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, 2nd Edition (History of Computing) has an overall rating of 6 over 10.
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The MIT Press claimed This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five 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 beginning of personal computing in the 1970s; the spread of networking after 1985; and, in a chapter written for this edition, the period 1995-2001. The new material focuses on the Microsoft antitrust suit, the rise and fall of the dot-coms, and the advent of open source software, particularly Linux. Within the chronological narrative, the book traces several overlapping threads: the evolution of the computer´s internal design; the effect of economic trends and the Cold War; the long-term role of IBM as a player and as a target for upstart entrepreneurs; the growth of software from a hidden element to a major character in the story of computing; and the recurring issue of the place of information and computing in a democratic society. The focus is on the United States (though Europe and Japan enter the story at crucial points), on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities.
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