On 2010-01-02 Cecilia Craig, San Jose CA wrote: I read this book first from the library and am now purchasing it! Used it as reference for a paper I wrote (as a doctoral student in education), looking for high-tech related epiphenomena that might have influenced young people´s career selections in past decades. This book provided a rich and textured view of computing history, with lots of details. Having lived through much of it (I used a slide rule in college & I worked at Xerox during those STAR days, later Tandem), reading it from a historical point of view was wonderful and fun; source for much memory dredging and discussions with my husband (an engineer too). I learned many new tidbits and nuances that I missed along the way of living it. If you are interested in a compact history of computing with facts, not too dry, scholarly but enjoyable, this is a good one. A keeper for me. . And summed up by saying Great read, great reference. Currently A History of Modern Computing (History of Computing) has an overall rating of 6 over 10.
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The MIT Press claimed ´[A] wonderful tale. . . . Ceruzzi has written the definitive account.´ -- Michael Cross, New Scientist This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the advent of the World Wide Web. The author concentrates on four key moments of transition: the transformation of the computer in the late 1940s from a specialized scientific instrument to a commercial product; the emergence of small systems in the late 1960s; the beginnings of personal computing in the 1970s; and the spread of networking after 1985. The focus is on the United States, on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities. The author balances stories of individuals with those of institutions and emphasizes those factors that conspired to bring about the decisive shifts in the story.
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