Computers
03 Oct 1994 12:00Their history, from the Antikythera machine, primitive automata and simulacra through Babbage to today. Effects on society, art, thought. The new idea that Nature is in some sense "computational" (which strikes me as either obvious or absurd, depending on how we take the term). Utopian hopes and apocalyptic fears. Programming.
See also: Computation, Automata and Langauges; Programming; Computer Networks; Biological Computers; Information Technology Before the Electronic Computer; The Information Society and the Information Economy; Computers in Education
- Recommended:
- Abelson and Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
- David Gelernter, Mirror Worlds: The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox and What It Will Mean
- Larry Gonick, The Cartoon Guide to the Computer [Formerly titled Cartoon Guide to Computer Science]
- Lewis and Papadimitriou, Elements of the Theory of Computation
- Peter G. Neumann, Computer-Related Risks
- Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial
- To read:
- Jon Agar, The Government Machine: A Revolutionary History of the Computer
- Atsushi Akera, Calculating a Natural World: Scientists, Engineers, and Computers During the Rise of U.S. Cold War Research
- Kurt W. Beyer, Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
- Colin Burke and Michael Buckland, Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex
- Computing Before Computers
- James W. Cortada, The Digital Hand: How Computers Changed the Work of American Manufacturing, Transportation, and Retail Industries
- Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America
- Nathan L. Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise
- Kenneth Flamm, Creating the Computer: Government, Industry, and High Technology
- B. J. Fogg, Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do
- James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
- Michael Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox-PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
- Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theater
- John MacCormick, Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers
- Jane Margolis, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing
- Zabett Patterson, Peripheral Vision: Bell Labs, the S-C 4020, and the Origins of Computer Art
- Lauren Ruth Wiener, Digital Woes: Why We Should Not Depend on Software
- Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine
