Item Description

Collection of classic papers on early computers and computing, many from the participants in the projects. Includes -- Introduction -- We Would Know What They Thought When they Did It (R W Hamming); Historiography -- a perspective for Computer Scientists (Kenneth May);

THE HUMAN SIDE -- computer Developments 1935 - 1955, as seen from Cambridge, U.S.A. (Garrrett Birkhoff); Pioneering Work on Computers at Bletchley ( J J Good); The Colossus (B Randell); Von Neumann -- the Interaction of Mathematics and Computing (S M Ulam); Turing's work at the National Physical Laboratory and the Construction of Pilot ACE, DEUCE, and ACE (J H Wilkinson); The Smithsonian Computer History Project and Some Personal Recollections (Henry S Tropp);

THE LANGUAGES -- Programming in America in the 1950s -- some personal impressions (John Backus); The Early Developmentof Programming in the USSR (Andrei Ershov and Mikhail Shura-Bura); The Early Development of Programming Languages (Donald Knuth and Luis T Pardo); Reflections onthe Evolution of Algorithmic Language (Mark Wells);

THE MACHINES -- Computer Development at the Institute for Advanced Study (Julian Bigelow); From ENIAC to the Stored-Program Computer -- two revolutions in Computers (Arthur W Burks); Computer Development at Argonne National Laboratory (J C Chu); The ORDVAC and the iLLIAC (James Robertson); WHIRLWIND (RObert R Everett); Reminiscences of Oak Ridge (A S Householder); Computer Development at IBM (Cuthbert C Hurd); The SWAC -- the National Bureau of Standards Western Automatic Computer (Harry D Huskey); Computer Development at Manchester University (S H Lavington); A History of the Sieve Process (D H Lehmer); The MANIAC (N Metropolis); Early Research on Computers at RCA (Jan Rajchman); Memories of the Bureau of Standards' SEAC (Ralph Slutz); Early Computers (George R Stibitz); The Start of an ERA -- Engineering Research Associates, Inc., 1946 - 1955 (Erwin Tomash); Early Programming Developments in Cambridge (M V Wilkes);

THE PLACES -- Between Zuse and Rutishauser -- the Early Development of Digital Computing in Central Europe (Friedrich L Bauer); The ENIAC (J Presper Eckert, jr); The ENIAC (John W Mauchly); computers in the University of London, 1945 - 1962 (Andrew D Booth); A Programmer's Early Memories (Edsger W Dijkstra); Early History of Computing in Japan (Ryota Suekane); From Mechanical Linkages to Electronic Computers -- Recollections from Czechoslovakia (Antonin Svoboda); Central European Prehistory of Computing (H Zemanek); Some Remarks on the History of Computing in Germany (Konrad Zuse) The Origins of Digital Computers -- supplementary Bibliography (B Randell).