Customer Reviews

Computer: A History Of The Information Machine (Sloan Technology Series)

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3 star:		(1)
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I recently finished this book and "Engines of the Mind : The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors" by Joel N. Shurkin. Both are attempts at writing a detailed history of the development of the computer and the events surrounding it, and I must admit that I found "Computer" much more entertaining than Shurkin's text.

The difference between the two books is very slight, however, it is significant. "Computer" walks us through the work of Charles Babbage and carries us through the backrooms of large businesses at the turn of the 19th century. The authors discuss the work and lives of the people that were the first 'computers' working all day long to finish calculations that were used in business, and then for the calculation of artillery tables in the world wars. It was the replacement of these workers and their omissive errors and necessarily slow speed and development time that drove the development of the huge mainframes that would be developed by the military. The authors do a great job of walking through the history of the early computer companies, especially Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Co., now IBM, and National Cash Register. The role that these two companies played in increasing the public's reliance and trust in machines was a key enabler of the computer revolution. The authors then take us through to modern times and we follow the ultra-competitive computer industry through wave after wave of consolidation and rapid technological innovation. This book also shows us a slight glimpse of the business forces behind the development of the transistor, and how this invention would wind up changing the world.

I could not have enjoyed this book more. Of the two, it definitely did the best job of focusing on the industry and economic changes that have led us to the modern computer age. The annecdotes and writing style of the authors is well-suited to the material and I very highly recommend this book. I also recommend the other book as well - I believe that if read together (with some time to digest in between them) they do a great job of painting the picture of a fascinating development of one of the most important technological changes in the history of man.

There are countless books covering the PC revolution from about the 1970's and onwards, but not very many that carefully cover the saga of the 1800's and onward! This book does an excellent job at capturing what happened in the realm of computing from Babbage's work all the way up to what began the downfall of the mainframe to the minis.

Campbell-Kelly and Aspray write a detailed account of the history of the computer, from when a computer was not a machine but rather a person who calculated numbers to the contemporary personal computer.
The book provides a very readable, while factual, history which illustrates the evolution of the computer over the past 200 years and provides many insights along the way. A new historical world of personalities and machines which were critical in the shaping of the computer of the late 20th century are removed from relative obscurity and made accessible to the reader.

Where the book falters a little is in it's examination of the "Personal Computer" (or PC) and it's evolution over the last 25-30 years. The authors seem to go light on some details which are readily available in current media and some of their observations in this area are not as insightful as their earlier ones. The documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" would be a better source of information on this period of computer history. It consists of interviews with the people who were there when it happened, and many of the details Campbell-Kelly and Aspray skip/avoid/omit are in this entertaining documentary. On a personal note - since I grew up with the PC, and watched it make the computer a home appliance like a microwave or VCR, I was a little disappointed with this part of the book.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this title, and consider it a "must read" in the subject area.

Early reviews made me hope for good coverage of the PC years, from 1974 on, but the book sprints through this era at a breathless pace and scrambles some facts and ignores important events. It also leaves out many of the players who were early to market with hobby or personal computers and software, but got left behind by marketing or technical snafus. Not much information about Gary Kildall and the advent of the CP/M operating system, a pivotal event for the hobbyist market in the late 70s. Innovative companies such as IMSAI, Cromemco, and others get tossed off in one sentence as "other" suppliers.

These latter sections contain some technical errors that should have been picked up upon fact checking, or by the authors if they had relied on primary sources. For example, the authors cite the 6502 chip from Mostek as being used in the Apple II. The actual chip came from MOS Technology, later acquired by Commodore. No mention that the 6502 was derived from the Motorola 6800 by designer Chuck Peddle.

The book is rich on history of early developments, but for in-depth history of the PC era, you'll have to find another source. Unfortunately, many of those sources have their own flaws or omissions. If you want a taste of computer history, buy this book, but understand after 1974 is barely scratches the surface.

This is an important book: it is written at a (reasonably) accessible level for non-specialists, but emphasises the evolution of the ideas involved , rather than emphasising the personalities and the "gee whizz" as so many non-technical books do.

Some gentle debunking in here too, and some refutations (or clarifications) of popular myths. And lots of material not covered in most histories of the computer.

