Browse Books

Reviewer: Andrew Donald Booth

This book is unique among the “histories” of computing which have appeared so far. It discusses the technology of the subject rather than the people and the social consequences. This is not to say that people are neglected, but the personal anecdotes are few and relevant to the subject in hand. The early chapters describe the evolution of notation and its impact on practical calculation and on the possibility of automated arithmetic. Both analog and digital devices are examined. They range from the recently discovered antikythera to the slide rule, and from the abacus to Napier's “bones” and the Morland-Pascal adder. The only real omission here is a discussion of the South-seeking chariot, dating from 900 A.D. This is surely the earliest example of both analog subtraction and negative feedback. The great age of mechanical calculators is well covered with detailed descriptions and illustrations of the work of Leibnitz, Babbage, Scheutz, and the Bush differential analysers. There is a long discussion of the early US electronic machines. This precedes the discussion of the British machines which were operational well ahead of their American counterparts. Of course, with the exception of the ACE pilot, they owed their structure to the work of von Neumann and his associates. A very few omissions were noted: the absence of a discussion of the Forrester-Haeff storage tube which was contemporay with the Blumlein-Williams device; the omission of the University of London ARC, a relay machine with magnetic storage completed in 1947-1948, which used a fully parallel structure on the Princeton model to achieve addition times of 1 millisecond (about as fast as that of contemporary, fully electronic machines); and, finally, the work of K.D. Tocher, the inventor of microcoding. These are minor cavils. This is an absolutely first-rate book which is a must for all involved with computer.