What do you think?
Rate this book
A History of Modern Computing
This book delivers exactly what its title promises: a straightforward and comprehensive account of the electronic digital computer's first five decades. Starting with the historic ENIAC of 1945, Ceruzzi moves nimbly through one epochal generation of computing technology after another: the gargantuan, vacuum-tube-filled mainframes of the early '50s; the sleeker, transistorized minicomputers of the '60s; the personal computers conjured up by hobbyists in the '70s; and the computer networks that have come to span offices and the globe in the last 10 years.
Ceruzzi places all of these developments in the context of the social phenomena that shaped them: the imperatives of Cold War research, the evolving needs of information-swamped businesses, and the quirks and dreams of counter-cultural computer hackers. But unlike some popular books about computing history, this one refuses to acknowledge any particular individual, group, or institution as its protagonist. The tale it tells is complex: a weave of high-level projects, lowbrow tinkerings, and sweeping socioeconomic transformations, with a crash course in the basics of computer architecture tossed in for good measure. The mix doesn't make for great drama, but it does offer something perhaps more valuable--the sober, subtle feel of real history unfolding. --Julian Dibbell
398 pages, Hardcover
First published October 12, 1998
29 people are currently reading
517 people want to read
About the author
Paul E. Ceruzzi
16 books11 followersPaul E. Ceruzzi is Curator at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. He is the author of Computing: A Concise History, A History of Modern Computing, and Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945–2005, all published by the MIT Press, and other books.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 27, 2009
this book holds the best roundup of computer history i've ever read. it is excellent for reference material. highly recommended.
May 9, 2021
This book is not as engaging as Hackers. The language is plain, close to a textbook. Nevertheless, it has very thorough references for computing history. The author also has interesting views in many important milestones in computing history and technological innovations in general. He argued how people tend to love the story of a heroic sole inventor made a discovery that changed the world while, in reality most inventions if not all are the work of many people and based on many prior work.
May 3, 2012
An incredibly thorough review of computing history, it's amazing how much of today's technology is a derivative of yesterday's work. Technology is constantly improving upon itself, and it's so much easier to understand the present when we know its past. Definitely recommend to anybody who wants to understand how it all got started.
January 21, 2013
There is a second Edition, I read the first. Apart from a lot of facts about the systems from 1950 and up, also the commercial success of the system is discussed. Interesting read.
December 31, 2022
"I wrote this book in an office at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, one of the busiest public spaces in the world. On a typical summer day there may be upwards of 50,00 visitors to the museum - the population of a small city. These visitors - with their desire to know something of modern technology - were a great inspiration to me. Their presence was a constant reminder that technology is not just about machines but about people: the people who design and build machines and, more importantly, the people whose lives are profoundly affected by them. It is to these visitors that I respectfully dedicate this book."
That's the dedication the author wrote as an intro in this book and I absolutely love his passion that is reflected in it.
Despite spending much of my life around computers and getting my education in Computer Science, I know very little about the history of them. I know certain events, what they were originally used for, the creation of Microsoft and Apple, but this book greatly filled in the wide gaps missing in my knowledge. The author did such an amazing job going over a very complicated history, naming all the important names and events, while never seeming to be overwhelming with his information and still managed to keep the reading engaging. Like with in opening quote, I could see the passion brimming from the words as he described this history.
This book was published in 1998 and I believe it only covers computer history until 1995, which is already a vast amount of knowledge but I'm sure some people will feel a lacking of knowledge through the current millennium. But I still feel this book gives enough information and knowledge that it is still worth reading today even with other more comprehensive history books out there.
Very informative and passionate read. Highly pleased that I picked it up at my library.
Also-putting this in as a bookmark for myself-this is my last book for my year of reading, and what a great year its been. Looking forward to all the great books and reading challenges of next year! Onward!!
September 26, 2022
Good, but with a problem
Overall this is a great history, especially when when it comes to the early mainframes etc. The key issue I have with it is that it is overly USA-focussed. As Ceruzzi says, most of the innovations, especially after about 1950 were in the USA, but I think this book does a disservice to both Turing and Berners-Lee.
Turing gets a few paragraphs here and there, and all of the early machines at Bletchley, Manchester, and the NPL are omitted. Worse, some of Turing's ideas are attributed to Von Neumann (a common mistake, but one that can't be made if you're familiar with Von Neumann's work as he often references that Turing is where he got the idea from.
When you add the fact that Tim Berners-Lee only gets a single paragraph in passing, it makes me wonder what other non-american contributions are forgotten.
I think Ceruzzi has applied his unquestionably vast knowledge of American computer history with perhaps a lacking consideration of what happened across the pond and it shows.
This being said, the bulk of the content is good and it's worth a read
Overall this is a great history, especially when when it comes to the early mainframes etc. The key issue I have with it is that it is overly USA-focussed. As Ceruzzi says, most of the innovations, especially after about 1950 were in the USA, but I think this book does a disservice to both Turing and Berners-Lee.
Turing gets a few paragraphs here and there, and all of the early machines at Bletchley, Manchester, and the NPL are omitted. Worse, some of Turing's ideas are attributed to Von Neumann (a common mistake, but one that can't be made if you're familiar with Von Neumann's work as he often references that Turing is where he got the idea from.
When you add the fact that Tim Berners-Lee only gets a single paragraph in passing, it makes me wonder what other non-american contributions are forgotten.
I think Ceruzzi has applied his unquestionably vast knowledge of American computer history with perhaps a lacking consideration of what happened across the pond and it shows.
This being said, the bulk of the content is good and it's worth a read
May 18, 2019
An interesting and concise review of the history of computers from the 1940s through 2001. While I already knew much of this history what sets this apart is the author's approach to putting so many innovations in context, focusing not only on the technical but on the social and commercial forces which drove them (and which are sometimes overshadowed or ignored in histories which focus purely on technical leaps forward). While it's hard to really go in-depth into any particular topic here, the footnotes and bibliography point the way towards any area of interest the reader may wish to explore in greater depth, and so can be used as a great starting point for further historical investigations.
November 11, 2019
A must-read for anyone who’s ever had a glimmer of nostalgia for a computer from their childhood, no matter if an IBM PC-clone, an Apple II, a Commodore VIC-20, or an Altair kit, and wondered where those magical devices came from. Is the computer a means of freedom or control? You’ll explore this theme throughout the book, beginning with modern computing’s punch-card origins in WW2 through IBM’s dominance in mainframes to the mini-computer and personal computer eras - leaving off just as the Internet and WWW begin to mature in the early 2000s (I anxiously await a volume three that will cover the last two decades - smartphones and cloud computing demand to be covered here) - and ultimately leaving that question as unanswered but hopeful.
October 30, 2022
Epätasapainoinen teos. Tekstissä saisi olla enemmänkin detaljeja, jolloin kirja olisi tietysti pidempi tai tarkemmin ajallisesti rajattu, tai sitten se saisi olla vetävämmin kirjoitettu. Nyt se on samanaikaisesti kuivakka ja pintapuolinen, joka on huono kombo.
Erityismaininta loputtomille alaviitteille, joista valtaosa osoittautuu pelkiksi lähdeviitteiksi, mutta osassa on sinänsä mielenkiintoista tekstiä; miksei se voinut olla osa leipätekstiä? Väsyin selaamaan eestaas ja niinpä jätin lopulta valtaosan niistä lukematta.
Erityismaininta loputtomille alaviitteille, joista valtaosa osoittautuu pelkiksi lähdeviitteiksi, mutta osassa on sinänsä mielenkiintoista tekstiä; miksei se voinut olla osa leipätekstiä? Väsyin selaamaan eestaas ja niinpä jätin lopulta valtaosan niistä lukematta.
