Manufacturing computers in series was quite a feat in the 1950s. As mathematical as it gets, the machines discussed here were called X1 and X8.The industrial achievement combined with the background in a mathematical research center made the company Electrologica a legend in Dutch computing. The tales in this book are told by those who have a right to tell. Highly engaged professionals take readers back to their pioneering work with the machines and in retrospect unveil some of the values, which went without saying in the 1960s.To disagree,Paul Klintrelates the contrasting views on software...

In May 1917, William and Elizebeth Friedman were asked by the U.S. Army to begin training officers in cryptanalysis and to decrypt intercepted German diplomatic and military communications. In June 1917, Herbert Yardley convinced the new head of the Army’s Military Intelligence Division to create a code and cipher section for the Army with himself as its head.These two seminal events were the beginning of modern American cryptology, the growth of which culminated 35 years later with the creation of the National Security Agency. Each running their own cryptologic agencies in the 1920s, the...