Customer Reviews

Computers: An Illustrated History

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

 

 

The book itself is pretty, but poorly researched, with errors a plenty and a style that doesn't work with the topic.
The works of Paul Cerruzzi, Michael Williams or Bill Asprey are much better as an introduction to the concepts, and have at least a bit of accuracy when it comes to the material.

This is absolutely not a book to buy for a thorough written history of computers. It's a book to leaf through for a different sort of understanding - there are *so* many wonderful photos here, from Babbage through all of the twentieth century. It's wonderfully laid out and presented. The perfect book for a computerlover's coffeetable, or just for someone who likes retro photos.

History just as it didn't quite happen. This book is full of historical errors, easy shortcuts and misses the interesting details. The pictures, which should be its main strength, are of poor quality, low resolution and blogged with jpeg artefacts.

Nothing but pictures, pictures, pictures. Sure there is a simple historical narrative, but the value of this (out-of-print, expensive) book is the pictorial archive that it is. Hundreds of picures and ads make this invaluable for understanding the past to generations of computing history. This is a high-quality book, like all Taschen books: colorful and sturdy. One caveat though is that the layout is a bit confusng and a bit too overwrought.

I first started working on both mainframes and personal computers in the 1970s, and have worked on a wide variety of machines.

The book has a number of errors, but is a wonderful buy for those of us who grew up with computers. It generally follows the right flow of creation, but is so superficial that there are errors. Those people looking to learn about the history of computers should avoid this. However, those of you looking to take a walk down memory lane will love the book and its pictures.

If you know the real stories, the pictures bring back lots of fun memories. If you don't know the real story, get some other books, you won't understand the pictures and the text isn't good enough.

Most books on the history of computing are dry treatises without a lot of good illustrations, but this one is different. More of an art book than serious history (see the other reviews) it presents the history of computing with a wonderful collection of large color illustrations, such as fantastic close-up shots of Engelbart's original mouse from 1968, hilariously weird UNIVAC ads from the '50s, rare & hard to find screen shots of early applications, as well as images from popular culture that reflected the computing mentality of the era. There are better books for the facts, but not many in league with this one for pure style.

Don't expect much knowledge from this book, but it brilliantly shows the history of computers just through pictures. I love it!

As with other Taschen books I've seen, this book is more high style photo essay on the rise of the computer age than a hard core "history". When viewed as a photo essay or cultural documentary of a particular subject (computers, in this case), it is very successful...and a bargain. Most other computer history books are mainly text and often lack photographs of early systems, particularly the early mainframes and minis. This book is packed with lavish photos well organized by computer type (mainframes, minicomputers, micros, etc.) While errors are unacceptable in any book, I feel the other negative reviews of this book are way too harsh, and probably result more from expectations being incorrectly set by the book's title. For a highly detailed history of the subject, readers should look elsewhere. But for a beautiful and rare look at the early systems, this book will be a welcome addition to your library. Or, have the best of both worlds....get a thorough history book for the details and facts, and this book to see what things looked like!

The book is easy to read. It has great illustrations. It is not an in-depth reading. If you want more information, you can look at Ceruzzi's (without illustrations), or, even better, Augarten's book. Augarten has done a great research effort. His books is enjoyable, and has lots of photographs. On the other hand, he begins his history from primitive calculators.

Wurster's book has very good hardback binding, and uses high quality gloss paper inside. I would redommend it for the price.

There are so many factual errors in this book that I simply threw the book in the garbage.