June 5, 2025
Ilgiudizioaltoèdeterminatodallaquantitàdiinformazioniinteressantichesonocontenutenelvolumechecopronolabrevemaintensissimastoriadell'informatica.ProbabilmenteilvolumeverràapprezzatosolodaiveriappassionatichetroverannodelleverechicchenellestoriedellaDEC,delsignorCrayedituttiiprotagonistidell'epocad'orodellaSiliconValley.Avolteildiscorsorisultaunpo'dispersivoelanarrazionenonèsemprelineare;maachisiconcentrasulsuccoèdispostoaperdonareanchelanoneccelsatraduzione.
January 24, 2025
It starts well, but the further it progresses, the worse it gets. The last few chapters are a jumble of short articles.
Now, the book would need to be 10 times larger to be detailed enough, and it explicitly does not track the computer science's progress and its relationship with the practical computing. It would've been a lot more useful if it had.
Now, the book would need to be 10 times larger to be detailed enough, and it explicitly does not track the computer science's progress and its relationship with the practical computing. It would've been a lot more useful if it had.
July 20, 2020
Comprehensive discussion of (digital) computing since its start in 1945. The book manages to find a nice balance between the breadth (the large number of systems contributing to where we were in 2003) and depth (characteristics of the systems that made them relevant).
March 21, 2020
Needs to be updated. But the content it provides up to the early 2000's is great.
March 8, 2017
Un libro che tratta, in modo abbastanza imparziale, della storia dell'informatica, dalle origini ai giorni nostri.
Se non fosse che l'argomento mi interessa lo avrei già scagliato fuori dalla finestra perchè non riesce minimamente a invogliarmi nella lettura.
Fondamentalmente consiste in una serie di nomi e date mischiate poco abilmente in una serie di frasi con apparente senso del continuo.
Se non fosse che l'argomento mi interessa lo avrei già scagliato fuori dalla finestra perchè non riesce minimamente a invogliarmi nella lettura.
Fondamentalmente consiste in una serie di nomi e date mischiate poco abilmente in una serie di frasi con apparente senso del continuo.
June 11, 2014
My knowledge of computing begins in about 1978 with the Commodore PET and goes through the early Macintoshes to Unix/Linux today. But I have always been so curious about the early years - the REALLY early years, and in particular the years in which computer technologies advanced outside of the world of personal/desktop computers - big iron, mainframes, minicomputers, supercomputers. Understanding what happened from the 1950s to the 1980s was why I bought this book, and it was absolutely worth it.
Ceruzzi is a historian connected to the Smithsonian, and he does a spectacular job of telling the story of those years, evoking not only the technical progress, but the social and economic factors that made the progress possible. For instance, early computers were for the purpose of actually computing (trajectory charts for ammunition, at first). How these machines went from tubes to transistors to integrated circuits is the result of market and economic factors, military research and intervention, and the interests and business needs of researchers and later commercial actors. Ceruzzi describes this beautifully, in nuanced and understandable language that makes deft use of his technical knowledge without the narrative getting too technical.
He does a wonderful job of showing how both mental and mechanical processes evolved from a batch computing paradigm to time sharing to personal computing (interesting story, since we're now headed - via cloud technology - in the opposite direction again), the role of IBM as market dominating behemoth and clumsy and slow giant, how minicomputing shook the world of the mainframes, and how those same minicomputers - in the hands of innovators like DEC - laid the seeds of their own destruction. Throughout the book Ceruzzi shows intimate familiarity with the people, the paradigms, and the forces that led to technical evolution and progress.
Ever wonder why the world standardized on 8 bits, then 16, 32, and 64? It didn't necessarily have to be that way. Ever wonder what the difference is between a Cray and a mainframe? Or why mainframes still exist in the land of servers/client desktops? Curious about what people did before the rise of magnetic disk storage, or what language you'd use to program a DEC PDP/11? This is the book, and it's such an easy and informative read I buzzed through it in only a few nights' reading.
