History of Computing
Steve Maurer, UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy
Geoff Voelker, UCSD Computer Science & Engineering
References
This is a good time to teach (or take) this course - many good
histories have been written in the last five years or so. Here is a selection to get you started:
One-Volume Histories:
A History of Modern Computing
Ceruzzi, Paul E.
Course text.
Computer: a history of the information machine
Author: Campbell-Kelly, Martin.
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .C36 2004; MOFF: QA76.17 .C36 2004
Scholarly.
Written in a somewhat more entertaining style and relatively short. A good second book after Ceruzzi. A good source for computers in the 1940s and
1950s; origins of software; and history of PCs.
Computers: the life story of a technology
Author: Swedin, Eric Gottfrid.
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .S94 2005
The Making of the Micro
Author: Christopher Evans
Published: London, Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1981
Location(s): QA 76 .17 E92 Math
An old picture book, intelligent text but very
short. Emphasizes period from Babbage to
the transistor. Excellent thumbnail
histories of the major players and detailed information about how their
machines actually worked.
From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software
Industry
Authors: Martin Campbell-Kelly
ISBN: 0262033038
Publication Date:
Genre: Business
Publisher: The MIT Press
Portraits in Silicon
Robert Slater
MIT Press:
Good, if short histories of Babbage, Turing, won
Neumann, Shannon, Zuse, Atanasoff,
Mauchly/Eckert, Aiken, Forrester (core memory), Watson Sr. (IBM), Norris (CDC),
Shockley (transistor), Noyce and Kilby
(ICs), Amdahl, Cray, Bell, Hopper (COBOL), Gates, Bushnell, Jobs, and plenty of
others. Dated now, but so what?
Building IBM: Shaping and Industry and Its Technology
Emerson Pugh
MIT Press:
Locations: ENGI: HD 9696 C64 I4867 1995
Condensed, one-volume version ground covered in IBM's Early Computers and IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems. Maybe too condensed: Dozens of personalities,
technologies and machines come and go, usually without much explanation. On the other hand, you know where to find the
full story, right?
Pre-1940:
The universal computer: the road from Leibniz to Turing
Author: Davis, Martin.
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .D38 2000; MAIN: QA76.17 .D38 2000; MOFF: QA76.17
.D38 2000
Really more of a popular math book than a history of
computing. An entertaining read, but
pretty tangential for our purposes.
Herman Hollerith, forgotten giant of information processing
Author: Austrian, Geoffrey.
Published:
Location(s):
A dense book, not particularly organized or
well-written. A good source for
Hollerith's life and times, but if you are interested in economics/technology
history you will probably do better to read several one-chapter histories from
more general works.
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the
Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers
Authors: Tom Standage
ISBN: 0425171698
Publication Date:
Genre: History
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Popular history of how the telegraph transformed
society. An interesting way to look at
the Web: Do the two institutions have similar cause-and-effect? A good if slightly more tangential companion
read would be Linda Simon, Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph
to the X-Ray (Harcourt 2004).
Pioneers of Computing
Gareth Ashurst
Frederick Muller:
Math: QA 76 .2 A2 A8 1983
Short, readable biographies of Napier, Pascal,
Leibnitz, Jacquard, Hollerith, Bush, Mauchly/Eckert, Zuse,
Turing and von Neumann. Semi-popular but
very well researched.
The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth Century Chess Playing
Machine
Tom Standage
Another fun one from that "Victorian
Internet" guy. This one is about
the alleged chess-playing machine that Edgar Allen Poe wrote about. Basically for fun, but the book does contain
good information about the history of early automata and their influence on
Babbage.
1940s and 1950s:
ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer
Author: Scott McCartney
Published: Walker and Company:
Popular history of inventors of ENIAC, their attempts
to commercialize their invention, and related patent fights. A short book but well-researched and
informative.
Who invented the computer? : the legal battle that changed computing history
Author: Burks, Alice R., 1920-
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .B87 2003; BUSI: QA76.17 .B87 2003
IBM's Early Computers
Authors: Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, Emerson
W. Pugh, John H. Palmer
ISBN: 0262022257
Publication Date:
Genre: Computer Books: General
Publisher: The MIT Press
The definitive history of IBM between the end of the
World War II and the S/360. Excellent,
if technical, history of how IBM built the suite of new technologies needed to
make the successful business computers of the 1960s. Business history is also well represented, if
less convincing. A massive and often dry
book, but very useful. Also contains
extensive background on pre-War history.
The Analogue Alternative: The Electronic Analogue Computer in
Author: James S. Small
Routledge:
ENGI: QA 76 .17 S55 2001
Detailed history of analog machines from Vannevar
Bush's day into the mid-1970s. A
sideshow for our course, but a possible paper topic. What does this industry say about the
dynamics of industries based on "ordinary," digital machines.
Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert-Mauchly
Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Ran, 1946-1957
Author: Arthur L. Norberg
MIT Press:
Business: QA 76 .5 N665 2005.
Very detailed, scholarly case study of IBM's rivals in
the immediate postwar. A dense read on a
very narrow topic. Useful for students
interested in studying the business history leading to IBM's dominance and the
world as we know it.
Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology
Author: Howard Rheingold
MIT Press,
Breezy popular history. Includes chapters on Babbage, von Neumann,
Project MAC, ARPA and ARPANET, Atari and the Web.
Turing and the universal machine: the making of the modern computer
Author: Agar, Jon.
Published:
Location(s):
The First Computers: Histories and Architectures
Raul Rojas and Ulf Hashagen
A scholarly proceedings volume - short, dry articles
of variable quality focusing on narrow and somewhat arbitrary topics. The main focus is technical. A useful reference for technical details
about how Atanasoff-Berry, Harvard Mark I, ENIAC, Zuse, Colossus and various other early machines
worked. A bad place to start, though. Get the wider context - both technical and
non-technical -- somewhere else.
The Computer Pioneers
David Ritchie
Simon & Schuster:
Math: QA 76 .17 R581 1986
Short, popular history of computers from Aiken to
Whirlwind, organized by personalities.
1960s:
IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems
Authors: Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer
Published: MIT Press,
Locations: ENGI: QA 76 .8 I12 P84 1991
Continues the definitive history of IBM into the S/360
era. Excellent, if technical,
history. Business history is also well
represented, if less convincing. A
massive and often dry book, but very useful.
Also contains extensive background on pre-1960s technology programs.
Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to
Microprocessors
Authors: Joel N. Shurkin, Joel Shurkin
ISBN: 0393314715
Publication Date:
Genre: Computer Bks - General Information
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Chapter length descriptions of Babbage, Hollerith, Atanasoff, Eckert/Mauchly, von Neumann, UNIVAC. Mostly 1940 - 1960.
Minicomputers:
DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC
Ed Schein
Digital at Work: Snapshots of the 1st 35 Years
Authors: Jamie P. Pearson
ISBN: 1555580920
Publication Date:
Genre: Business / Economics / Finance
Publisher: Digital Press
PCs and Macs:
A history of the personal computer: the people and the technology
Author: Allan, Roy A., 1931-
Published:
Location(s):
Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, coevolution,
and the origins of personal computing
Author: Bardini, Thierry.
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .B37 2000; BUSI: QA76.17 .B37 2000
Remembering the future: interviews from personal computer world
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .R45 1997
Workstations:
A History of personal workstations
Published:
Location(s): MATH: QA76.17 .H571 1988
A History of scientific computing
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .H59 1990
(D)ARPA:
The dream machine: J. C. Licklider and the revolution
that made computing personal
Author: Waldrop, M. Mitchell.
Published:
Location(s): ENGI: QA76.17 .W35 2001; MOFF: QA76.17 .W35 2001
Popular but well-researched history of DARPA and
cutting-edge academic ideas (networks, time-sharing) of the 1950s and
1960s. Well-written but long; dip into
what interests you if this seems daunting.
Transforming Computer Technologies
Arthur Norberg and Judy O'Neill
Johns
Locations:
Detailed, scholarly case study based on inside access
to Pentagon records. Provides plenty of
history to think about. Written in a
dry, scholarly style that stresses organizational history. As a result, it sometimes shortchanges
technology and usually shortchanges economic factors. An important book on a short bookshelf.
UNIX
A Quarter Century of UNIX
Authors: Peter H. Salus
ISBN: 0201547775
Publication Date: May 31, 1994
Genre: Computer Bks - Operating Systems
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Xerox PARC
Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
Michael A. Hiltzik
2000
Integrated Circuits
The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution
TR Reid
Random House:
Combines biography, non-technical description of chip
technology, and business history to the mid-1980s. Re-issue of a 1985 book; marred by Reagan-era
bumper sticker-level discussions of "competitiveness."
Weaving The Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web
Tim Berners Lee
Harper Business: 2000
Entertaining and an invaluable first-hand memoir. Read this the way a social scientist
would. Berners-Lee's theories about why
things happened - the Web is like a human brain - are so screwy that even he
probably doesn't believe them. Mine the
book for facts and build your own
theory. How did the Web grow from one
guy's idea to a worldwide deal?
Software
Go To: The story of the math majors,
bridge players, engineers, chess wizards, maverick scientists and iconclasts - the programmers who created the software
revolution
Steve Lohr
Basic Books (Perseus), 2001
Lohr is a very sharp NY Times technology writer.
Personalities
Out Of Their
Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15
Great Computer Scientists
Dennis Shasha andCathy Lazere
Copernicus, 1995