this case the computer -- progresses from its origin as an idea in someone's mind to its eventual manifestation as a useable and marketable consumer product.
Download or read book Computers and Commerce written by Arthur Lawrence Norberg and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Both ERA and EMCC had their roots in World War II, and in postwar years both firms received major funding from the United States government. Norberg analyzes the interaction between the two companies and the government and examines the impact of this institutional context on technological innovation. He looks at the two firms' operations after 1951 as independent subsidiaries of Remington Rand, and documents the management problems that began after Remington Rand merged with Sperry Gyroscope to form Sperry Rand in 1955"--Jacket.
Download or read book It Began with Babbage written by Subrata Dasgupta and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete and accessible history of computer science, beginning with Charles Babbage in 1819.
Download or read book The Computing Universe written by Anthony J. G. Hey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting and accessible book takes us on a journey from the early days of computers to the cutting-edge research of the present day that will shape computing in the coming decades. It introduces a fascinating cast of dreamers and inventors who brought these great technological developments into every corner of the modern world, and will open up the universe of computing to anyone who has ever wondered where his or her smartphone came from.
Download or read book Second Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computing Computers and the Information Processing Industry written by James W. Cortada and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-01-30 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complementing the author's 1990 bibliography, A Bibliographic Guide to the History of Computing, Computers, and the Information Processing Industry, this bibliography provides 2,500 new citations, covering all significant literature published since the late 1980s. It includes all aspects of the subject—biographies, company histories, industry studies, product descriptions, sociological studies, industry directories, and traditional monographic histories—and covers all periods from the beginnings to the personal computer. New to this volume is a chapter on the management of information processing operations, useful to both historians and managers of information technology. Together with the earlier bibliography, this work provides the most comprehensive bibliographic guide to the history of computers, computing, and the information processing industry. The organization of the book follows that of the earlier work, with the addition of the new chapter on the management of information processing. All entries are new to this volume. Titles are annotated, and each chapter begins with a short introduction. A full table of contents and author and subject indexes enhance accessibility to the material.
Download or read book From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog written by Martin Campbell-Kelly and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-02-27 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A business history of the software industry from the days of custom programming to the age of mass-market software and video games. From its first glimmerings in the 1950s, the software industry has evolved to become the fourth largest industrial sector of the US economy. Starting with a handful of software contractors who produced specialized programs for the few existing machines, the industry grew to include producers of corporate software packages and then makers of mass-market products and recreational software. This book tells the story of each of these types of firm, focusing on the products they developed, the business models they followed, and the markets they served. By describing the breadth of this industry, Martin Campbell-Kelly corrects the popular misconception that one firm is at the center of the software universe. He also tells the story of lucrative software products such as IBM's CICS and SAP's R/3, which, though little known to the general public, lie at the heart of today's information infrastructure.With its wealth of industry data and its thoughtful judgments, this book will become a starting point for all future investigations of this fundamental component of computer history.
Download or read book The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist written by Ben Barres and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading scientist describes his life, his gender transition, his scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in science. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his female-to-male transition in his forties, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. Barres recounts his early life—his interest in science, first manifested as a fascination with the mad scientist in Superman; his academic successes; and his gender confusion. Barres felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. He reports he felt nothing but relief on becoming his true self. He was proud to be a role model for transgender scientists. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. Privileged white men, Barres writes, “miss the basic point that in the face of negative stereotyping, talented women will not be recognized.” At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. “The most rewarding part of his job,” however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy.
Download or read book Computer written by Martin Campbell-Kelly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Computer: A History of the Information Machine traces the history of the computer and shows how business and government were the first to explore its unlimited, information-processing potential. Old-fashioned entrepreneurship combined with scientific know-how inspired now famous computer engineers to create the technology that became IBM. Wartime needs drove the giant ENIAC, the first fully electronic computer. Later, the PC enabled modes of computing that liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers. This third edition provides updated analysis on software and computer networking, including new material on the programming profession, social networking, and mobile computing. It expands its focus on the IT industry with fresh discussion on the rise of Google and Facebook as well as how powerful applications are changing the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. Through comprehensive history and accessible writing, Computer is perfect for courses on computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management.
Download or read book Alan Turing and His Contemporaries written by Simon Lavington and published by BCS, The Chartered Institute. This book was released on 2012 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secret wartime projects in code-breaking, radar and ballistics produced a wealth of ideas and technologies that kick-started the development of digital computers. This is the story of the people and projects that flourished in the post-war period. By 1955 computers had begun to appear in the market-place. The Information Age was dawning and Alan Turing and his contemporaries held centre stage. Their influence is still discernable deep down within today's hardware and software.