I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 though, because once big iron and minicomputers yield to personal computers, Ceruzzi clearly loses interest and simultaneously, seems to lose touch with the important parts of the narrative. I found his telling of the rise of Microsoft, the invention of the Internet, and the birth of Apple to be somewhat poorly told and even somewhat irregular. (There are better books for these subjects). I would recommend the reader simply stop reading once the story gets to that point, as his work on the early origins of computing - up to about 1985, say - to be fantastic.
But for a compelling and insightful narrative of the early years, this book is hard to beat - highly recommended, and far better than its companion book which is a somewhat abbreviated version of this more fulsome history.
Ceruzzi is a historian connected to the Smithsonian, and he does a spectacular job of telling the story of those years, evoking not only the technical progress, but the social and economic factors that made the progress possible. For instance, early computers were for the purpose of actually computing (trajectory charts for ammunition, at first). How these machines went from tubes to transistors to integrated circuits is the result of market and economic factors, military research and intervention, and the interests and business needs of researchers and later commercial actors. Ceruzzi describes this beautifully, in nuanced and understandable language that makes deft use of his technical knowledge without the narrative getting too technical.
He does a wonderful job of showing how both mental and mechanical processes evolved from a batch computing paradigm to time sharing to personal computing (interesting story, since we're now headed - via cloud technology - in the opposite direction again), the role of IBM as market dominating behemoth and clumsy and slow giant, how minicomputing shook the world of the mainframes, and how those same minicomputers - in the hands of innovators like DEC - laid the seeds of their own destruction. Throughout the book Ceruzzi shows intimate familiarity with the people, the paradigms, and the forces that led to technical evolution and progress.
Ever wonder why the world standardized on 8 bits, then 16, 32, and 64? It didn't necessarily have to be that way. Ever wonder what the difference is between a Cray and a mainframe? Or why mainframes still exist in the land of servers/client desktops? Curious about what people did before the rise of magnetic disk storage, or what language you'd use to program a DEC PDP/11? This is the book, and it's such an easy and informative read I buzzed through it in only a few nights' reading.
I gave it 4 stars rather than 5 though, because once big iron and minicomputers yield to personal computers, Ceruzzi clearly loses interest and simultaneously, seems to lose touch with the important parts of the narrative. I found his telling of the rise of Microsoft, the invention of the Internet, and the birth of Apple to be somewhat poorly told and even somewhat irregular. (There are better books for these subjects). I would recommend the reader simply stop reading once the story gets to that point, as his work on the early origins of computing - up to about 1985, say - to be fantastic.
But for a compelling and insightful narrative of the early years, this book is hard to beat - highly recommended, and far better than its companion book which is a somewhat abbreviated version of this more fulsome history.
July 14, 2014
Don't remember much about it.
This note was added years after reading the book.
Newmarket library.
This note was added years after reading the book.
Newmarket library.
April 7, 2018
Come libro sulle macchine informatiche moderne e` un ottimo testo. Fino agli anni '90 e` esauriente e capace di proporre sintesi interessanti. I tecnici della materia rimarranno a volte delusi dalla mancanza di approfondimento dei dettagli tecnologici, ma in sostanza mi sembra che le pietre miliari, anche concettuali, ci siano tutte. L'autore mi sembra invece progressivamente in difficolta` man mano che il software diventa assai piu` rilevante dello hardware: in questo caso le caratteristiche ingegneristiche sono del tutto trascurate (a volte con risultati davvero imbarazzanti: UNIX sarebbe suscettibile di attacchi virali grazie alle convenzioni lasche con le quali tratta standard input e output!) per concentrarsi (peraltro abbastanza superficialmente) sull'impatto commerciale dei prodotti. La traduzione e` molto buona, ma il testo e` afflitto da numerosi refusi.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews