[Chicago] Good readings on the history of computing

[Leon Chism]

Soul of New Machine is a great read, as are Nerds 2.0.1 by Stephen
Segaller, Eniac by Scott McCartney (if standing mercury waves for memory
storage seems like a good idea) and lastly I'd recommend What the Doormouse
Said by John Markoff for a look at the role of the counter culture on
Silicon Valley's evolution.

- leon



On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 11:43 AM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 7:23 PM, Martin Maney <maney at two14.net> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 08:00:01AM -0700, kirby urner wrote:
>> > Good computer history and a classic worth collecting (I don't have it):
>> >
>> > 'Computer Lib / Dream Machines' by Ted Nelson.
>>
>> I hope I still have the copy I got back in the seventies - amazingly
>> weird, fun book.
>>
>
> << snip >>
>
>
>>  And
>> Knuth's joyfully contrary "Structured Programming with Goto
>> Statements"  And much more.
>>
>
> I've never seen Knuth's programming with Goto statements thing.  I've
> always thought a hyperlink could be described as a "goto statement"
> for humans (and there's not even a return -- just your back button,
> which some web pages fight you for).
>
> However, Knuth's four volumes The Art of Computer Programming
> does have a fair amount of history, I know from owning Semi-
> Numerical Algorithms (stuff on Euclid's Method goes way back).
> Plus it's an historic work all by itself.
>
> So, partly inspired by this useful thread (glad it's archived in public,
> I'll be going back to get more titles), I finally just bought his full
> boxed
> set of four volumes, 1-4a, woo hoo.
>
> Kirby
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chicago mailing list
> Chicago at python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/chicago/attachments/20130926/fd32e7e7/attachment.html>