Front Matter

Title Page

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter One: The First Mechanical Computers

1.1 Introduction

1.2 From the abacus to Hindu-Arabic numerals

1.3 Napier’s logs and Napier’s rods

1.4 The slide rule

1.5 Digital vs. analog

1.6 Schickard’s calculating clock

1.7 Pascal and the Pascaline

1.8 Leibniz and the Stepped Reckoner

1.9 The Binary System

Chapter Two: The Engines of Charles Babbage

2.1 The Arithmometer and numerical tables

2.2 The theory behind the Difference Engine

2.3 Babbage’s early life

2.4 The Difference Engine

2.5 The Difference Engine’s machinery

2.6 The Scheutzes’ Tabulating Machine

2.7 The Analytical Engine

2.8 The Analytical Engine’s machinery

2.8 Babbage’s later life

Chapter Three: The Bridge Between Two Centuries

3.1 Hollerith’s punchcard machine

3.2 Hollerith and the Census

3.3 Mechanical calculators

3.4 Differential analyzer machines

3.5 Zuse and Boolean Logic

3.6 Zuse’s program-controlled calculators

3.7 The Z-4 machine

Chapter Four: The Invention of the ENIAC

4.1 Stibitz’s calculators at Bell Labs

4.2 Aiken and the Mark I

4.3 The Ballistics Research Laboratory (BRL) and firing tables

4.4 Mauchly’s Memo

4.5 The electronic calculator

4.6 The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

4.7 Mauchly and Eckert at the Moore School

4.8 Project PX and the ENIAC

4.9 ENIAC’s hydrogen bomb calculations

Chapter Five: The Stored-Program Computer

5.1 Stored-program computing

5.2 John von Neumann and the “Report on the EDVAC”

5.3 Turing and the Turing Machine

5.4 Logic theory and Hilbert’s decision problem

5.5 Breaking the Enigma Machine

5.6 Postwar developments in British computers

5.7 Patent quarrel at the Moore School

5.8 The IAS computer

5.9 UNIVAC, Part I: Development

5.10 UNIVAC, Part II: Commercialization

Chapter Six: The Rise of IBM

6.1 Overview of IBM

6.2 Watson and the National Cash Register Company

6.3 The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR)

6.4 From CTR to IBM, Part I

6.5 From CTR to IBM, Part II

6.6 The Rise of IBM

6.7 Watson, Jr.

6.8 Building the first IBM computers

Chapter Seven: The Whirlwind Project

7.1 Flight-trainer analyzers

7.2 The Whirlwind Project

7.3 SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground-Environment Computers)

7.4 IBM 650

7.5 Assembly language programming

7.6 FORTRAN compiler

7.7 UNIVAC falls to IBM

7.8 The Honeywell-Sperry case

Chapter Eight: The Integrated Circuit

8.1 Early research in electronics

8.2 The point-contact transistor

8.3 Miniaturization and standardization

8.4 Kilby comes to TI

8.5 Kilby’s integrated circuit

8.6 Noyce’s integrated circuit

8.7 Commercial development of the IC

Chapter Nine: The Personal Computer

9.1 Computer usability problems

9.2 Olson, DEC, and the Minicomputer

9.3 Intel is born

9.4 Development of the microprocessor

9.5 Ahl advocates for the personal computer

9.6 Titus and the Mark-8

9.7 Roberts and MITS

9.8 The Altair 8800

9.9 Apple

End Matter

Epilogue: The Lesson of History

Appendix: The FBI Dossier of John William Mauchly

Chronology of the History of Computers

Acknowledgements