Computers - History

Way back in the last century, back in the 1960s, computers were mammoth mysterious machines. They were immensely expensive yet became essential to daily business operations. Yet, no one ever saw them. Security dictated they be hidden away. Only the computer operators were allowed...

Since its debut in 1994 as the first comprehensive book about videogame history, Phoenix has been regarded worldwide as the Bible of videogame history by professionals and fans alike. Now in its fourth edition, the text has been completely rewritten and updated to include...

The ThinkPad notebook computer has been at the center of the digital revolution that has transformed millions of lives around the world, allowing users to obtain access to their documents, pictures and other personal data from virtually anywhere at any time. More than 100...

This book explores the history of hypertext, an influential concept that forms the underlying structure of the World Wide Web and innumerable software applications. Barnet combines an analysis of contemporary literature with her exclusive interviews with those at the forefront of the hypertext innovation....

Contrary to what many believe, Alan Turing is not the father of the all-purpose computer. Engineers were, independently of Turing, already building such machines during World War II. Turing's influence was felt more in programming after his death than in computer building during his...

Created in 1946 as part of a 1,000 page Report on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), this ENIAC Operating Manual provides a fascinating glimpse into the technology behind the world's first electronic, general-purpose computer. Designed and built during WWII at the University...

Electronic Value Exchange examines in detail the transformation of the VISA electronic payment system from a collection of non-integrated, localized, paper-based bank credit card programs into the cooperative, global, electronic value exchange network it is today. Topics and features: provides a history of the...

We live in a moment of high anxiety around digital transformation. Computers are blamed for generating toxic forms of culture and ways of life. Once part of future imaginaries that were optimistic or even utopian, today there is a sense that things have turned...

'In a short life he accomplished much, and to the roll of great names in the history of his particular studies added his own.' So is described one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century, yet Alan Turing's name was not widely recognised...

This book tells the unlikely story of a shy farm boy who hated school but ended up working more than 25 years for one of the world's most successful companies of the 20th century. It is a candid collection of recollections, more than 25...

This book takes the reader through the design and implementation of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum's custom chip, revealing for the first time the decisions behind its design and its hidden secrets. By using it as case study, the techniques required to design an 8-bit...

Momentous developments in the global economy over the last two decades have dramatically increased the availability of industrial investment sites and lowered the cost of relocating core activities to new countries. But how should these developments be exploited for competitive advantage? Firms face competing...

Today, we associate the relationship between feedback, control, and computing with Norbert Wiener's 1948 formulation of cybernetics. But the theoretical and practical foundations for cybernetics, control engineering, and digital computing were laid earlier, between the two world wars. In Between Human and Machine: Feedback,...

Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse details the remarkable uses for quantum computing in code breaking, for quantum computers will be able to crack many of the leading methods of protecting secret information, while offering new unbreakable codes. Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse is a...

Ob Sie ihn nun lieben oder hassen - Bill Gates hat ganz allein die technologische Zukunft des 21. Jahrhunderts gepr臠t. "Bill Gates Speaks" dokumentiert Leben und Ambitionen einer weltweit einzigartigen F?rungsperlichkeit, und zwar sowohl aus unternehmensbezogener als auch aus kultureller Sicht. Dies ist das...

Today's digital culture traces its roots to the 1980s, when the first computer generation came of age. These original techno-kids grew up with home-brew programs, secret computer access codes, and arcades where dedicated video gamers fought to extend their play by earning "extra life."...

When John Mauchly and Presper Eckert developed the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II, their intention was to aid artillerymen in aiming their guns. Since then, in the past fifty years, ENIAC and its offspring...

The 15 scientists whose work is profiled in the book have each made significant contributions to a part of the creation of modern computer science. Some are well-known: Donald Knuth, Alan Kay, Danny Hillis; others are not, although all of their contributions have been...

Who Are The Cypherpunks? This is the unauthorized telling of the revolutionary cryptography story behind the motion picture The Fifth Estate in theatres this October, and We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, a documentary out now. WikiLeaks brought to light a new form...

First published in 1984, this user-friendly guide to the Commodore 64 helped many owners of the much-loved home computer understand their machine to a whole new level. The details within the book enabled users to take their first steps in programming machine code even...

The fascinating inside story of how the Android operating system came to be. In 2004, Android was two people who wanted to build camera software but couldn't get investors interested. Today, Android is a large team at Google, delivering an operating system (including camera...

Mechanology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the study of machines and can be described as a protologism for a social science discipline concerned with the analysis and classification of technological artifacts. In general, Mechanology recognizes the four distinct types of machine...

Automating Linguistics offers an in-depth study of the history of the mathematisation and automation of the sciences of language. In the wake of the first mathematisation of the 1930s, two waves followed: machine translation in the 1950s and the development of computational linguistics and...

When viewed through a political lens, the act of defining terms in natural language arguably transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate, military, academic, and professional values shaped efforts to define computer terminology and establish an information engineering profession as a...

The ZX80 home computer was launched in 1980 by the then still-to-be-knighted home computer mogul Clive Sinclair. Available in kit form at 79.99 for the aspiring hobbyist or pre-built at a price of 99.99 the ground-breaking machine offered home computing for the kind of...

