Kategoria BISAC: Computers >> History

People, problems, and proofs are the lifeblood of theoretical computer science. Behind the computing devices and applications that have transformed our lives are clever algorithms, and for every worthwhile algorithm there is a problem that it solves and a proof that it works. Before this proof there was an open problem: can one create an efficient algorithm to solve the computational problem? And, finally, behind these questions are the people who are excited about these fundamental issues in our computational world.

In this book the authors draw on their outstanding research...

In an age of information and new media the relationships between remembering and forgetting have changed. This volume addresses the tension between loud and often spectacular histories and those forgotten pasts we strain to hear. Employing social and cultural analysis, the essays within examine mnemonic technologies both new and old, and cover subjects as diverse as U.S. internment camps for Japanese Americans in WWII, the Canadian Indian Residential School system, Israeli memorial videos, and the desaparecidos in Argentina. Through these cases, the contributors argue for a...

In 1936, when he was just twenty-four years old, Alan Turing wrote a remarkable paper in which he outlined the theory of computation, laying out the ideas that underlie all modern computers. This groundbreaking and powerful theory now forms the basis of computer science. In Turing's Vision, Chris Bernhardt explains the theory, Turing's most important contribution, for the general reader. Bernhardt argues that the strength of Turing's theory is its simplicity, and that, explained in a straightforward manner, it is eminently understandable by the nonspecialist. As Marvin Minsky...

This engaging volume celebrates the life and work of Theodor Holm "Ted" Nelson, a pioneer and legendary figure from the history of early computing. Presenting contributions from world-renowned computer scientists and figures from the media industry, the book delves into hypertext, the docuverse, Xanadu, and other products of Ted Nelson's unique mind.

Topics and features: includes a cartoon and a sequence of poems created in Nelson's honor, reflecting his wide-ranging and interdisciplinary intellect; presents peer histories, providing a sense of the milieu that resulted...

In The Government Machine, Jon Agar traces the mechanization of government work in the United Kingdom from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. He argues that this transformation has been tied to the rise of "expert movements," groups whose authority has rested on their expertise. The deployment of machines was an attempt to gain control over state action -- a revolutionary move. Agar shows how mechanization followed the popular depiction of government as machine-like, with British civil servants cast as components of a general purpose "government machine"; indeed, he...

Communities of Computing is the first book-length history of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), founded in 1947 and with a membership today of 100,000 worldwide. It profiles ACM's notable SIGs, active chapters, and individual members, setting ACM's history into a rich social and political context. The book's 12 core chapters are organized into three thematic sections. "Defining the Discipline" examines the 1960s and 1970s when the field of computer science was taking form at the National Science Foundation, Stanford University, and through ACM's notable efforts in...

Communities of Computing is the first book-length history of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), founded in 1947 and with a membership today of 100,000 worldwide. It profiles ACM's notable SIGs, active chapters, and individual members, setting ACM's history into a rich social and political context. The book's 12 core chapters are organized into three thematic sections. "Defining the Discipline" examines the 1960s and 1970s when the field of computer science was taking form at the National Science Foundation, Stanford University, and through ACM's notable efforts in...

Edgar Daylight's rather provocative theme in this book is that many high-profile computer scientists do not consistently distinguish between their favorite mathematical concepts and the representations thereof in the real world. This leads to mistakes. Daylight introduces seemingly small but useful distinctions. As a result, technical corrections are put forth in connection with formal verification, computer viruses, and program transformation systems.

Even mathematics isn't free from conceptual flaws.  Raymond Boute scrutinizes several unsound treatments of the...

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

This volume discusses the prospects and evolution of informatics (or computer science), which has become the operating system of our world, and is today seen as the science of the information society. Its artifacts change the world and its methods have an impact on how we think about and perceive the world. Classical computer science is built on the notion of an -abstract- machine, which can be instantiated by software to any concrete problem-solving machine, changing its behavior in response to external and internal states,...

Today, women earn a relatively low percentage of computer science degrees and hold proportionately few technical computing jobs. Meanwhile, the stereotype of the male "computer geek" seems to be everywhere in popular culture. Few people know that women were a significant presence in the early decades of computing in both the United States and Britain. Indeed, programming in postwar years was considered woman's work (perhaps in contrast to the more manly task of building the computers themselves). In Recoding Gender, Janet Abbate explores the untold history of women in computer...

Since its debut in 1994 as the first serious book about videogame history, Phoenix has been regarded worldwide as the Bible of videogame history by professionals and fans alike. Now in its fourth edition, the text of this deluxe hardcover volume has been completely rewritten and updated to include videogame history through 2016. Illustrated with over 1000 COLOR photos from Atari to Zeebo, Pong to PlayStation, and arranged chronologically, Phoenix remains the first place to start any study of gaming history.

Launched at the peak of the legendary 1980s microcomputer rivalry, the Jupiter ACE was the most intriguing machine of them all, marketed by Jupiter Cantab. This company was founded by Richard Altwasser and Stephen Vickers – the key hardware and software designers for the legendary Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

This special edition of the manual is an almost exact reproduction of the original that accompanied the Jupiter ACE and is brought to you by the current owners of the ACE brand as a celebration of the 35th anniversary of the launch of the special computer that so many people hold...