Reviews for Making of the Micro: A History of the Computer

The average rating for Making of the Micro: A History of the Computer based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-22 00:00:00 Shawn Critchlow This book, published in 1980, is already a historical document, but it's no less interesting for that. At first glance "The Making of the Micro" seems like a slim book intended for the young adult market. In fact it provides a solid run-down of the history of computing from the earliest manual devices, via the visionary work of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace in the nineteenth century, to the early electro-mechanical computers of the twentieth century and right up to the dawn of the personal computer revolution. There are plenty of photos of seminal early machines, such as the fearsomely jury-rigged racks of the Manchester Mark I in its brick-lined basement and the spectacular, polished behemoth, the Harvard Mark I, which, built from eletro-mechanical relays, was a dinosaur from the moment it was finished. Even Bletchley Park's Collossus is included, even though at the time the book was written, information about the work of the wartime code-breakers was just beginning to come into the public domain. The author, Chris Evans, vividly brings the excitement and the promise of the early personal computer era to life in the last essay - which was never intended to be the end of the book. What makes this book so poignant is that the author died (at the age of 48) before this book was completed and before the full impact of the computer had penetrated society. Evans was a visionary who understood the impact of the coming revolution - as a reader, swept along by his engaging prose, it's impossible not to regret that he didn't get to see so many of his predictions come to reality. This is a book for the historian of computers in society; it's light on technical details (read "The First Computers - History and Architectures" for that) and frankly weak on elucidating what software is, but it's a solid review of the field for the general reader of the time. Recommended.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-02-21 00:00:00 Victor Quijano Nice overview that end with some insights that predict what is happening now.