Outstanding! Finally, someone has clarified and capsulized the vague beginnings of the most important invention of the 20th century. Presented in an incredibly easy-to-read style, the story is both informative and entertaining (it's the first book I've read nonstop in years). My highest adulations to the authors

As a kid, I read this book over and over, soaking up the volumes of information. The reading is pretty dry, but the story covered is fascinating. Perhaps one thing that made it interesting was reading about the person who bought it for me - my grandfather. He was pleased with how he had been interviewed and, of course, thought they could have said more about his area of study!

This is a history of the computer as a business tool and really only goes into detail after the ENIAC. There are interesting and informative parts on pre-computer office organisation and on human computers. Hardware from before 1945 is dealt with in a perfunctory manner: if I didn't already know what a differential analyser was like, I wouldn't find out from this book. Konrad Zuse gets just one sentence, and the Colossus similar short shrift. Actually this is understandable, because William Aspray has already edited a book on early machinery, "Computing Before Computers" which goes into great detail and has excellent pictures. Martin Campbell-Kelly also contributed to this book, which I suppose is Volume I and "History of the Information Machine" is Volume II. Little attention is paid to events outside the USA. I may be prejudiced, but nevertheless I find it interesting that a tea-shop chain developed a business computer which was demonstrated before Royalty a year before UNIVAC's famous TV appearance; and that Sir Charles Darwin, grandson of the other well-known Charles Darwin, was prominent in the development of the Pilot ACE. Neither fact is mentioned. Sir Clive Sinclair, who produced the first hobby computer that could actually be called cheap, doesn't appear in the book either. So buy this book - but try to get "Computing Before Computers" and "Early British Computers" (by Simon Lavington) as well.

These accomplished journalists wrote a well thought-out and executed history of an inherent infinitely technical subject. We are guided through the Age of Enlightenment and into the 20th century with Campbell-Kelly and Aspray as our guides, much like context-sensitive help available by depressing the F1 key-- that is to say sometimes the information is valuable, and other times simply a sidebar, detracting the user (or reader, in this case) from the task at hand. In Computer: A History of the Information Machine, we learn first of the pre-history with the evolution of the typewriter, accounting machines, and later sophisticated accounting devices, leading to the widespread introduction of products by IBM, NCR and others. During World War II the role of the US Government in developing advanced computer systems was enormous, and the role of Jay Forrester, then a 26 year old assistant directory of leading military computing labratory cannot be overstated, as he squeezed eight million dollars from the Department of Defense in search of "real-time" computing, something we all take for granted in the networked ninties. In the PC era, the authors concern themselves with the development of operating systems (first DOS, later the graphical-user interface, or GUI) and the evolution of household-affordable personal computers. Strangely muted from this discussion is the role of Moore's Law, stating that every 18 months available memory will double and price will fall be a factor of two. The role of Xerox's PARC gives the reader a sense of what fine engineering an poor execution can do, as the GUI, LAN (Local Area Network) and other numerous ingenious creations were all essentially pirated from PARC. Disappointingly, the role of networked computing, replete with references to Arapnet, the Internet, World Wibe Web are relegated to the last chapter of the book. The authors limit speculation for what the future may bring, suggesting in two or three decades everything except lunch will be available through our computers. The lack of attention to the Information Age may well be due to their role as historians; in several years, no doubt, the authors will reflect on the infancy of the Internet.

This is one of my favorite books of all time, as well as being hugely informative and very important to the era we live in. This book does an excellent job of explaining the history of computers up to the personal computer, going through Babbage's Difference Engine, early mechanical computers, through to ENIAC and the IBM computers of the '50s and '60s. This book will not leave you feeling like you need to know more about these time periods, because it does such a good job of explaining them.

On an unfortunate note, the part that I feel is the most important to computer history, the post-1989 era of the World Wide Web, receives the least amount of attention. I completely understand that this era of history is still fresh and being understood, I just can't help but want to read about the things that I still remember experiencing in computers as I was growing up. Hopefully, the author of this book will update this book soon so I can enjoy reading it all over again, or someone else will write a great book on the era of personal computers! (Heck, I might even put my History degree to use and do this myself!)