ArsGeek gave my book, The Computer: An Illustrated History (which just came out in the United States) a nice review.
The Computer is an overview of the history of computing, from tabulation sticks which appeared 35,000 years ago straight through to a few years in the future. Mark Frauenfelder has compiled a massive collection of interesting pictures, wonderful historical tidbits and a solid background in what makes computers what they are – from ancient, gear driven devices to the dense microprocessors of today…
This book is the kind of book I love to get my hands on. Give me a good technology book or a good history book and I'm happy. Chock it full of amazing and hard to find pictures, bits of trivia and quotes from the great minds featured in the book and I'm in heaven…
I really perked up however once the book hit the early 40's. Seeing over the course of a few hours reading how technology changed so rapidly over such a short amount of time – pretty much from the day my Dad was born until this moment, it's amazing. In less than one lifetime we've gone from clunky, vacuum tube driven behemoths to the razor sharp, tiny computers of today. If you've read any of my previous thoughts on where we're headed, you'll know I think that this is just the beginning! To see this all in detailed photos and descriptions. To live through the heady days of Apple, Atari, IBM PCs and Microsoft once again is very cool…
It's easy to tell that Frauenfelder loves this stuff even more than I do. He's put a lot of time and effort into crafting a book that I'm eagerly putting on my coffee table. I know that my friends and colleagues will head right for it when they come over!
