Book details of 'Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing)'

Title	Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing)
Author(s)	I. Bernard Cohen, Gregory W. Welch
ISBN	0262032635
Language	English
Published	June 1999
Publisher	The MIT Press

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (History of Computing)':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
In teaching about emerging technologies, I frequently point out to the classes that those who fail to learn about computer history are going to buy the same old failed ideas again, repackaged with new buzzwords. Nowhere have I found this more amply demonstrated, within the compass of a limited total of pages, than in "Makin' Numbers." Time and again I found intriguing tidbits addressing concepts which we currently consider highly advanced. There is, for example, the concept of pipelining, and the speeding up of execution time within the central processor. The devotees of this practice would be astounded to find the lengths to which Mark I programmers took the idea. Not content with simply preparing in advance of an operation, they would actually start extra operations with unused parts of the machine, such as getting in some extra additions while the multiplication or division unit was crunching through a multi-cycle function. In one piece, Grace Hopper speculates on what Howard Aiken meant by his continual reference to computing "engines," concluding that he saw a computer as a kind of number factory, in which were employed a number of specialized machines with differing functions. This corresponds with the prevailing thinking about embedded or pervasive computing. As a virus researcher, I am very sensible of Aiken's antipathy towards von Neumann architecture, with no distinction between instructions and data, and his pursuit of the forgotten Harvard architecture. Making a division between code and information that is processed would eliminate viruses as a possibility. It is, however, intriguing that Aiken championed the idea, given his insistence on the pursuit of usability in computers, and his prediction that programmers would be more important than the fabricators of computing machinery: von Neumann architecture is certainly much easier to use in developing systems. Even more than in the companion "Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer" by Cohen (see reviews), "Makin' Numbers" provides a wealth of ideas from the history of the field. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2003
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Book description:

with the cooperation of Robert V. D. Campbell This collection of technical essays and reminiscences is a companion volume to I. Bernard Cohen's biography, Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. After an overview by Cohen, Part I presents the first complete publication of Aiken's 1937 proposal for an automatic calculating machine, which was later realized as the Mark I, as well as recollections of Aiken's first two machines by the chief engineer in charge of construction of Mark II, Robert Campbell, and the principal programmer of Mark I, Richard Bloch. Henry Tropp describes Aiken's hostility to the exclusive use of binary numbers in computational systems and his alternative approach. Part II contains essays on Aiken's administrative and teaching styles by former students Frederick Brooks and Peter Calingaert and an essay by Gregory Welch on the difficulties Aiken faced in establishing a computer science program at Harvard. Part III contains recollections by people who worked or studied with Aiken, including Richard Bloch, Grace Hopper, Anthony Oettinger, and Maurice Wilkes. Henry Tropp provides excerpts from an interview conducted just before Aiken's death. Part IV gathers the most significant of Aiken's own writings. The appendixes give the specs of Aiken's machines and list his doctoral students and the topics of their dissertations.