Edmund Callis Berkeley (–1988)

Contemporaneous look at the state of the art in computing in the USA in the immediate post-WWII timeframe. Starts with an example of a small, hypothetical machine called Simon, which Berkeley apparently hoped an ambitious reader might even attempt constructing. There's a fairly thorough discussion of various IBM punch card machines such as tabulators and sorters. (After idly wondering for years, it finally dawned on me they must have used a bucket sort of some kind.) Then gives high level overviews of the 2nd MIT differential analyzer, the Harvard Mark I, the ENIAC, one of the Bell relay machines, plus the Kalin-Burkhart logical calculator. There's unfortunately not enough info to guide writing simulators or emulators.

There's a speculative chapter which shows the usual underestimate of hardware speed and memory gains and overestimate of capabilities. E.g., gushing that future machines might be able to do thousands of multiplications per second and positing that voice to text will be quickly solved.

The final chapter is on the social responsibilities of computer (and robot) designers and has two completely unexpected succient and clear discussions of prejudice and narrow mindedness.

There's some period sexism which is a bit distracting, e.g., scientists are men, human computers are girls, etc. Hardly any mention of international developments, though Zuse is listed in the bibliography.… (mehr)

This is the book that laid the groundwork and excited my interest in computers as a teenager in the early 1950s. My curiosity about computers has continued unabated into my septuagenarian years.

Concerning Simon, the first personal computer, the author was ahead of his time when he wrote: "We shall now consider how we can design a very simple machine that will think... Let us call it Simon, because of its predecessor, Simple Simon... Simon is so simple and so small in fact that it could be built to fill up less space than a grocery-store box; about four cubic feet... It may seem that a simple model of a mechanical brain like Simon is of no great practical use. On the contrary, Simon has the same use in instruction as a set of simple chemical experiments has: to stimulate thinking and understanding, and to produce training and skill. A training course on mechanical brains could very well include the construction of a simple model mechanical brain, as an exercise."

A working model of Simon was actually built in 1950 at a cost of about $600.

I was ready from this time on to buy or build a personal computer as soon as I could afford it -- something that wouldn't happen until October 1977 when I bought the first Radio Shack TRS-80 Microcomputer sold in Knoxville, Tennessee, for, you guessed it, $600.… (mehr)