Details
Synopsis
This history of the computer documents how the early innovation of a machine developed for the purposes of military number-crunching was transformed into the personal computer as we know it today, capable of diverse functions including communication and entertainment. Waldrop focuses on the role of Licklider in this transformation.
| Details | | Series: | Sloan Technology Series |
| Size | | Length: | 502 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 30.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"A rollicking account of a good, old-fashioned visionary...."
Kirkus Reviews (06/15/2001)
"[A]bly written and well researched...."
Publishers Weekly (07/09/2001)
"THE DREAM MACHINE has a distinctly encylopedic flavor, and probably only the most devout of tech fanatics will find this a page-turner."
Washington Post Book World - Clive Thompson (09/30/2001)
"Books about software are usually a swift swap for sleeping tablets. This one bucks that trend. It is unexpectedly and immensely readable."
New Scientist - Wendy Grossman (08/20/2001)
"An appealing feature of THE DREAM MACHINE is its comprehensiveness. Most of the big names are here, along with brief synopses of their ideas. Using the common trick in popular science writing of humanizing the players, Waldrop gives us not only Alan Turing's account of an abstract computer but his tragic death at 41. John von Neumann's work on computer architecture is sketched, as are tales about his lightning mental calculations. Norbert Wiener's cybernetics (the name didn't stick, but the prefix sure did) is presented as is his proverbial absent-mindedness. The same treatment is accorded Vannevar Bush's anticipations of hypertext, Claude Shannon's information theory and the psychologist George Miller's and the linguist Noam Chomsky's rebuttal of behaviorism. While impressive, the prodigious research that went into the book will likely generate a few disputes about primacy; such books usually do....Waldrop's periodic return to his leitmotif of computer accessibility and to Licklider's personal trajectory, and his references to the ambient political climate, usually keep us oriented...Waldrop's account of ...[Licklider's] and many others' world-transforming contributions is compelling."
New York Times Book Review - John Allen Paulos (10/07/2001)
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