Customer Reviews

Bit by Bit: An Illustrated History of Computers

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A good source of data for those who want to know how the Industry of Computers began. If you want to understand why the Computer Science changed the world, and if you'd like to speak as an expert in all those fantastic words of the luckiest people on the 50's, 60's, 70's and even the 80's who had the opportunity to grow and deal with this technology, and feel how these people had to accept new windows-know-it-all-users with little or none at all knowledge about programming and other related training and long-time-consuming-hard-to-learn skills, you must read this book. Then, I'm sure, you'll know what I mean.

Without a doubt one of the best books on the history of computers that I've ever read. The author tells not only the story of the machines themselves, but also of the people who built them and why they followed the paths they did.

The photos and illustrations really bring the story to life; now you can actually see what these machines and people looked like!

A good source of data for those who want to know how the Industry of Computers began. If you want to understand why the Computer Science changed the world, and if you'd like to speak as an expert in all those fantastic words of the luckiest people on the 50's, 60's, 70's and even the 80's who had the opportunity to grow and deal with this technology, and feel how these people had to accept new windows-know-it-all-users with little or none at all knowledge about programming and other related training and long-time-consuming-hard-to-learn skills, you must read this book. Then, I'm sure, you'll know what I mean.

Aside from only briefly mentioning Englands EDSAC (as is the case with most non English accounts), this was a nice and entertaining read. Not only detailing the Computers themselves but the inventers, designers, craftsmen, and engineers of the machines. Technical enough to keep those who want it content, but written understandably for those who may not be so technically inclined.

The author does an excellent job of including just the right mix of technical detail, human history, and reasons why computers were built and evolved. This book could have been either too simple for computer hardware nuts (of which I am), or too technical for the general public. I'm left in awe of the men who built these incredibly complex devices virtually out of thin air. Not to belittle Steve Wozniac, whose book I recently read, but creating the Apple I and II from the building blocks available at the time seems terribly simple in comparison when you consider there were no building blocks for the machines of the 1940's and 50's, other than a bunch of tubes, resistors, and capacitors. In some ways those early room sized computers were better than today's sleek machines. Consider the computer with 55,000 vacuum tubes which only required less than 4 hours of downtime each year. Amazing. The average PC today seemingly spends that much time each year re-booting. Not only is the book very well written, but the numerous photos are truly impressive.

People born in the past 30 years or so really need to read this, so they'll have some perspective of what's involved in their video games and smart phones. I learned a great deal from this book, and now want to learn more.

The book is great. a great part of it is devoted to precomputers. I mean, calculating machines. But nevertheless it is very enjoyable. You'll learn a lot from it. The photographs are very nice. And there are lots of them: there is no single pair of pages without a photograph. The style is careful, and well organized. There are plenty of data and curious facts about the history of computers.

Highly recommended. It is a pity you can find it only in the second hand market.