This book tells the story of the birth of the computing industry via the origins of 25 influential computers built between 1939 and 1973. Starting with a short, sharp history of how we got to where we were on the eve of the second world war, this book illuminates humanity's desire for calculation aids throughout history, and how that led to the ready reckoner, Napier's bones, Pascal's calculator, the difference engine, the analytical engine, the comptometer and Herman Hollerieth's electronic tabulating machine.
This book is a world tour through the modern history of computing, and it begins in 1939 with the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff-Berry computer (ABC). The story of computing in World War II takes us through Germany, UK, and the US, and right after that, you'll follow the rapid growth of computing power in the post-war years.
The years of "big iron" in the US, UK, and the Soviet Union take us through the next couple of decades, before we enter the minicomputer era with DEC and Wang systems, and come right up to the crucial link between the minicomputer era of the late 1960s and 1970s and the personal computer era of the 1980s: the Xerox Alto.
