A New History of Modern Computing

Thomas Haigh, Paul E. Ceruzzi, Thomas J. Misa, William Aspray

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780262366472
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Over the past fifty years, the computer has been transformed from a hulking scientific supertool and data processing workhorse, remote from the experiences of ordinary people, to a diverse family of devices that billions rely on to play games, shop, stream music and movies, communicate, and count their steps. In A New History of Modern Computing, Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi trace these changes. A comprehensive reimagining of Ceruzzi's A History of Modern Computing, this new volume uses each chapter to recount one such transformation, describing how a particular community of users and producers remade the computer into something new.

Haigh and Ceruzzi ground their accounts of these computing revolutions in the longer and deeper history of computing technology. They begin with the story of the 1945 ENIAC computer, which introduced the vocabulary of "programs" and "programming," and proceed through email, pocket calculators, personal computers, the World Wide Web, videogames, smart phones, and our current world of computers everywhere—in phones, cars, appliances, watches, and more. Finally, they consider the Tesla Model S as an object that simultaneously embodies many strands of computing.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Becoming Universal: Introducing a New History of Computing
• 1. Inventing the Computer
• 2. The Computer Becomes a Scientific Supertool
• 3. The Computer Becomes a Data Processing Device
• 4. The Computer Becomes a Real-Time Control System
• 5. The Computer Becomes an Interactive Tool
• 6. The Computer Becomes a Communications Platform
• 7. The Computer Becomes a Personal Plaything
• 8. The Computer Becomes Office Equipment
• 9. The Computer Becomes a Graphical Tool
• 10. The PC Becomes a Minicomputer
• 11. The Computer Becomes a Universal Media Device
• 12. The Computer Becomes a Publishing Platform
• 13. The Computer Becomes a Network
• 14. The Computer is Everywhere and Nowhere
• 15. Epilogue: A Tesla in the Valley
• Bibliography
• Index
• Series List