History of Computing

Although difficult, change in academic structures is necessary today, especially in fast-changing fields today such as biology, computing, management, the social sciences, and others. This includes changes within existing organizations as well as …

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 …

This book describes the historical development of the architectures of the first computers built by the German inventor Konrad Zuse in Berlin between 1936 and 1945. Zuse's machines are historically important because they anticipated many features …

Cyber security is the greatest risk faced by financial institutions today, a risk they have understood and managed for decades longer than is commonly understood. Ever since the major London banks purchased their first computers in the early …

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 …

Automating Linguistics offers an in-depth study of the history of the mathematisation and automation of the sciences of language. In the wake of the first mathematisation of the 1930s, two waves followed: machine translation in the 1950s and the …

When viewed through a political lens, the act of defining terms in natural language arguably transforms knowledge into values. This unique volume explores how corporate, military, academic, and professional values shaped efforts to define computer …

Changes in the present challenge us to reinterpret the past, but historians have not yet come to grips with the convergence of computing, media, and communications technology. Today these things are inextricably intertwined, in technologies such …

This unique book presents the story of the pioneering manufacturing company Ferranti Ltd. – producer of the first commercially-available computers – and of the nine end-user organisations who purchased these machines with government help in the …

This text presents an historical examination of political fact-checking, highlighting how this is part of a larger phenomenon of online scrutiny that manifests itself in multiple forms. Reflecting the long history of “fake facts” in America, the …

This is a volume of chapters on the historical study of information, computing, and society written by seven of the most senior, distinguished members of the History of Computing field. These are edited, expanded versions of papers presented in a …

This accessible textbook presents a fascinating review of cryptography and cryptanalysis across history. The text relates the earliest use of the monoalphabetic cipher in the ancient world, the development of the “unbreakable” Vigenère cipher, and …

Although it is popularly assumed that the history of computing before the second half of the 20th century was unimportant, in fact the Industrial Revolution was made possible and even sustained by a parallel revolution in computing technology. An …

This book provides a history of the efforts of the US National Science Foundation to broaden participation in computing. The book briefly discusses the early history of the NSF's involvement with education and workforce issues. It then turns to …

This text examines in detail the issue of the underrepresentation of women, African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics in the computing disciplines in the U.S. The work reviews the underlying causes, as well as the efforts of various …

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,

This important volume examines European perspectives on the historical relations that women have maintained with information and communication technologies (ICTs), since the telegraph. Features: describes how gendered networks have formed around ICT

Hacking Europe traces the user practices of chopping games in Warsaw, hacking software in Athens, creating chaos in Hamburg, producing demos in Turku, and partying with computing in Zagreb and Amsterdam. Focusing on several European countri

This book reviews the shift in the historiography of computing from inventors and innovations to a user-perspective, and examines how the relevant sources can be created, collected, preserved, and disseminated. The text describes and evaluates a p

The 16th-Century intellectual Robert Recorde is chiefly remembered for introducing the equals sign into algebra, yet the greater significance and broader scope of his work is often overlooked. This book presents an authoritative and in-depth analysis