The First Computers--History and Architectures (History of Computing)

This book resulted from papers presented at the International Conference on the History of Computing in Paderborn, Germany, in August 1998. It is notable for containing first-hand or nearly first-hand accounts of developments in America, England and Germany in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.The first part of the book, unfortunately, could put the reader to sleep and result in even a serious student of the subject never reaching "the good stuff." But once I hit Harry Huskey's paper on page 69, I realized that I was seeing first hand reports with details not previously published. Details on both the Eniac and the IAS computer at Princeton filled a lot of gaps in my knowledge.The parts of the book dealing with both British and German development shed a lot of light on important developments that are frequently omitted or only superficially covered in many works.If you have some knowledge of vacuum tube electronics and early computer technology, most of the book will be easily understood. In other words, it's good for old-timers.Highly recommended!

This is a series of papers stitched into a book, and without exception they are all well written, provide lots of technical detail, and are a joy to read. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in the history of computing machinery and electronics. The only thing lacking is a story line or a plot - many books will detail the genius of a specific person or technical team (e.g. Seymour Cray, or the Macintosh developers), then take you through each phase of the development and success (or failure) of one or more products. This book, by contrast, is focused on the technical nitty-gritty, and the personalities and financial success/failure of the business is generally ignored.

This book is a collection of papers of varying quality.Generally, it is very interesting, and technically in-depth.Unfortunately, some of the papers are not very well written, while others are really good. Writing skill, detail level, and the qualtiy of the illustrations obviously varies a lot between papers. While the coverage is neatly divided between different countries, the writing style of the contained papers is so varied that it isnt really possible to compare themI would have preferred an edited book, based on the work of these papers, but delivered in a consistent style, and at a consistent level of detail. This is not that book.

I have read and reread this book. I grew up in the age of the modern computer and this book puts some things together. Any electrical or computer engineer would like this book.

Another great read on the technical history of computing. A nice mix of technical papers by the people who lived through the period and those dedicated to bringing to life the details about these early machines.

great

This book is very technical, which is exactly what I was looking for. It is filled with architectual diagrams, opcodes, and even code fragments from the earliest computers. Some of these machines even predate World War 2.The book opens with discussions on the taxonomy of these primordial computers. This section is the weakest part of the book. External references are mentioned, when they should have been described in detail. Another typical problem is on page 8, where a family tree is printed in a micro-fiche font.The remainder of the book is divided into sections for the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. This is the bulk of the text, and the reason why you would want to buy it. I must stress again, that the articles are extremely technical. They will be hard to follow without a background in digital design, some knowledge of system architecture, and maybe some assembly. But for those who can appreciate it, it is absolutely fascinating.This is my favorite book that none of my friends would appreciate!

Being a collection of papers of different authors the quality of writing does vary a lot. Regarding the covered topics it's a true eye-opener about worldwide development beside the usually cited examples. It shows in detail that development was neither a singular line, nor confined to a country, company or team. And especially not as staright as it seams in hindsight.A must read for anyone interesting to peek over the fence of mainstream history and/or keen to learn details.