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A Brief History of Computing
This lively and fascinating text traces the key developments in computation – from 3000 B.C. to the present day – in an easy-to-follow and concise manner. Topics and ideal for self-study, offering many pedagogical features such as chapter-opening key topics, chapter introductions and summaries, exercises, and a glossary; presents detailed information on major figures in computing, such as Boole, Babbage, Shannon, Turing, Zuse and Von Neumann; discusses the earliest computers developed in the United States, Germany and Britain; discusses the development of the IBM 360 family of computers and its importance; discusses the invention of the transistor and integrated circuit; discusses the birth of the software industry and the evolution of human-computer interaction; reviews the history of programming languages, operating systems and software engineering; discusses the progress of artificial intelligence; discusses the invention of the microprocessor and the development of home and personal computers; examines the impact on society of the introduction of the personal computer, the World Wide Web, and the development of mobile phone technology; discusses smart phones and social media and the challenge of fake news; reviews a miscellany of innovations in the computing field such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and Quantum Computing; discusses legal aspects of computing and the professional responsibilities of computer professionals.
384 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 28, 2018
This book gives, as its title mentions, a brief history of computing across the ages, concentrating mostly on the late 19th century onwards, with mentions about important events and persons in older eras.
Even though there is a good amount of content in the book, and one indeed gets a grasp of how nowadays computing came to be, I did not find the reading enjoyable. The writing style feels more like an enumeration of items rather than a cohesive narrative with a central conductive thread. Maybe the intention was never to have that kind of writing, but my impression was that they tried, but failed. For example, at the beginning of each chapter there is an introduction that mentions a summary of what each subsection is about with, in my opinion, little emphasis on how the subsections are connected, giving little value (to the point that I started skipping introductions). Then subsections follow giving more details about the particular subject. Finally there is a closing conclusions section, which basically repeats the same that the introduction said (to the point that I started skipping them too). The subsections themselves also felt disconnected, and it wasn't odd to find typos, duplicated words of phrases, or sentences that abruptly didn't finish at all. References to the figures in the book were consistently slightly out of place too.
Even though there is a good amount of content in the book, and one indeed gets a grasp of how nowadays computing came to be, I did not find the reading enjoyable. The writing style feels more like an enumeration of items rather than a cohesive narrative with a central conductive thread. Maybe the intention was never to have that kind of writing, but my impression was that they tried, but failed. For example, at the beginning of each chapter there is an introduction that mentions a summary of what each subsection is about with, in my opinion, little emphasis on how the subsections are connected, giving little value (to the point that I started skipping introductions). Then subsections follow giving more details about the particular subject. Finally there is a closing conclusions section, which basically repeats the same that the introduction said (to the point that I started skipping them too). The subsections themselves also felt disconnected, and it wasn't odd to find typos, duplicated words of phrases, or sentences that abruptly didn't finish at all. References to the figures in the book were consistently slightly out of place too.
November 28, 2025
probably the most poorly edited textbook i’ve ever read
April 24, 2017
The only thing missing from this book is a summary of the important role of pizza and Coca Cola. As in the joke:
Q: What is the definition of a programmer?
A: Someone who takes pizza and Coca Cola and turns it into code.
Q: What is the definition of a programmer?
A: Someone who takes pizza and Coca Cola and turns it into code.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews