Product Description

By the 1960s, IBM had beaten all rivals and dominated the world computer market. But IBM came late to the race. From the 1930s to the 1960s, small, independent teams on four continents worked on the development of the first modern computers. From interviews with surviving members of those original teams, the author builds up a picture of the eccentric men and women who laid the foundations for the computerised world we now live in, recreating the atmosphere of those early days. Some of the early projects, such as "LEO", the Lyons Electronic Office, developed by the catering company J Lyons and Co in London in the 1940s, are now famous, others, such as the RAND 409, constructed in a barn in Connecticut under the watchful eye of a stuffed moose, almost unknown. This fascinating and engaging book describes these and other projects that came and went in the years before IBM ruled the world, including the Phillips Hydraulic Economics Computer, or MONIAC, which perfectly demonstrated the workings of the economy by way of coloured water flowing through plastic tubes and the UNIVAC, which became a household name when, live on television, it correctly predicted the results of the 1952 US presidential election.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159933 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
"* 'Contains completely new information that will delight and thrill historians of IT...a surprise hit that will interest almost everyone' Focus Magazine * 'Well researched and a rattling good read, it is terrific value' New Scientist * 'Hally's researches took him all over the world for what is clearly not just a vitally important piece of scientific (and oral) history but a fascinating story in its own right' The Scotsman * 'It will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the dawn of the digital age' The Independent"

Focus Magazine
'Contains completely new information that will delight and thrill...a surprise hit that will interest almost everyone'

Livejournal.com
‘An interesting snapshot of the dawn of the information age’

Customer Reviews

Dawn of an era
This is the exciting history of the birth of computing. When a new field of knowledge opens up new possibilities, anything can happen---water computers, tea shops at the cutting edge of technology and, as often happens with technology, parallel development in separate parts of the word; Britain, the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and (a suprise to me) Australia.

This account is full of suprises about the earliest electronic computing machines, with colourful accounts of the pioneers in the field do amazing things that no-one had previously even thought of. A golden age of innovation, both technically and commercially with visionary business executives seeing the potential for the new technology---for example, Lyon's tea shops.

It is a fascinating history, which Mike Hally appears to relish. He avoids technical details of these early computers, but blends in enough information to appreciate the difficulties faced by the engineers who were, effectively, inventing the modern world. He also tackles the more controversial subject of priority of invention, which still rages today, without passing judgements but sticking to the facts.

It is hard to know what it must have been like in those exciting times, but Mike Hally captures a flavour of it in the interviews with some of those involved with these early machines, and one wonders if such a revolutionary step could ever now be taken in quite the same way.

A book not just for the student of computing history, but an accessible history of pioneering, vision and invention.

Interesting but disjointed
Lots of good stories from the early days of computing but by dealing with a single country at a time it feels like a set of individual essays rather than a complete overall review