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A History of Computing Technology by Michael R. Williams, and: Préhistoire et histoire des ordinateurs: Origines du calcul aux premiers calculateurs électroniques by Robert Ligonnière, and: Histoire de l’informatique by Philippe Breton (review)

1990; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1990.a901684

1097-3729

I. Bernard Cohen,

History of Computing Technologies

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 907 progress appears to be entirely appropriate for China, especially given its huge, still untapped domestic market. Many advanced electronics products can be designed and manufactured with 1970s and 1980s technology. Under such circumstances, it is not radical innovation that should occupy the attention of the Chinese; incre­ mental innovation is what is needed” (p. 172). Therefore, we may conclude that the application of computer technology to promote continuous increases in productivity in a widening set of economic sectors is an achievable goal. These are two useful books and, although some overlaps were inevitable, they complement one another well. Simon and Rehn have the more optimistic tone regarding China’s computer future. Their work furnishes more broad background material, while Witzell and Smith provide more detail. Readers interested in China’s entrance into the computer world will be rewarded by reading both volumes. Dilmus D. James Dr. James, professor of economics at the University of Texas at El Paso, teaches economic development and Latin American economics. His research has concentrated on the socioeconomic consequences of technological change in the Third World, a topic on which he has published articles and a book. He recently coedited New Technologies and Development: Experiences in “Technology Blending' (Boulder, Colo., 1988). A History of Computing Technology. By Michael R. Williams. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985. Pp. xi + 432; illustrations, bibliog­ raphy, index. $35.00. Prehistoire et histoire des ordinateurs: Origines du calcul aux premiers calculateurs electroniques. By Robert Ligonniere. Paris: Editions Ro­ bert Laffont, 1987. Pp. 356. F 107.50. Histoire de I’informatique. By Philippe Breton. Paris: Editions La Decouverte , 1987. Pp. 239; bibliography, index. F 85.00 (paper). These three volumes represent very different ways of writing the history of technology, all of them concerned primarily with the history and prehistory of the computer. Of the three, the most useful and the most ambitious by a long measure is Michael Williams’s A History of Computing Technology, the best single volume on the subject to be produced thus far. Williams’s book is extremely useful for anyone concerned with the subject at large, since it covers the broad sweep of the development of calculation, calculators, computing machines, and the electronic digital computer. Beginning with the invention of written numerals and a discussion of some systems of numeration, Williams moves ahead to “early aids to calculation.” Here we are given a brief but sound presentation of finger reckoning, the abacus, the proportional compass and sector, plus Napier’s “bones,” logarithms, 908 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE and the slide rule. This leads to the earliest mechanical calculating machines, primarily those of Schickard, Pascal, and Leibniz, and also of Moreland and Grillet. My only quarrel with this section is that Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar seems to me to be slighted, even though Williams does point out that his “arithmometer” of the early 1820s was “the first commer­ cially produced calculating machine to have any real degree of reliability and usefulness.” Since the Thomas arithmometer estab­ lished machine calculating as a practicality, and in fact inaugurated the machine computing industry, this achievement would seem to deserve a greater emphasis. Furthermore, Williams assumes that Thomas “took the basic Leibniz mechanism” and applied it to “some modern engineering and design practice” to produce the arithmom­ eter. In terms of actual practice and achievement, this sounds like a small step devoid of much creative originality, whereas Thomas’s achievement was herculean in overcoming numerous obstacles of the practical kind. Furthermore, Thomas always insisted that at the time of his invention he had not known of the prior work of Leibniz. It should be added that, despite the fact that Leibniz had the brilliant intuition of the “stepped-drum” principle, he could never produce a machine that would give consistently accurate results. In the devel­ opment of mechanical calculators, I would also like to have seen greater stress put on the Baldwin-Odhner machines, which intro­ duced variable-toothed gears as a rival to the arithmometer. Williams does point out, however, the great significance for practice of the introduction of key-driven machines. Following a chapter that provides an excellent summary of...