Download or read book The Moore School Lectures written by Moore School of Electrical Engineering and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

Download or read book Words and Power written by Bernadette Longo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-26 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When viewed through a political lens, the act of defining terms in natural language arguably transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate, military, academic, and professional values shaped efforts to define computer terminology and establish an information engineering profession as a precursor to what would become computer science. As the Cold War heated up, U.S. federal agencies increasingly funded university researchers and labs to develop technologies, like the computer, that would ensure that the U.S. maintained economic prosperity and military dominance over the Soviet Union. At the same time, private corporations saw opportunities for partnering with university labs and military agencies to generate profits as they strengthened their business positions in civilian sectors. They needed a common vocabulary and principles of streamlined communication to underpin the technology development that would ensure national prosperity and military dominance. investigates how language standardization contributed to the professionalization of computer science as separate from mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics examines traditions of language standardization in earlier eras of rapid technology development around electricity and radio highlights the importance of the analogy of “the computer is like a human” to early explanations of computer design and logic traces design and development of electronic computers within political and economic contexts foregrounds the importance of human relationships in decisions about computer design This in-depth humanistic study argues for the importance of natural language in shaping what people come to think of as possible and impossible relationships between computers and humans. The work is a key reference in the history of technology and serves as a source textbook on the human-level history of computing. In addition, it addresses those with interests in sociolinguistic questions around technology studies, as well as technology development at the nexus of politics, business, and human relations.

Download or read book The Untold Story of Everything Digital written by Tom Green and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Untold Story of Everything Digital: Bright Boys, Revisited celebrates the 70th anniversary (1949-2019) of the world "going digital" for the very first time—real-time digital computing’s genesis story. That genesis story is taken from the 2010 edition of Bright Boys: The Making of Information Technology, 1938-1958, and substantially expanded upon for this special, anniversary edition. Please join us for the incredible adventure that is The Untold Story of Everything Digital, when a band of misfit engineers, led by MIT's Jay Forrester and Bob Everett, birthed the digital revolution. The bright boys were the first to imagine an electronic landscape of computing machines and digital networks, and the first to blaze its high-tech trails.

Download or read book Computer written by Martin Campbell-Kelly and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-19 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a history of the computer which now comes properly up to the ubiquitous age, with new chapters that look at globalization, platformitization and regulation, allowing readers to engage with the more recent takeover by computers in their historical perspective. With the growing ubiquity of computers, the subject is one of interest to many students and this will feature in history of science and technology courses, and world history courses as well as ones specifically on computing. Books on the history of computing tend to be quite technically or business focused, this covers the social and cultural history as well.

Download or read book ENIAC in Action written by Thomas Haigh and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-06-24 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the first programmable electronic computer, from its conception, construction, and use to its afterlife as a part of computing folklore. Conceived in 1943, completed in 1945, and decommissioned in 1955, ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first general-purpose programmable electronic computer. But ENIAC was more than just a milestone on the road to the modern computer. During its decade of operational life, ENIAC calculated sines and cosines and tested for statistical outliers, plotted the trajectories of bombs and shells, and ran the first numerical weather simulations. ENIAC in Action tells the whole story for the first time, from ENIAC's design, construction, testing, and use to its afterlife as part of computing folklore. It highlights the complex relationship of ENIAC and its designers to the revolutionary approaches to computer architecture and coding first documented by John von Neumann in 1945. Within this broad sweep, the authors emphasize the crucial but previously neglected years of 1947 to 1948, when ENIAC was reconfigured to run what the authors claim was the first modern computer program to be executed: a simulation of atomic fission for Los Alamos researchers. The authors view ENIAC from diverse perspectives—as a machine of war, as the “first computer,” as a material artifact constantly remade by its users, and as a subject of (contradictory) historical narratives. They integrate the history of the machine and its applications, describing the mathematicians, scientists, and engineers who proposed and designed ENIAC as well as the men—and particularly the women who—built, programmed, and operated it.

