Tools for Thought dives into the history of computing and specifically the history of technology that augments human thinking from the perspective of a few influential people. The book is ordered chronologically starting with Babbage and Boole and ending with people the author guessed would become very influential like Ted Nelson and Avron Barr. Each chapter covers one person and their contribution to the history of computing.
The book consists of "three generations". The first generation are the people influential and building the first computers. This starts with Charles Babbage who build the analytical engine--the first computer (though he never got it working). George Bool who's boolean algebra and Alan Turing who's mathematics formed the basis of the first digital computers. John von Neumann then actually build the first digital computer. Then Norbert Wiener who invented cybernetics and Claude Shannon who created the information.
The second generation are the people who were influential to creating the ARPANet and the first personal computer. Starting with Licklider who was the first ARPA director and funded many of the important projects that lead to technological breakthroughs. He was later followed up by Bob Taylor who lead the development of ARPANet. The first hosts were at MIT were the MIT hackers were creating timesharing machines (strongly influenced by McCarthy who invented AI and list), Another host was Dough Engelbert's lab at Stanford where he research augmentation and developed the mouse. Another host was University of Utah where most of the important research related to computer graphics was happening. Bob Taylor later left to lead the Xerox PARC lab where he collected the smartest people at that time who there created inventions such as the personal computer, the laser printer, and ethernet. Alan Kay was working also in PARC Lab and worked on the Alto and created the Smalltalk programming language.
The third generation were people who the author thought would become influential. At this moment, their influence has not been as strong as the first or second generation, but who knows. The three people he mentions are Brenda Laurel who was leading a research group at Atari related to human computer interfaces, Avlon Barr who was developing expert systems and Ted Nelson who was developing Xanadu which was some kind of a hypertext, versioned document management system. The book ends with an afterword in which the author reflects on the last three people after 20 years and explains where they ended up.
Tools for Thought is well written, engaging and fun to read. Looking at the history of "mind-expanding technology" from the different individuals perspective gives and interesting view on history and also makes quite clear how all people were related and how they build on each others work. Definitively recommended reading for anyone who is interested in computer history especially when you are looking for something that is easy to read.
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