This work explores the conception, design, construction, use, and afterlife of ENIAC, the first general purpose digital electronic computer.

Tells of the design, construction, and subsequent controversy over the first special-purpose electronic computer

This is often considered the first book on computer programming. It was written for the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) computer that began operation in 1949 as the world's first regularly operated stored program computer. The idea of a library of subroutines was developed for the EDSAC, and is described in this book. Maurice Wilkes lead the development of the EDSAC.

Account of the birth of the modern computer from 1930-1960.

A Computer Science Reader covers the entire field of computing, from its technological status through its social, economic and political significance. The book's clearly written selections represent the best of what has been published in the first three-and-a-half years of ABACUS, Springer-Verlag's internatioanl quarterly journal for computing professionals. Among the articles included are: - U.S. versus IBM: An Exercise in Futility? by Robert P. Bigelow - Programmers: The Amateur vs. the Professional by Henry Ledgard - The Composer and the Computer by Lejaren Hiller - SDI: A Violation of Professional Responsibility by David L. Parnas - Who Invented the First Electronic Digital Computer? by Nancy Stern - Foretelling the Future by Adaptive Modeling by Ian H. Witten and John G. Cleary - The Fifth Generation: Banzai or Pie-in-the-Sky? by Eric A. Weiss This volume contains more than 30 contributions by outstanding and authoritative authors grouped into the magazine's regular categories: Editorials, Articles, Departments, Reports from Correspondents, and Features. A Computer Science Reader will be interesting and important to any computing professional or student who wants to know about the status, trends, and controversies in computer science today.