Download or read book The History of Computing a Very Short Introduction written by Doron Swade and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-25 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring This lively Very Short Introduction reviews the central events, machines, and people that feature in established accounts of the history of computing, critically examining received perceptions and providing a fresh look at the nature and development of the modern electronic computer. The book begins by discussing a widely accepted linear narrative of the history of computing, centred around innovatory highlights that start with the use of knotted cords to aid calculation, all the way to the supercomputers of the present day. It discusses the problems and simplifications present in such a narrative, and shows that when we instead think of the development of computers to be based upon responses to the needs of users, we can identify four distinct historical threads: calculation, automatic computing, information management, and communication. These threads are examined individually, tracing their paths and the convergences of related technologies into what has come to be called 'the information age'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introduction series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Download or read book Computer Student Economy Edition written by Martin Campbell-Kelly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the way computing was handled before the arrival of electronic computers. It discusses manual information processing and early technologies. The book describes the development of software technology, the professionalization of programming, and the emergence of a software industry.

Download or read book Who Invented the Computer written by Alice R. Burks and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-10-29 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1973, Federal District Judge Earl R. Larson issued a ruling in a patent case that was to have profound and long-lasting implications for the dawning computer revolution. Against all expectations, the judge ruled against Sperry Rand Corp., which claimed to hold the patent on the first computer dubbed the "ENIAC" and was demanding huge royalties on all electronic data processing sales by Honeywell Inc. and other large competitors. The judge came to the conclusion that in fact the ENIAC was not the first computer but was a derivative of an obscure computer called the ABC, which had been developed in the late thirties by a largely unknown professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, named John V. Atanasoff.Looking back today from our digital world at what was then a little-publicized trial, it is clear that the judge''s decision had enormous repercussions. If Judge Larson had ruled the other way, in favor of the patent claim, subsequent manufacturers of computing hardware would have had to obtain a license from Sperry Rand, and the course of computing history would likely have been very different from the galloping revolution we have all witnessed in the past three decades.This book centers on this crucial trial, arguing that Judge Larson correctly evaluated the facts and made the right decision, even though many in the computing community have never accepted Atanasoff as the legitimate inventor of the electronic computer. With meticulous research, Alice Rowe Burks examines both the trial and its aftermath, presenting telling evidence in convincing and absorbing fashion, and leaving no doubt about the actual originator of what has been called the greatest invention of the 20th century.

Download or read book ENIAC written by Scott McCartney and published by Berkley Trade. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of John Mauchly and Presper Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC tells the story of the three-year race to complete the world's first computer--and of the three-decade struggle to take credit for it. 10 illustrations.

Download or read book Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing written by Herbert Bruderer and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 2072 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Third Edition is the first English-language edition of the award-winning Meilensteine der Rechentechnik; illustrated in full color throughout in two volumes. The Third Edition is devoted to both analog and digital computing devices, as well as the world's most magnificient historical automatons and select scientific instruments (employed in astronomy, surveying, time measurement, etc.). It also features detailed instructions for analog and digital mechanical calculating machines and instruments, and is the only such historical book with comprehensive technical glossaries of terms not found in print or in online dictionaries. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography based on the literature of numerous countries around the world. Meticulously researched, the author conducted a worldwide survey of science, technology and art museums with their main holdings of analog and digital calculating and computing machines and devices, historical automatons and selected scientific instruments in order to describe a broad range of masterful technical achievements. Also covering the history of mathematics and computer science, this work documents the cultural heritage of technology as well.

Download or read book The Computer written by Eric G. Swedin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-07-08 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, aimed at general readers, covers the entirety of computing history from antiquity to the present, placing the story of computing into the broader context of politics, economics, society, and more. Computers dominate the world we live in, and this book describes how we got here. The Computer: A Brief History of the Machine That Changed the World covers topics from early efforts at mathematical computation back in ancient times, such as the abacus and the Antikythera device, through Babbage's Difference Engine and the Hollerith Tabulating Machines of the 19th century, to the eventual invention of the modern computer during World War II and its aftermath. The scope of the text reaches into the modern day, with chapters on social media and the influence of computers and technology on recent elections. The information in this book, perfect for readers new to the topic or those looking to delve into the history of computers in greater detail, can be accessed both chronologically and topically. With chapters focusing on larger time periods as well as shorter subsections covering specific people and topics, this book is designed to make the history of computing as approachable as possible.

