Landmarks in Digital Computing: A Smithsonian Pictorial History by Peggy A. Kidwell, Paul E. Ceruzzi

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 717 was in its artisanal stage, broadcasters were in no position to resist ASCAP demands. Indeed, they formed the National Association of Broadcasters largely to prevent the society from demanding higher license fees for the use of music composed by ASCAP members. Finally, Smulyan might have emphasized that the rise of radio re­ flected general tendencies inherent in capitalist economies. Time after time, the deployment of new technology in the United States has resulted in the concentration of wealth and power, larger bureau­ cratic structures, and the use of state power for private gain. It has also inspired myriad campaigns for the hearts and minds of the American people as well as turmoil in the labor force. The similarities between the evolution of radio and that of other American industries appear to qualify this book’s thesis. Since the American system of broadcasting emerged within the nation’s capitalist system, was radio not destined to assume some of its most distinguishing features? James Kraft Dr. Kraft is an assistant professor of history at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He has recently completed a book on musicians and technological change in America from the 1920s to the 1950s, to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Landmarks in Digital Computing: A Smithsonian Pictorial History. By Peggy A. Kidwell and Paul E. Ceruzzi. Washington, D.C.: Smith­ sonian Institution Press, 1994. Pp. 148; illustrations, glossary, bibli­ ography, index. $15.95 (paper). Half a century ago a “computer” was a person who carried out computations either by hand or with the aid of a machine. Today the word “computer” is synonymous with one specific computing technol­ ogy, the electronic digital computer. Initially developed in the 1940s for use in scientific and military applications, electronic digital com­ puters have, since the mid-1950s, also had an enormous influence on business practice, industry, and engineering, as well as more recently on education and leisure activities. Electronic digital computing de­ vices have simultaneously become more powerful, smaller, and cheaper. Indeed, since the introduction of “personal computers” in the 1980s, their use has become so widespread and the range of applications so diverse, that the term “computer” is becoming some­ thing of an anachronism. Yet though the invention and development of electronic digital computers/computing is one of the most signifi­ cant intellectual achievements and important economic developments of the 20th century, there are remarkably few comprehensive histori­ cal accounts. In Landmarks in Digital Computing: A Smithsonian Pictorial History, Peggy A. Kidwell and Paul E. Ceruzzi provide a densely illustrated and extremely accessible account of the development of digital aids to computation from ancient times to the mid-1980s. As the title 718 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE suggests, the landmarks chosen by Kidwell and Ceruzzi have largely been drawn from the collections currently held by the Smithsonian Institution. Organized into eight chapters, these landmarks are pre­ sented in chronological order. Yet this book is no mere catalog of artifacts. Each chapter has a concise introduction that provides con­ textual information relevant to the development of each group of digital computing landmarks. Within the chapters, each landmark has its own subsection in which its development and use is described in relation to the wider context of technical possibilities, personalities, and economic, institutional, and social factors. In chapter 1 we are introduced to devices that were used to record numbers or to help people calculate but in fact did not actually perform calculations. Among the examples given are the abacus, Napier’s rods, and mathematical tables. This provides an instructive contrast when compared with the digital devices described in chapter 2, “Machines that Calculate or Control,” which describes a selection of mechanized aids to computation, mostly adding ma­ chines. These range from the Arithmometer, developed and pat­ ented in France by Charles Xavier Thomas in the 1820s, to the cash registers manufactured by the National Cash Register Company in the United States from the mid-1880s. This chapter also contains a brief account of a machine that, though not an aid to calculation, nevertheless belongs to the history of digital computing: the auto­ matic loom developed by Joseph-Marie Jacquard at the beginning...