How Computers Work... in 1971 353
prostoalex writes "A recent submission to my free tech books site included a title that I thought many Slashdotters would enjoy. How It Works: The Computer (published 1971 and re-published 1979) is an exciting look into this new thing called computer. The site presents the scanned pages of 1971 and 1979 editions, and you can see how the page on computer code changes over 8 years from punchcards exclusively to magnetic tapes."
Student Flashback (Score:5, Informative)
I presume it was the 79 edition they recommended.
What a lovely nostalgia trip. Thanks!
What I find most impressive ... (Score:5, Informative)
On topic, though, it is a quaint little trip you've provided. It's fun to see the historical context of a chosen career (a chosen passion, I should say). In 1971 I was 1 to 2 years old, and don't recall what the professional goal was. Later it would be "astronaut," until grade school, when video games (c.f. this posting [slashdot.org]) made "computer programmer" be the new (and final) choice.
Apparently, the publisher, Ladybird Books [ladybird.co.uk], has had its own interesting history [theweeweb.co.uk], and is now part of Penguin.
I've still got that book (Score:5, Informative)
The people who wrote this book basically felt that a child of 8 should not have the inner workings of a computer being hidden from them, but be taught th technical side from day 1.
Anyway, 20 years later this book is still where I first learnt about flow charts and cpu registers!
Re:Women and Computers (Score:5, Informative)
No, they were showing reality.
Most (but not all!) programmers were men - they'd be writing the code.
But most men weren't expected to type... at least not all that well or fast. So they had special purpose "keypunch operators" - mostly women - who would take the hand-written code (written on "coding sheets") and key it onto punchcards. Accuracy and speed in typing were key.
In addition, operators would feed cards into the computers, etc etc.
It wasn't a glamorous or creative job. As "on-line" systems and terminals like the 3270 and VT-100 were deployed, the keypunch operators slowly faded away.
I'd assume that a few exceptionally interested keypunch operators learned to identify programming and machine errors and found their way into programmer ranks.
Re:Women and Computers (Score:5, Informative)
Probably, though back in the early days, the first programmers were women. Ada Lovelace has been described as Founder of Scientific Computing [sdsc.edu] Grace Hopper also comes to mind. Futhermore, back in the days of cracking Enigma codes, it was teams of women who programmed the bombes [demon.co.uk]. Somewhere along the line, computer programming was co-opted into professional studies as 'engineering' and 'science' and unfortunately, women were actively discouraged from entering those professions. Only now is this changing ...
Re:Always ENIAC (Score:2, Informative)
Old computer book in PopUp form (Score:1, Informative)
It even has a replica of a 5&1/4" floppy that you can remove and insert into a popup disk drive!
Bah, that's nothing... (Score:1, Informative)
The machine had vacuum tubes. The operating console included an oscilloscope and bit switches for entering instructions. It did have a punched tape reader as well.
My father programmed it for his graduate thesis, although now he is a member of the blinking twelve generation and would not survive with his mac without my IT support. Changing are the fortunes in life.
Link: http://www.tietokonemuseo.saunalahti.fi/eng/wegem
- ac
Re:Copyright infringement (Score:2, Informative)
Are you sure that this book is still under the copyright of Ladybird?
On this [intellectu...rty.gov.uk] page it claims...
"Copyright in a published edition expires 25 years from the end of the year in which the edition was first published."As 2004-1979 = 25 doesn't that make this book out of copyright now?
Need it now? Pay for it now. (Score:3, Informative)
The key word is NOW. Why is it foolish, if you need state of the art hardware to do work (or play games) on, to pay the current prices for it? Sure, it'll be 1/2 the cost in 1 year but that's in 1 year. You need it/want it immediately, so you pay the current market rate. If your need for the item is less urgent, or you have less money, you will perhaps wait and buy the same item later, for less, ie. you sacrifice immediate usage for affordability. Applying financial hindsight in this situation is what's foolish.
Re:General principles don't change (Score:3, Informative)
Introduction to Microcomputers
Adam Osborne
was written in 1979 and can still teach some things. I wish I new who I loaned my old copy out to.
Re:Always ENIAC (Score:3, Informative)
The ther problem is the defition of Computer. Depending on how you define it, you can have many different 'first' computers, however, no matter how you define it, ENIAC was not the first computer.
Re:trivia (Score:3, Informative)
Re: ZX81? What video memory? (Score:3, Informative)
What video memory? The ZX81 generates screen output something like this: an interrupt routine eating 75% CPU time feeds character data to hardware shift registers, that produce a line of black&white dots on the screen. Repeat (carefully timed) until screen is done, and then remaining 25% CPU time (vertical blank period) is left for doing useful work until new TV frame begins.
It also had "fast mode" that did away with this, leaving snow on the TV screen (but at a 4x gain in processing speed!). I always loved this machine for its wonderful use of the limited hardware. You can even build your own [btopenworld.com], or personally type in a flicker-free space invaders clone [btopenworld.com] on it.
Still used for things like controlling model trains or stepper motors, or re-built by programming the entire machine's function into a FPGA [sourceforge.net]. Note: color in screenshot on last link is surely not on original hardware...
Re:Copyright infringement (Score:1, Informative)