Dream Machine: Exploring the Computer Age [Paperback]

Jon Palfreman (Author), Doron Swade (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0563369922 | ISBN-13: 978-0563369929 | Publication Date: October 1993

The Dream Machine is the story of the development of the computer and the remarkable people behind it. It is hard to interpret a revolution when you are in the midst of one, but this book is an attempt to do just that. The Dream Machine explores the computer age from the earliest attempts to represent numbers and mechanize calculation; from these modest beginnings emerged a dream of a general-purpose machine unlike anything the world had ever known before.

Product Details

• Paperback: 105 pages
• Publisher: BBC Books (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563369922
• ISBN-13: 978-0563369929
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,633,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A trip down memory lane for computer buffs, April 11, 2007

By 

J. Simone (Lake Worth, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dream Machine: Exploring the Computer Age (Paperback)

This is the book that that spawned the PBS series "The Machine that Changed the World" airing in America around 1992. It was a five part series that closely matched this book, on which it was based. With this book you will gain an appreciation for the history of the modern computer and get an excellent historical perspective. The 5 part TV series with episodes taken from chapters of this book were titled:

1) Great Brains
2) Inventing the Future
3) The Paperback Computer
3) The Thinking Machine
4) The World At Your Fingertips

The book was written before the the invention of the internet and the world wide web, but you can see it coming. Industry giants such as the Alan Kay, Doug Lenat, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Alan Touring, Robert Noyce, Charles Babbage, George Boole, Jon Von Neumann and many others are all mentioned and their contributions are put into a modern (for the day) perspective.

I would recommend this book to any student of computer science or computers as a hobby. Though the book is well over 15 years old, it has a timeless quality that takes you back to the beginning of the computer age and leads you gently into the modern era.

5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative book on the evolution of the computer, February 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dream Machine: Exploring the Computer Age (Paperback)

The Dream Machine provides a plethora of information to the reader. It gives specific detials of the evolution of the computer. Including: many people, companies (IBM, Remington Rand), the languages of programming, the personal computer and more...