Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer

by I. Bernard Cohen

Howard Hathaway Aiken (1900-1973) was a major figure of the early digital era. He isbest known for his first machine, the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or Harvard MarkI, conceived in 1937 and put into operation in 1944. But he also made significant contributions tothe development of applications for the new machines and to the creation of a university curriculumfor computer science.This biography of Aiken, by a major historian of science who was also acolleague of Aiken's at Harvard, offers a clear and often entertaining introduction to Aiken and histimes. Aiken's Mark I was the most intensely used of the early large-scale, general-purposeautomatic digital computers, and it had a significant impact on the machines that followed. Aikenalso proselytized for the computer among scientists, scholars, and businesspeople and explored novelapplications in data processing, automatic billing, and production control. But his most lastingcontribution may have been the students who received degrees under him and then took prominentpositions in academia and industry. I. Bernard Cohen argues convincingly for Aiken's significance asa shaper of the computer world in which we now live.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

412 pages, Hardcover

First published June 8, 1999

Reviews

[Raj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Howard Aiken developed one of the first world's first computers, although since machines like the Colossus became known, his Mark I is no longer regarded as the first computer. I'm not sure that it would count anyway, since it wasn't electronic and didn't have any stored program capability. I must say that I struggled with this book. The history of the Mark I was interesting, but I found the book quite dry and academic, and Aiken's personality irritating -- he had a tendency to be very hard and arrogant at times. He was also important for starting one of the very first computing degree programmes in the world as well, at Harvard.