This is easily the best short survey of the early history of computing I’ve seen, and is well worth a read. It’s an excellent 30 page survey of electronic computing history through the late 1960s, with most significant projects and companies briefly sketched and their contributions–and failures–described. The essay is organized by technological era (vacuum tube, transistor, early ICs), with each era’s discussion organized by company or project. Some effort is made to put each project into historical and technical context.
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Nov 12th 2011
This second BRJ edition has more substance than the first, right from the first article where David Voigt put the 1972 baseball strike into historical context. John Tattersall’s offering discussed leadoff homeruns, and Fred Lieb presented a fine portrait of Hal of Fame historian Ernie Lanigan.
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Nov 2nd 2011
This is, I imagine, the sort of book Arcadia’s business model intends: A well thought out picture book whose captions actually tell a coherent story. Nicely done.
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Oct 29th 2011
I’ve been saying for two years that my Sony Reader’s an excellent ebook reader, but that the store’s broken. They seem to have finally noticed the problem, and this morning they’re offering a new version of the PC/Mac software required to access the store on older Readers. I’ve already discovered a couple quirks, but it’s clearly better.
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Oct 22nd 2011
This is a short book, compiled by editors Cohen and Scheinfeldt, consisting of about 50 essays and fragments exploring the shortcomings and future of the modern university. The authors have a special concern about the impacts of new technologies. It’s well worth your time to read.
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Oct 20th 2011
A fun, quick read, with just enough substance to get you thinking. I enjoyed.
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Oct 17th 2011
Far better than the first edition. The text portion of this book consists entirely of team essays, most of which are surprisingly playful investigations of issues raised by the team’s season or the team’s players. They are also more open about their methods in this volume. The best of these are quite fine.
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Oct 14th 2011
This reads for all the world like a well-polished set of class notes for a college course with the book’s title. One would assume the course to be intended for sophomores or juniors.
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Oct 10th 2011
Not my cup of tea, but certainly readable. Decidedly hard-boiled. 3 1/2 stars for this.
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Oct 8th 2011