Download or read book Bright Boys written by Tom Green and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everything has a beginning. None was more profound-and quite as unexpected-than Information Technology. Here for the first time is the untold story of how our new age came to be and the bright boys who made it happen. What began on the bare floor of an old laundry building eventually grew to rival in size the Manhattan Project. The unexpected

Download or read book Perspectives on Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems written by Lashon Booker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-24 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Adaptation, Evolution, and Intelligence, Lashon Booker, Stephanie Forrest, Melanie Mitchell, and Rick Riolo. PART 1: GENETIC ALGOROTHMS AND BEYOND. 1. Genetic Algorithms: A 30 Year Perspective, Kenneth DeJong. 2. Human-Competitive Machine Intelligence by Means of Genetic Algorithms, John R. Koza. 3. John Holland, Facetwise models, and Economy of Thought, David E. Goldberg. PART 2: COMPUTATION, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND BEYOND. 4. An Early Graduate Program in Computers and Communications, Arthur W. Burks. 5. Had We But World Enough and Time, Oliver G. Selfridge. 6. Discrete Eve.

Download or read book John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing written by William Aspray and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1990-12-07 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Aspray provides the first broad and detailed account of von Neumann's many different contributions to computing. John von Neumann (1903-1957) was unquestionably one of the most brilliant scientists of the twentieth century. He made major contributions to quantum mechanics and mathematical physics and in 1943 began a new and all-too-short career in computer science. William Aspray provides the first broad and detailed account of von Neumann's many different contributions to computing. These, Aspray reveals, extended far beyond his well-known work in the design and construction of computer systems to include important scientific applications, the revival of numerical analysis, and the creation of a theory of computing.Aspray points out that from the beginning von Neumann took a wider and more theoretical view than other computer pioneers. In the now famous EDVAC report of 1945, von Neumann clearly stated the idea of a stored program that resides in the computer's memory along with the data it was to operate on. This stored program computer was described in terms of idealized neurons, highlighting the analogy between the digital computer and the human brain. Aspray describes von Neumann's development during the next decade, and almost entirely alone, of a theory of complicated information processing systems, or automata, and the introduction of themes such as learning, reliability of systems with unreliable components, self-replication, and the importance of memory and storage capacity in biological nervous systems; many of these themes remain at the heart of current investigations in parallel or neurocomputing.Aspray allows the record to speak for itself. He unravels an intricate sequence of stories generated by von Neumann's work and brings into focus the interplay of personalities centered about von Neumann. He documents the complex interactions of science, the military, and business and shows how progress in applied mathematics was intertwined with that in computers. William Aspray is Director of the Center for the History of Electrical Engineering at The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Download or read book Dynamics of Technological Change written by Girifalco and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology is not an end in itself, but a way of satisfying human wants. It shows us how to solve the age-old economic problem of surviving and pros pering in a hard world. But to optimize the benefits of technological advance requires an understanding of how it happens. The purpose of this book is to provide some of that understanding. The subject is so enormous and so intertwined with every human activity that a small selection of it, and that from a special viewpoint, is inevitable. The selection of subject matter has been, of course, conditioned by what interests me and is somewhat heterogeneous. However, it is connected by two major themes. The first is that it emphasizes the dynamic nature of technology, in the sense that it must be approached as a process evolving in time that can often be described in quantitative terms. The second is that I have chosen topics that I believe are essential for a strategic sense of how to plan for, execute, and respond to technological change. These two themes complement each other because the strategic sense requires an appreciation of the dynamics and the dynamics naturally lead to a consideration of how to deal with technology so that it can be used to achieve human objectives. The unifying thought behind the book is that technological change has a systemic as well as an idiosyncratic aspect.

Download or read book Makin Numbers written by I. Bernard Cohen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of technical essays and reminiscences is a companion to I. Bernard Cohen's biography Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. After an overview by Cohen, Part I presents the complete publication of Aiken's 1937 proposal for an automatic calculating machine, later realized as the Mark I, as well as recollections by the chief engineer in charge of construction of Mark II, Robert Campbell, and the programmer of Mark I, Richard Bloch. Henry Tropp describes Aiken's hostility to the exclusive use of binary numbers in computational systems and his alternative approach.

Download or read book Alan Turing s Electronic Brain written by B. Jack Copeland and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rev. ed. of: Alan Turing's automatic computing engine / edited by B. Jack Copeland.