Computing - A Concise History

A compact and accessible history of computing, from punch cards and calculators to UNIVAC and ENIAC, the personal computer, Silicon Valley, and the Internet

An MIT Press Essential Knowledge series title

In an accessible style, computer historian Paul Ceruzzi offers a broad though detailed history of computing, from the first use of the word “digital” in 1942 to the development of punch cards and the first general purpose computer, to the internet, Silicon Valley, and smartphones and social networking.

Ceruzzi identifies 4 major threads that run throughout all of computing''s technological development: 

• Digitization: the coding of information, computation, and control in binary form
• The convergence of multiple streams of techniques, devices, and machines
• The steady advance of electronic technology, as characterized famously by “Moore''s Law”
• Human-machine interface
  
  

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