A serviceable addition to the growing stock of computer histories -
concentrating on 19th- and 20th-century innovators and the
controversies among them. Once again we meet Babbage and Byron's
daughter, the luckless Ada Lovelace. The jump is made to early
census-takers, the first punched cards, and the early WW II years
at the U. of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering. The
pioneers of digital electronic computers, John Mauchly and J.
Presper Eckert, are fleshed out from interviews and correspondence.
They have been distinctly riled - apparently with reason - at von
Neumann's being given credit for the idea of a computer-stored
memory. (Note is also taken of the Iowa-based inventor - now with
Navy Ordnance in Maryland - who lays claim to priority in computer
design.) These disputes are variously traced to security leaks,
lost memos, New York Times stories, patent disputes, papers
published without credit to co-authors, and other academic or
industrial crises. Shurkin enjoys the gossip and the rivalry -
especially between the Moore School and MIT, where engineers were
fixated on analog computers and peremptorily dismissed digital
machines. In the more recent past, Shurkin recounts tales of Sperry
Rand, Univac, IBM, and other well-known names; he ends with a brief
look at the current drawing boards. Between Harry Wulforst's
Breakthrough to the Computer Age and Robert Sobel's I.B.M., the
ground has been exceedingly well covered - but this does both trim
down and liven up the story. (Kirkus Reviews)
When John Mauchly and Presper Eckert developed the Electronic
Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) at the University of
Pennsylvania during World War II, their intention was to aid
artillerymen in aiming their guns. Since then, in the past fifty
years, ENIAC and its offspring have changed the way we go about
both business and science. Along with the transistor, the computer
has brought about transformation on a scale unmatched since the
industrial revolution. Now, in a lively and evenhanded account,
Joel Shurkin introduces us to the often-feuding players and the
discoveries that made the computer possible-from the first models
to the creation of the chip and beyond. Here is the first full
account of an invention that changed the world. For this new
paperback edition, Shurkin has added an epilogue and a new chapter
on the latest milestones in the ongoing computer revolution.
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