Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing) [Hardcover]

I. Bernard Cohen (Editor), Gregory W. Welch (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 1999 | Series: History of Computing

with the cooperation of Robert V. D. CampbellThis collection of technical essays and reminiscences is a companion volume to I. Bernard Cohen's biography, Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. After an overview by Cohen, Part I presents the first complete publication of Aiken's 1937 proposal for an automatic calculating machine, which was later realized as the Mark I, as well as recollections of Aiken's first two machines by the chief engineer in charge of construction of Mark II, Robert Campbell, and the principal programmer of Mark I, Richard Bloch. Henry Tropp describes Aiken's hostility to the exclusive use of binary numbers in computational systems and his alternative approach.Part II contains essays on Aiken's administrative and teaching styles by former students Frederick Brooks and Peter Calingaert and an essay by Gregory Welch on the difficulties Aiken faced in establishing a computer science program at Harvard. Part III contains recollections by people who worked or studied with Aiken, including Richard Bloch, Grace Hopper, Anthony Oettinger, and Maurice Wilkes. Henry Tropp provides excerpts from an interview conducted just before Aiken's death. Part IV gathers the most significant of Aiken's own writings. The appendixes give the specs of Aiken's machines and list his doctoral students and the topics of their dissertations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The biography, and its companion, Makin' Numbers, a collection of essays and retrospectives by Aiken's contemporaries, guarantee that the Aiken lore will not be lost. But they provide much more. These books are based on interviews with Aiken and his contemporaries, on many early reports and other documents, and to some degree on Cohen's personal knowledge of Aiken from the time when Cohen, now Thomas professor for the history of science emeritus, started to teach at Harvard... These books document the explosion of novelties in the Comp Lab at a time when almost nothing was known about computing, and have done us a great service by preserving, fondly but dispassionately and exhaustively, the memory of Aiken and those who worked with him." -- Harry R. Lewis, Harvard Magazine, May/June 1999

"The biography, and its companion, Makin' Numbers, a collection of essays and retrospectives by Aiken's contemporaries, guarantee that the Aiken lore will not be lost. But they provide much more. These books are based on interviews with Aiken and his contemporaries, on many early reports and other documents, and to some degree on Cohen's personal knowledge of Aiken from the time when Cohen, now Thomas professor for the history of science emeritus, started to teach at Harvard... These books document the explosion of novelties in the Comp Lab at a time when almost nothing was known about computing, and have done us a great service by preserving, fondly but dispassionately and exhaustively, the memory of Aiken and those who worked with him." -- Harry R. Lewis, Harvard Magazine, May/June 1999

About the Author

I. Bernard Cohen is the Victor S. Thomas Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at Harvard University. Gregory W. Welch, the former Director of Exhibits at the Computer Museum in Boston, works in marketing at the Intel Corporation.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (June 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262032635
• ISBN-13: 978-0262032636
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,832,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely delightful!, May 8, 2000

By 

Alex Carter (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing) (Hardcover)

This is just a SUPER book! There are great photos of Mks I, II, III, and IV and of their componants, great material on Aiken, and this book imparts a lot of the feeling of the time. You get the feeling that if you were there, in Aiken's shoes, you'd have done things the same way - there were reasons for the use of relays as basic computing elements for instance. There's a great chapter by Grace Hopper, "Why The Mark I Is My Favorite Computer" and chapters on construction, programing, and so on. The book makes clear that Aiken was a man who believed in rolling up his sleeves and building a working machine that could be used, rather than, like Charles Babbage, just dreaming and never getting anything built. This made all the difference in the world; keep in mind that Babbage was the last person to try building a large general purpose calculator, and his failure kept the whole field in stasis for close to a hundred years. Aiken had a score to settle, and he settled it all right.