The SAM Coupé was an 8-bit British home computer first released in late 1989. Designed to offer backwards compatibility with the ZX Spectrum, it was marketed as a logical upgrade for owners of the much-loved range of Sinclair machines. Originally manufactured by Miles Gordon...

The crypto wars have raged for half a century. In the 1970s, digital privacy activists prophesied the emergence of an Orwellian State, made possible by computer-mediated mass surveillance. The antidote: digital encryption. The U.S. government warned encryption would not only prevent surveillance of law-abiding...

Code Nation explores the rise of software development as a social, cultural, and technical phenomenon in American history. The movement germinated in government and university labs during the 1950s, gained momentum through corporate and counterculture experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, and became a...

Despite widespread consensus that China's digital revolution was sure to bring about massive democratic reforms, such changes have not come to pass. While scholars and policy makers alternate between predicting change and disparaging a stubbornly authoritarian regime, in this book Shaohua Guo demonstrates how...

Donald E. Knuth lived two separate lives in the late 1950s. During daylight he ran down the visible and respectable lane of mathematics. During nighttime, he trod the unpaved road of computer programming and compiler writing. Both roads intersected -- as Knuth discovered while...

This organizational history relates the role of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the development of modern computing. Drawing upon new and existing oral histories, extensive use of NSF documents, and the experience of two of the authors as senior managers, this book describes...

This book addresses the application of computing to cultural heritage and the discipline of Digital Humanities that formed around it. Digital Humanities research is transforming how the Human record can be transmitted, shaped, understood, questioned and imagined and it has been ongoing for more...

Ada's Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, thinkers, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume, which commemorates the bicentennial of Ada's birth in December 1815, celebrates Lovelace's many achievements as well as the...

OpenStreetMap is the free and open wiki map of the world made by millions of volunteers who re just like you. Contributors use paper, pens, GPS devices, phones and laptops to capture the world around them (like a street name and location) and then...

The first of its kind, Journey to the Moon details the history and design of the computer that enabled U.S. astronauts to land on the moon. The book recalls the history of computer technology, both hardware and software, and the applications of digital computing...

Launched at the peak of the legendary 1980s microcomputer rivalry, the Jupiter ACE was the most intriguing machine of them all, marketed by Jupiter Cantab. This company was founded by Richard Altwasser and Stephen Vickers - the key hardware and software designers for the...

This volume is the last of four volumes. Volume I describes the history and construction of BASIC; Volume II describes the computerisation of non-parametric statistical tests and some other statistical measures in BASIC and Volume III describes the programming of matrices and polynomials in...

Since the first computer games became available, sex has played a role in some form. But with the release of games like Playboy(R) The Mansion(TM), Leisure Suit Larry(TM) and The Singles, sexual content has gained a firm foothold and, for the first time, ventured...

The Web has been with us now for almost 25 years. An integral part of our social, cultural and political lives, 'new media' is simply not that new anymore. Despite the rapidly expanding archives of information at our disposal, and the recent growth of...

On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders is an absorbing chronicle of the inventive, individualistic, and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free. Michael A. Banks describes how the online population created a new culture...

Much has been written about the battles that rage between software companies over market share. FoxTales is the story of one such battle, told from the perspective of a foot soldier. My perspective. When I started with Fox Software, it was a company of...

In addition to covering a history of free and open source, The Daemon, the Gnu, and the Penguin explores how free and open software is changing the world. It is authored by Peter H. Salus, a noted UNIX, open source, and Internet historian and...

Ever wonder how computer games get developed? How computer solitaire was born? How things get done in the consumer software industry? Lucky That Way by Brad Fregger is a rare, inside look at the stories behind the creation of some of the most successful...

Join retrothing.com author James Grahame as he introduces you to some dazzling devices from years past. You'll encounter hundreds of vintage and neo-retro cameras, audio components, televisions, computers, video games, vehicles, toys, electronic musical instruments and mechanical gadgets. This is a fantastic opportunity to...

Shaken by the dramatic inroads made by Japanese competitors into high-tech electronics, a number of US electronic firms joined forces in 1982 to form the first US for-profit research consortium: MCC (Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp.). This book describes MCC's formation and the problems...

What has made Silicon Valley so productive of new technologies and new firms? How did its pioneering achievements begin--in computer networking, semiconductors, personal computing, and the Internet--and what forces have propelled its unprecedented growth? This collection of nine chapters by contributors from varied disciplines--business,...

Bootstrapping analyzes the genesis of personal computing from both technological and social perspectives, through a close study of the pathbreaking work of one researcher, Douglas Engelbart. In his lab at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s, Engelbart, along with a small team of...

Since its creation during the Cold War, the Internet, together with the Web, personal computers, tablets and smartphones, has ushered in one of the greatest shifts in society since the Industrial Revolution. The Digital Revolution has contributed to the world in many positive ways,...

Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success? Drawing on...

Computer technology is pervasive in the modern world, its role ever more important as it becomes embedded in a myriad of physical systems and disciplinary ways of thinking. The late Michael Sean Mahoney was a pioneer scholar of the history of computing, one of...