A computer perspective : background to the computer age
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A computer perspective : background to the computer age
Harvard University Press, 1990
New ed. / introduction by I. Bernard Cohen ; epilogue by Brian Randell
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Note
A reprint of the original edition, edited by Glen Fleck, which was based on an exhibition conceived and assembled for International Business Machine Corp.; with a new introduction and epilogue
Includes bibliographical references (p. 174) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A Computer Perspective is an illustrated essay on the origins and first lines of development of the computer. The complex network of creative forces and social pressures that have produced the computer is personified here in the creators of instruments of computation, and their machines or tables; the inventors of mathematical or logical concepts and their applications; and the fabricators of practical devices to serve the immediate needs of government, commerce, engineering, and science.
The book is based on an exhibition conceived and assembled for International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. Like the exhibition, it is not a history in the narrow sense of a chronology of concepts and devices. Yet these pages actually display more true history (in relation to the computer) than many more conventional presentations of the development of science and technology.
Table of Contents
Introduction Prologue Charles Babbage Calculating Machines Statistical Machines Logical Automata 1890s The 1890 Census. First Russian Census. Galton: The Measure of Man. Finger Prints. John Gore at the Prudential. Marquand's Logic Machine. Pastore: Logic on Wheels. Mental Calculation. Leon Bollee. The "Millionaire". The Comptometer and the Burroughs. Calculation by Measurement 1900s The Dynamo and the Virgin. Moxon's Master. Alfred Binet: The Scale of Intelligence. Punch Cards for Commerce. Statistical Fallout. Taylorization. The Copper Man. Astronomical Calculations. Bjerknes' Weather Mechanics 1910s Gyroscopic Guidance. Maintaining an Attitude. Assembly Lines. Torres' Theory of Automata. Torres' Algebraic Machines. The Great Brass Brain. Pearson's Battle for Biometrics. Power's Printing Tabulator. Facts and Government. Un-uniform Soldiers. Aberdeen. Weather Forecast-Factory 1920s Bush's Profile Tracer. The Product Integraph. L.J. Comrie and Scientific Calculation. Corn and Correlation. Thomas J. Watson Sr. and the Business of Machines. Ben Wood and Educational Measurement. Planning the Five Year Plans. Minorsky and Metal Mike. Homeostasis 1930s Dark Visions of Machines. Some Machine Utopias. Robots. Servomechanisms. Social Security. Hooten: The American Criminal. America Speaks. Leontief and Input-Output. Eckert's "Mechanical Programmer". The Bush Differential Analyzer. Meccano. Zuse. The Switch to Base Two. Aiken and the A.S.C.C.. The Universal Turing Machine 1940s Self-regulating Systems. ENIAC at the Moore School. Ballistics. The First Programmers. The von Neumann Concept. The Weather Group. The "Analytical Engine". Operations Research. Information Processing. Cryptography. Cybernetics. Simulation in Real Time. The Computer Epilogue Exhibition Credits Acknowledgments Index Readings
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