Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Volume 9 in the Babbage Reprint Series makes the Moore School Lectures (1946) available for the first time. Delivered by such notable engineers and scientists as J.P. Eckert, J. Mauchly, H. Goldstine, A.W. Burks, and J. von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania as a direct response to crucial new developments in the design and construction of the early stored program computer, the ENIAC, the lectures provide a comprehensive overview of the history of computing devices and digital and analog computing mechanisms; machine elements, including arithmetic circuits and the Selectron; numerical mathematical methods; and a detailed presentation of the ENIAC, the parallel type EDVAC, and the serial acoustic binary EDVAC.

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 terminology and establish an information engineering profession as a precursor to what would become computer science. As the Cold War heated up, U.S. federal agencies increasingly funded university researchers and labs to develop technologies, like the computer, that would ensure that the U.S. maintained economic prosperity and military dominance over the Soviet Union. At the same time, private corporations saw opportunities for partnering with university labs and military agencies to generate profits as they strengthened their business positions in civilian sectors. They needed a common vocabulary and principles of streamlined communication to underpin the technology development that would ensure national prosperity and military dominance. investigates how language standardization contributed to the professionalization of computer science as separate from mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics examines traditions of language standardization in earlier eras of rapid technology development around electricity and radio highlights the importance of the analogy of “the computer is like a human” to early explanations of computer design and logic traces design and development of electronic computers within political and economic contexts foregrounds the importance of human relationships in decisions about computer design This in-depth humanistic study argues for the importance of natural language in shaping what people come to think of as possible and impossible relationships between computers and humans. The work is a key reference in the history of technology and serves as a source textbook on the human-level history of computing. In addition, it addresses those with interests in sociolinguistic questions around technology studies, as well as technology development at the nexus of politics, business, and human relations.

The Untold Story of Everything Digital: Bright Boys, Revisited celebrates the 70th anniversary (1949-2019) of the world "going digital" for the very first time—real-time digital computing’s genesis story. That genesis story is taken from the 2010 edition of Bright Boys: The Making of Information Technology, 1938-1958, and substantially expanded upon for this special, anniversary edition. Please join us for the incredible adventure that is The Untold Story of Everything Digital, when a band of misfit engineers, led by MIT's Jay Forrester and Bob Everett, birthed the digital revolution. The bright boys were the first to imagine an electronic landscape of computing machines and digital networks, and the first to blaze its high-tech trails.