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A History of Modern Computing

(History of Computing)

Paul E. Ceruzzi

3.95 · Rating details · 150 ratings · 9 reviews

From the first digital computer to the dot-com crash - a story of individuals, institutions, and the forces that led to a series of dramatic transformations.

This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five key moments of transition: the transformation of ...more

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Paperback, 459 pages

Published April 8th 2003 by Mit Press (first published October 12th 1998)

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May 03, 2012 Marcio rated it it was amazing

An incredibly thorough review of computing history, it's amazing how much of today's technology is a derivative of yesterday's work. Technology is constantly improving upon itself, and it's so much easier to understand the present when we know its past. Definitely recommend to anybody who wants to understand how it all got started.

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Jan 17, 2013 Alain van Hoof rated it really liked it

Shelves: computing-history

There is a second Edition, I read the first. Apart from a lot of facts about the systems from 1950 and up, also the commercial success of the system is discussed. Interesting read.

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Feb 27, 2009 Sean Power rated it it was amazing

this book holds the best roundup of computer history i've ever read. it is excellent for reference material. highly recommended.

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Nov 10, 2019 Charlie Harrington rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

A must-read for anyone who’s ever had a glimmer of nostalgia for a computer from their childhood, no matter if an IBM PC-clone, an Apple II, a Commodore VIC-20, or an Altair kit, and wondered where those magical devices came from. Is the computer a means of freedom or control? You’ll explore this theme throughout the book, beginning with modern computing’s punch-card origins in WW2 through IBM’s dominance in mainframes to the mini-computer and personal computer eras - leaving off just as the ...more

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May 17, 2019 Mike rated it really liked it

An interesting and concise review of the history of computers from the 1940s through 2001. While I already knew much of this history what sets this apart is the author's approach to putting so many innovations in context, focusing not only on the technical but on the social and commercial forces which drove them (and which are sometimes overshadowed or ignored in histories which focus purely on technical leaps forward). While it's hard to really go in-depth into any particular topic here, the ...more

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Mar 08, 2017 Greenkey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: storia, saggistica, informatica

Un libro che tratta, in modo abbastanza imparziale, della storia dell'informatica, dalle origini ai giorni nostri.
Se non fosse che l'argomento mi interessa lo avrei già scagliato fuori dalla finestra perchè non riesce minimamente a invogliarmi nella lettura.
Fondamentalmente consiste in una serie di nomi e date mischiate poco abilmente in una serie di frasi con apparente senso del continuo.

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Jun 11, 2014 Randall Wood rated it really liked it

My knowledge of computing begins in about 1978 with the Commodore PET and goes through the early Macintoshes to Unix/Linux today. But I have always been so curious about the early years - the REALLY early years, and in particular the years in which computer technologies advanced outside of the world of personal/desktop computers - big iron, mainframes, minicomputers, supercomputers. Understanding what happened from the 1950s to the 1980s was why I bought this book, and it was absolutely worth My knowledge of computing begins in about 1978 with the Commodore PET and goes through the early Macintoshes to Unix/Linux today. But I have always been so curious about the early years - the REALLY early years, and in particular the years in which computer technologies advanced outside of the world of personal/desktop computers - big iron, mainframes, minicomputers, supercomputers. Understanding what happened from the 1950s to the 1980s was why I bought this book, and it was absolutely worth it.

Ceruzzi is a historian connected to the Smithsonian, and he does a spectacular job of telling the story of those years, evoking not only the technical progress, but the social and economic factors that made the progress possible. For instance, early computers were for the purpose of actually computing (trajectory charts for ammunition, at first). How these machines went from tubes to transistors to integrated circuits is the result of market and economic factors, military research and intervention, and the interests and business needs of researchers and later commercial actors. Ceruzzi describes this beautifully, in nuanced and understandable language that makes deft use of his technical knowledge without the narrative getting too technical.

He does a wonderful job of showing how both mental and mechanical processes evolved from a batch computing paradigm to time sharing to personal computing (interesting story, since we're now headed - via cloud technology - in the opposite direction again), the role of IBM as market dominating behemoth and clumsy and slow giant, how minicomputing shook the world of the mainframes, and how those same minicomputers - in the hands of innovators like DEC - laid the seeds of their own destruction. Throughout the book Ceruzzi shows intimate familiarity with the people, the paradigms, and the forces that led to technical evolution and progress.

Ever wonder why the world standardized on 8 bits, then 16, 32, and 64? It didn't necessarily have to be that way. Ever wonder what the difference is between a Cray and a mainframe? Or why mainframes still exist in the land of servers/client desktops? Curious about what people did before the rise of magnetic disk storage, or what language you'd use to program a DEC PDP/11? This is the book, and it's such an easy and informative read I buzzed through it in only a few nights' reading.

I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 though, because once big iron and minicomputers yield to personal computers, Ceruzzi clearly loses interest and simultaneously, seems to lose touch with the important parts of the narrative. I found his telling of the rise of Microsoft, the invention of the Internet, and the birth of Apple to be somewhat poorly told and even somewhat irregular. (There are better books for these subjects). I would recommend the reader simply stop reading once the story gets to that point, as his work on the early origins of computing - up to about 1985, say - to be fantastic.

But for a compelling and insightful narrative of the early years, this book is hard to beat - highly recommended, and far better than its companion book which is a somewhat abbreviated version of this more fulsome history. ...more

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Jul 14, 2014 Peter rated it really liked it

Shelves: work-read

Don't remember much about it.

This note was added years after reading the book.

Newmarket library.

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Apr 07, 2018 Mattia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Come libro sulle macchine informatiche moderne e` un ottimo testo. Fino agli anni '90 e` esauriente e capace di proporre sintesi interessanti. I tecnici della materia rimarranno a volte delusi dalla mancanza di approfondimento dei dettagli tecnologici, ma in sostanza mi sembra che le pietre miliari, anche concettuali, ci siano tutte. L'autore mi sembra invece progressivamente in difficolta` man mano che il software diventa assai piu` rilevante dello hardware: in questo caso le caratteristiche ...more

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About Paul E. Ceruzzi

Paul E. Ceruzzi

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Paul E. Ceruzzi is Curator at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. He is the author of Computing: A Concise History, A History of Modern Computing, and Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945–2005, all published by the MIT Press, and other books.