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Technology

Books on Computer History? 21

Posted by Cliff from the tracking-progress dept.
catf00d asks: "My Dad has been in the computer biz since there was a computer biz. (He programmed the UNIVAC-1 and just retired from IBM.) For X-mas, I'd like to get him a book on the history of computers, so that he can see his place in the grand scheme. Can you guys recommend a good book?"
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Books on Computer History? More

Books on Computer History?

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  • Hackers by Stephen Levy

    It's not as far reaching as you are looking for, but still a very good book. The title refers to the old-style hacker, one who likes to find out how things work, rather than the more malevolent cracker.

    Hackers outlines the desktop software development movement, starting from the halls of MIT to the early days of the PC. It's less a definitive history and more of an interesting story, but it definitely gives good perspective of how big computing movements develop from small beginnings.

    It was written over ten years ago, so it is not "up-to-date" but it is a great snapshot of the personalities involved at the start of the PC era.
  • Go to [amazon.com].



    It's more then the usual microsoft/apple stories, but also includes histories of some programming languages and stuff.



    if your dad is old-school he might actually remember a lot of the stuff that happened in this book.

  • Computer - a history of the information machine by Martin Campbell-kelly and William Aspray is a great book.
  • That said, there are many excellent books about specific area's of computing and computation science in general. They would probably bore your father, or most people who arn't interested, to tears. Most of the good works on general computing arn't books, there articles and such. Acm classics [acm.org] probably has the best articles on the subject, but thats just my opinon, and you can't forget the jargon file [tuxedo.org]. And not forget BOFH [ntk.net] if he's had to do any support work. Anything much more specific than that, and you get into extreamly specific realms.

  • I don't know of any whole books that cover the UNIVAC era, but if your dad is an ex-IBMer he might be interested in Computer Wars : The Fall of IBM and the Future of Global Technology [amazon.com]. The first third of the book covers IBM history including the lead up to the PC. It does a great job of cataloging all the pointy-haired management decisions along the way. The second third of the book covers what was happening at IBM around the time the book was written. The last third is comprised of suggestions from the authors on what they believed at the time IBM needed to do to get back to its position among industry leaders.

    Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer [amazon.com] is an even meatier tome but with an emphasis on Silicon Valley.

  • These will make great reading for your dad:

    The Computer From Pascal to von Neumann
    Herman H. Goldstine
    ISBN 0-691-08104-2 (Hard cover) ISBN 0-691-02367-0 (Paperback)
    This book covers the WWII era development in detail. Well written. I think the author is the Naval officer responsible for getting the Eniac funded when all the other experts said it wasn't worth developing.

    Eniac - The triumphs and Tragedies of the Worlds First Computer
    Scott McCartney
    ISBN 0-8027-1348-3
    A detailed look inside the development of the Eniac. Extensively researched, a great read.

    In the Beginning: Recollections of Software Pioneers
    Robert L. Glass
    ISBN 0-8186-7999-9
    This book comprises a series of anecdotes and histories, by 15 software pioneers. It's unevenly written, but tremendous fun reading.

    Hope that helps!
    • I did a paper on the history of computing last semester. The guy taking the paper (Garry Tee, University of Auckland) is reasonably distinguished in this area. Particularly he did not recommend the first book mentioned (by Herman Goldstine) - "The first half (1620-1940) is worthless, and should not be used". Some of the more general books which he did recommend were (sorry, no ISBNs)

      Bit by Bit: an Illustrated History of Computers
      Stan Augarten

      A History of Computing Technology
      Michael R. Williams

      The Origins of Digital Computers
      Brian Randell (editor)

      A Computer Perspective
      Charles & Ray Eames
  • "A few good men from Univac" is a great book (good luck finding it though, as it's out of print...)

    "Eniac" is good.

    "Nerds" is a good history of the genesis of the Internet.

    "We were burning" is a good book about the japanese semiconductor industry.

    "A history of modern computing" is good.

