I had a drink with Matt Webb the other day and I was telling him about all the ‘History of Computing‘ books I’ve been reading over the last few years.
Here’s the list as of July 2024:
The Man Who Invented the Computer
The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer – Jane Smiley
2010
Why don’t we know the name of John Atanasoff as well as we know those of Alan Turing and John von Neumann? Because he never patented the device, and because the developers of the far-better-known ENIAC almost certainly stole critical ideas from him. But in 1973 a court declared that the patent on that Sperry Rand device was invalid, opening the intellectual property gates to the computer revolution.
John Atanasoff prototyped the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) in 1939 and influenced the ENIAC creators a great deal. Whilst the ABC is neither programmable, nor Turing-complete, it is the first machine with an ALU (arithmetic logic unit) which is found in every modern processor’s design.
I’ve put this book on the list first as all the other books I’ve read focus on ENIAC and Mauchly and Eckert’s careers. The key moment in this book is the Sperry Rand Patient lawsuit which (as the blub says) paved the way for the personal computing revolution.
Eniac
The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World’s First Computer – Scott McCartney
1999
A staff writer for the Wall Street Journal , McCartney wades into the controversy over who is responsible for the very first electronic computer. He awards the honor to John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who met in 1941 and were soon funded by the US government to help with the war effort. They christened their behemoth the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. He draws from newly uncovered documents, original interviews with surviving participants, and Mauchly and Echert’s personal papers.
This book is a breezy read. The tone of the author is great. It covers in a great deal of detail the creation of ENIAC. All the pressures of wartime and budgets, funding etc. All the backroom deals and rivalries that emerged too. It’s actually quite a gripping read at times.
The later half of the book covers the other side of the lawsuit mentioned above – one the pair ultimately lost.
Proving Ground
The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer – Kathy Kleiman
2022
An untold, World War II-era story of the six American women who programmed the world’s first modern computer.
After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world’s first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer–better known as the ENIAC— even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told — until now.
Correcting a huge omission from McCartney’s history of computing book on ENIAC above, Proving Ground covers the day to day lives of the first computer programers working on ENIAC. The context of WW2 is important and well integrated into the narrative, as it allowed these amazing women to do work they did. It also makes the important point that whilst Mauchly+Eckert designed the machine .. these young mathematicians straight out of university figured out how to program it by themselves – mostly theoretically – using pen and paper and chalk boards.
Bonus: here’s an excellent and humorous interview with one of the programmers featured in the book, Jean Jennings:
Crystal Fire
The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age – Michael Riordan, Lillian Hoddeson
1997
On December 16, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, physicists at Bell Laboratories, jabbed two electrodes into a sliver of germanium. The power flowing from the germanium far exceeded what went in; in that moment the transistor was invented and the Information Age was born. No other devices have been as crucial to modern life as the transistor and the microchip it spawned, but the story of the science and personalities that made these inventions possible has not been fully told until now.
Crystal Fire fills this gap and carries the story forward. William Shockley, Bell Labs’ team leader and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize with Brattain and Bardeen for the discovery, grew obsessed with the transistor and went on to become the father of Silicon Valley. Here is a deeply human story about the process of invention ― including the competition and economic aspirations involved ― all part of the greatest technological explosion in history.
I actually found this book riveting, couldn’t put it down. This book takes a cool approach to its subjects by going back in time and introducing the each of the men involved by taking us though the lives of their grandparents and then parents. The story is very human and has lots of detail. When the story of the semiconductor kicks of proper, the author had access to the teams lab note books and you get a real play by play of what went on and when.
The final 1/3 of the book covers the deep interpersonal animosity that emerged between the three semi-conductor transistor inventors. Post invention the story mostly follows William Shockley’s career kickstarting Silicon Valley by being a hopeless manager and then his re-invention as a crazy racist in later life.
The Chip
How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution – T.R. Reid
2001
They’re everywhere, but where did they come from? Silicon chips drive just about everything that sucks power, from toys to heart monitors, but their inventors aren’t nearly as widely known as Edison and Ford. Journalist T.R. Reid has thoroughly updated The Chip, his 1985 exploration of the life work of inventors Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, to reflect the colossal shift toward smarter gadgets that has taken place since then.Satisfying as both biography and basic science text, the book perfectly captures the independence and near-obsessive problem-solving talents of the two men. Though ultimately only one of them (Noyce) ended up with legal rights to the invention, they shared a respect for each other that persisted throughout their careers. Since Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work, the story is all the more compelling and intriguing over 40 years after the invention. Reid’s work uncovers human dimensions we’d never expect to see from 1950s engineering research.
When you start reading this, you’ll think that it’s going to cover all the same stuff as the book above, but the invention of the transistor is only covered in the first 20% or so. It then picks up where Crystal Fire left off. The development of Silicon Valley as an industry etc. The books main focus is on the integrated circuit. The rivalry between Texas Instruments and Intel, Sony and kaizen etc, Lynn Conway’s work at IBM and Xexrox on integrated chip design which kickstarted the silicon foundry model we still have with us today.
Two things that stand out in my memory as a type – 1. The long section describing how a scientific calculator works, zooming in from the screen and buttons all the way to the micro hertz pulses coming from the clock and instructions happening in the memory. Very understandable and very readable! 2. That todays Silicon chip industry should be seen as an extension of the printing press and watch making industry.
The Idea Factory
Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation – Jon Gertner
2022
The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies
From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it’s hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn’t been touched by Bell Labs. In The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century’s most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history.
An in depth history of Bell labs. iI covers all the major discoveries but does not focus on any one for too long in particular. There’s a lot in here about running and working for a huge organisation that has continuity over generations! and the need for pure research in the corporate world. Great book. Don’t bother reading that recent viral thing on Substack about Bell Labs, read this instead.
The Supermen
The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer – Charles J. Murray
1997
The Supermen is award-winning writer Charles J. Murray’s exhilarating account of how the brilliant-some would say eccentric-Cray and his gifted colleagues blazed the trail that led to the Information Age. This is a thrilling, real-life scientific adventure, deftly capturing the daring, seat-of-the-pants spirit of the early days of computer development, as well as an audacious, modern-day David and Goliath battle, in which a group of maverick engineers beat out IBM to become the runaway industry leaders.
“After a rare speech at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in 1976, programmers in the audience had suddenly fallen silent when Cray offered to answer questions. He stood there for several minutes, waiting for their queries, but none came. When he left, the head of NCAR’s computing division chided the programmers. ‘Why didn’t someone raise a hand?’ After a tense moment, one programmer replied, ‘How do you talk to God?’”
Seymour Cray is a legend! Talking to elves in the tunnel you’re digging under your house is how we should be solving all our problems. Speaking of which: There’s a lot of “why” engineering decisions and “how” problems were resolved in this book. As well as being a humorous look at an upstart entrepreneur and a genius. Some of the ‘how to build a business with out loosing your soul’ parts in this are also really good!
The Soul of a New Machine
– Tracy Kidder
1991
The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done—just look at today’s news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old “veteran” engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters’ ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic.
Oh if only we could all write like Kidder! This book chronicles the creation of Data General’s Eclipse MV/8000 computer from the engineers’ point of view. It highlights that working conditions at tech companies were just as awful in the 80’s as they are now. This book exposed ‘Mushroom management’ for the first time, as well as describing self imposed crunch. The ‘Soul’ of the machine in the book comes from the engineers who develop the computer. Pulitzer prize winning classic.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late:
The Origins of the Internet – Katie Hafner
1996
Twenty five years ago, it didn’t exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.
In the 1960’s, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.
This book covers the history of the Internet. The ins and out’s of DARPA, and ARPA. Military money and the importance of having people with long term vision. There’s a LOT in this book. Lots of great people making clear and far sighted decisions who deserve to be more well known. As the narrative progress the story zoom’s in on BBN (Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc) who built the first Interface Message Processors for the ARPA net, Designed TCP/IP etc. The last 1/4 of the book covers what happened ‘after’ everyone got connected to the internet but before the eternal September began. It did come out in 1996 after all.
Dealers of Lightning
Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age – Michael A. Hiltzik
1999
Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Hiltzik reveals how, back in the early ’70s, a group of inventors at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) blazed the trail for all of today’s indispensable technology from the PC to email to ATMs to meteorologists’ weather maps. And they did it without fanfare or recognition from their employer. Hiltzik’s Dealers of Lightning provides a fascinating look at technohistory that sets the record straight.
In Dealers of Lightning, Hiltzik describes the forces and faces behind the revolution that the Xerox PARC team single-handedly spawned. The Xerox PARC group was composed solely of top technical minds. The decision was made at Xerox headquarters to give the team complete freedom from deadlines and directives, in hopes of fostering a true creative environment. It worked perhaps too well. The team responded with a steady output of amazing technology, including the first version of the Internet, the first personal computer, user-friendly word-processing programs, and pop-up menus. Xerox, far from ready for the explosion of innovation, failed to utilize the technology dreamed up by the group.
This book is really really good. But it’s also super frustrating. As you read, you won’t belive how short sighted Xerox as a company were. It’s interesting to compare the management and corporate events in this book to The Idea Factory. This book covers the work of Ted Nelson and the Alto computer, the Xerox Star – as well as the invention of the Intranat and a host of other technologies like the LCD, laser disk and 3D rendering.
Chip War
The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology – Chris Miller
2022
Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems.
America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand. America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.
The last book on the list, but by no means least. Chip War covers almost all everything in the books above but at a really high level. It situates the semiconductor industry geopolitically and explains the economic contexts for a lot of events that happen in the other books – in particular Japanese chip reliability in the late 70’s and 80’s with Sony, and then it’s shift to Taiwan as part of their industrial policy. Global supply chains and bottlenecks etc. It also covers some of the history of Russian computing which I haven’t read about elsewhere.
I really recommend this book and it’s a must read to fully understand the shape of geopolitics in 2020’s.
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