Makin’ Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing) by I. Bernard Cohen (PDF)

Description

with the cooperation of Robert V. D. CampbellThis collection of technical essays and reminiscences is a companion volume to I. Bernard Cohen’s biography, Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. After an overview by Cohen, Part I presents the first complete publication of Aiken’s 1937 proposal for an automatic calculating machine, which was later realized as the Mark I, as well as recollections of Aiken’s first two machines by the chief engineer in charge of construction of Mark II, Robert Campbell, and the principal programmer of Mark I, Richard Bloch. Henry Tropp describes Aiken’s hostility to the exclusive use of binary numbers in computational systems and his alternative approach.Part II contains essays on Aiken’s administrative and teaching styles by former students Frederick Brooks and Peter Calingaert and an essay by Gregory Welch on the difficulties Aiken faced in establishing a computer science program at Harvard. Part III contains recollections by people who worked or st

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author William Aspray is Bill and Lewis Suit Professor of Information Technologies in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the coeditor of Women and Information Technology: Research on Underrepresentation (2006) and The Internet and American Business (2008), both published by the MIT Press.Thomas J. Misa is ERA-Land Grant Professor of the History of Technology at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Charles Babbage Institute. His books include Modernity and Technology (coedited with Philip Brey and Andrew Feenberg; MIT Press, 2003).

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is just a SUPER book! There are great photos of Mks I, II, III, and IV and of their componants, great material on Aiken, and this book imparts a lot of the feeling of the time. You get the feeling that if you were there, in Aiken’s shoes, you’d have done things the same way – there were reasons for the use of relays as basic computing elements for instance. There’s a great chapter by Grace Hopper, “Why The Mark I Is My Favorite Computer” and chapters on construction, programing, and so on. The book makes clear that Aiken was a man who believed in rolling up his sleeves and building a working machine that could be used, rather than, like Charles Babbage, just dreaming and never getting anything built. This made all the difference in the world; keep in mind that Babbage was the last person to try building a large general purpose calculator, and his failure kept the whole field in stasis for close to a hundred years. Aiken had a score to settle, and he settled it all right.

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