July 1, 1996
Computer whizzes and novices alike will find a wealth of new information and insights in this colorful, engrossing history of computers. The authors trace an unbroken line from the typewriters, adding and record-keeping machines of 1890s America to today's business-oriented computers. They tell how English mathematician Charles Babbage's failed dream of building his "Analytical Engine," a full-scale calculator, in the 1830s was realized a century later when IBM built the first fully automatic computing machine at Harvard University. Next came ENIAC, a behemoth with 18,000 vacuum tubes, and its successor, EDVAC, both developed at the University of Pennsylvania. EDVAC, built under the tutelage of cybernetics pioneer John von Neumann, became the blueprint for the modern electronic computer. The book closes with a selective look at innovations such as real-time systems, e-mail, programming languages, software, time-sharing computers and the World Wide Web. Campbell-Kelly is a lecturer in computer science in England; Aspray is executive director of the Computing Research Association in Washington, D.C.