Computing
Subtitle: a concise history
By: Paul E. Ceruzzi
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 199
ISBN-13: 9780262517676
Subjects: Computer science; History
Description: The history of computing could be told as the story of hardware and software, or the story of the Internet, or the story of "smart" hand-held devices, with subplots involving IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Twitter. In this account of the invention and development of digital technology, the author, a computer historian offers a broader and more useful perspective. He identifies four major threads running throughout all of computing's technological development: digitization, the coding of information, computation, and control in binary form, ones and zeros; the convergence of multiple streams of techniques, devices and machines, yielding more than the sum of their parts; the steady advance of electronic technology, as characterized famously by "Moore's Law"; and the human-machine interface. He guides us through computing history, telling how a Bell Labs mathematician coined the word "digital" in 1942 (to describe a high-speed method of calculating used in anti-aircraft devices), and recounting the development of the punch card (for use in the 1890 U.S. Census). He describes the ENIAC, built for scientific and military applications; the UNIVAC, the first general purpose computer; and ARPANET, the Internet's precursor. His account traces the world-changing evolution of the computer from a room-size ensemble of machinery to a "minicomputer" to a desktop computer to a pocket-sized smart phone. He describes the development of the silicon chip, which could store ever-increasing amounts of data and enabled ever-decreasing device size. He visits that hotbed of innovation, Silicon Valley, and brings the story up to the present with the Internet, the World Wide Web, and social networking.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Series Foreword
pagenum: vii; title: Introduction
pagenum: ix; label: 1
title: The Digital Age
pagenum: 1; label: 2
title: The First Computers, 1935-1945
pagenum: 23; label: 3
title: The Stored Program Principle
pagenum: 49; label: 4
title: The Chip and Silicon Valley
pagenum: 81; label: 5
title: The Microprocessor
pagenum: 99; label: 6
title: The Internet and the World Wide Web
pagenum: 121; label: 7
title: Conclusion
pagenum: 155; title: Notes
pagenum: 161; title: Glossary
pagenum: 169; title: Further Reading
pagenum: 177; title: Bibliography
pagenum: 181; title: Index
pagenum: 191