    "The invention that changed the world", actually about radar, but nice lead-ins from 1940s technology providing the genesis for the computer industry.
  • Excellent book. I'm not sure if it's still in print, however.
  • But its out of print according to Amazon, but they do have second hand copies. You might also get from B&N or elsewhere. Great Book.
    [amazon.com]
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/038798269 8/ qid=1008405307/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_11_3/002-2623870-83 06446

    Regards,
    Winton
  • While it is out of print, I would strongly suggest picking up a copy of The Best Of Byte by Jay Ranade and Alan Nash.

    It includes tons of Byte magazine articles from the '80s and early '90s. Year-by-year timeline of developments, many of which have been utterly forgotten over time. Old ads from companies long gone, extremly rare interviews with legends of the industry.....highly reccomended.
  • The best computer "history" books that I know of aren't history books at all - but rather books contemporary for the time, which examine computers as "state-of-the-art" machines, describing them and the advances as they were happenning for the period.

    Finding such books can be a long and difficult task - almost all of them will be out of print. I suggest if you (or anyone else) take this route to build a "history", to check in the antique district where you live for used/rare/antique books - sometimes you will find the strangest things (like, I found one book that described how to build your own radio telescope - however it was tube based).

    For something in print, the best computer history book I have come across is "Computer: A History of the Information Machine" by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray (ISBN 0-465-02989-2).

    It starts out with basically Charles Babbage, moves on to Herman Hollerith, then into Remington Rand, NCR, and the birth of IBM (spawned from Hollerith's enterprise - which is a whole book unto itself), then into Lord Kelvin's Tide Predictor, the Harvard Mark I, the ABC, the MTI - then into ENIAC and EDVAC, EDSAC. Then it goes into business machines - UNIVAC, BINAC, IBM's early boxes, starting with the 701 - then onto the large iron - beginning with the 1401, moving into the System/360, then ending with IBM's decline with the PC market. Then, chapters on Project Whirlwind and SAGE, the SABRE system (airline reservation). Then, software, timesharing and simple computer languages (such as Fortran and BASIC), the rise of the minicomputers and Unix, finally ending with microcomputers, the internet, and more.

    A very good read - not overly technical, not overly detailed - but a good "overall" history, with enough detail to see how it all came together, who the major (and minor) players were, etc. It isn't like other books which start out with calculators and end with the ENIAC - instead, it starts closer to our time, with the beginnings of a true computer, albeit a mechanical one (Babbage).

    Actually, couple this book in a collection with "Herman Hollerith" by Geoffrey D. Austrian, "Hackers" by Steven Levy, and the recent American release of "The Difference Engine" by Doron Swade, and I daresay you will probably have as near as can be imagined "complete" history of computers (ok, there are a few other books I would add in - the book on the ENIAC, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Soul of a New Machine, etc).

    You know - I look at my bookshelf - seeing these tons of contemporary and historical computer books - I think to myself "Amazing - the sheer vastness of this industry - this hobby - seems almost overwhelming!" - makes me wonder why man still fights one another over petty things... sigh.
  • The Campbell-Kelly and Aspray book is defintely the best overall history, and I use it in my own courses. Another overall history, more technical in general and stronger on Unix and minicomputers, is Paul Ceruzzi's "A History of Modern Computing." If he's interested in the early Univacs, then the detailed book to get is "A Few Good Men from Univac" by David E. Lundstrom -- out of print, but Amazon has it used. There's a ton of books on IBM, but for a good mix of technical and business, he might like "Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology" by Emerson W Pugh.

    I put together a list of key resources in the history of computing [tomandmaria.com] for a recent NSF backed workshop on using history to teach computer science better . It has books as well as some links to history sites and other resources. People interested in this topic might also want to check out the [cra.org] site for my computer history and culture course [tomandmaria.com] at Colby College -- the pages for each session include additional links and readings." Hackers was one of the main texts -- it's a great book, but more recent. (I posted something anonymously -- sorry to duplicate. I got myself an account now).

  • People have already suggested _Hackers_ by Steven Lecy, and rightly so -- it's a hell of a read. His newer book, _Crypto_, is also quite good if your father has any sort of interest in cryptography or government supervision of the computer industry.

    Oh, and _Fire in the Valley_ is supposed to be good, though I haven't read it myself.

    --saint
  • Not a history of computing per se, but bios of some pretty interesting players is: "Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists" A really good read.
  • Great book, hard to find today, get one for yourself as well.

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