The Moore School Lectures

Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

This Third Edition is the first English-language edition of the award-winning Meilensteine der Rechentechnik; illustrated in full color throughout in two volumes. The Third Edition is devoted to both analog and digital computing devices, as well as the world's most magnificient historical automatons and select scientific instruments (employed in astronomy, surveying, time measurement, etc.). It also features detailed instructions for analog and digital mechanical calculating machines and instruments, and is the only such historical book with comprehensive technical glossaries of terms not found in print or in online dictionaries. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography based on the literature of numerous countries around the world. Meticulously researched, the author conducted a worldwide survey of science, technology and art museums with their main holdings of analog and digital calculating and computing machines and devices, historical automatons and selected scientific instruments in order to describe a broad range of masterful technical achievements. Also covering the history of mathematics and computer science, this work documents the cultural heritage of technology as well.

This collection of technical essays and reminiscences is a companion to I. Bernard Cohen's biography Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. After an overview by Cohen, Part I presents the complete publication of Aiken's 1937 proposal for an automatic calculating machine, later realized as the Mark I, as well as recollections by the chief engineer in charge of construction of Mark II, Robert Campbell, and the 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.

When viewed through a political lens, the act of defining terms in natural language arguably transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate, military, academic, and professional values shaped efforts to define computer terminology and establish an information engineering profession as a precursor to what would become computer science. As the Cold War heated up, U.S. federal agencies increasingly funded university researchers and labs to develop technologies, like the computer, that would ensure that the U.S. maintained economic prosperity and military dominance over the Soviet Union. At the same time, private corporations saw opportunities for partnering with university labs and military agencies to generate profits as they strengthened their business positions in civilian sectors. They needed a common vocabulary and principles of streamlined communication to underpin the technology development that would ensure national prosperity and military dominance. investigates how language standardization contributed to the professionalization of computer science as separate from mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics examines traditions of language standardization in earlier eras of rapid technology development around electricity and radio highlights the importance of the analogy of “the computer is like a human” to early explanations of computer design and logic traces design and development of electronic computers within political and economic contexts foregrounds the importance of human relationships in decisions about computer design This in-depth humanistic study argues for the importance of natural language in shaping what people come to think of as possible and impossible relationships between computers and humans. The work is a key reference in the history of technology and serves as a source textbook on the human-level history of computing. In addition, it addresses those with interests in sociolinguistic questions around technology studies, as well as technology development at the nexus of politics, business, and human relations.

This volume provides a history of the computer which now comes properly up to the ubiquitous age, with new chapters that look at globalization, platformitization and regulation, allowing readers to engage with the more recent takeover by computers in their historical perspective. With the growing ubiquity of computers, the subject is one of interest to many students and this will feature in history of science and technology courses, and world history courses as well as ones specifically on computing. Books on the history of computing tend to be quite technically or business focused, this covers the social and cultural history as well.

This book covers the way computing was handled before the arrival of electronic computers. It discusses manual information processing and early technologies. The book describes the development of software technology, the professionalization of programming, and the emergence of a software industry.