E-Book Overview
This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers.An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why "being first" is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today's machines.
E-Book Content
History of Computing I. Bernard Cohen and William Aspray, editors Editorial Board: Bernard Galler, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; J. A. N. Lee, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia; Arthur Norberg, Charles Babbage Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Brian Randell, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne; Henry Tropp, Humboldt State College, Arcata, California; Michael Williams, University of Calgary, Alberta; Heinz Zemanek, Vienna Memories That Shaped an Industry, Emerson W. Pugh, 1984 The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware, and the Software, R. Moreau, 1984 Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer, Maurice V. Wilkes, 1985 Ada: A Life and Legacy, Dorothy Stein, 1985 IBM's Early Computers, Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, and