
Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books? - jackofalltrades
Hi guys, can you recommend interesting books on Computer Science or computer history (similar to Dealers of Lightning) to read on this quarantine times?
I really like that subject and am looking for something to keep myself away from TV at night.<p>Thank you.
======
khaledh
The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing
Personal

It's an extremely well written book, starting from the very beginning at the
time of WWII, tracing people, ideas, struggles, and achievements of great
milestones in computer history. It's not your typical dry historical material,
but somehow the author made it personal through the eyes of key people that
influenced important computer science progresses, and in particular J.C.R.
Licklider (Lick), who galvanized a lot efforts across the U.S. in the sixties
that resulted in making computing interactive and ultimately personal, rather
than batch and business-focused. Many important milestones are discussed,
starting with the early days of mechanical computers, vacuum tubes, relays,
ENIAC, UNIVAC, through MIT's various efforts during the cold war to help with
real-time computing with Whirlwind and the SAGE project; IBM's mainframes
dominance in the fifties, and the hacker culture that arose against it at MIT
to build interactive computers like the TX-0 and TX-2, to the spin-off of DEC
and its minicomputers that changed the game; to building time-sharing systems,
and the groundbreaking inventions of Douglas Engelbart and his team at SRI;
the rise of the ARPA network; the many great ideas developed at Xerox PARC;
and ultimately the personal computer revolution and the Internet.

~~~
fragmede
I will warn that it starts off pretty dry and slow but it all comes together
in the end and I am so glad I pushed all the way through.

------
ghaff
_The Soul of a New Machine_ by Tracy Kidder. Probably the best book on product
development ever written. Command Line Heroes podcast on it:
[https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-
heroes/season-4/minic...](https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-
heroes/season-4/minicomputers) (Disclosure: I work for Red Hat)

Also worth checking out in this vein is _Showstopper_ about the development of
Windows NT which focuses on the role of Dave Cutler.

~~~
cfallin
Soul of a New Machine is fantastic!

Also on computer architecture / story of developing a new processor, "The
Pentium Chronicles" by Robert Colwell is a really interesting book on the
story of the Pentium Pro, the first out-of-order CPU from Intel.

------
Minor49er
"The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates is an interesting look into what Bill
envisioned for the Internet. It came with a CD-ROM full of videos of how
devices would be used in schools and workplaces (I thonk law enforcement too
if I remember correctly). The videos are much better than the book.

"The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" was eye opening for me regarding the life of
Jobs, his family life, and his business involvements.

"Masters of Doom" by David Kushner chronicles the history of id Software and
its creators. It's an entertaining book for sure, especially the part where id
has Gwar show up at Microsoft.

"Close to the Machine" by Ellen Ullman is the memoir of a software developer
in the 80s. I need to read this one again, but it was enjoyable. I think about
one part in particular from time to time where the author recounts being
offered a job to work on an aging mainframe. The man pitching the job is
probably the last person around who's dedicated to maintaining it. She would
have made a lot of money doing it, but the work itself looked to be soul
draining, so she skipped it fpr pther opportunities

"The Fugitive Game" by Jonathan Littman documents the story of Kevin Mitnick,
the so-called most wanted hacker alive. Certainly has some surprises and is a
fun read.

Pretty much anything by Norbert Wiener regarding cybernetics is interesting
from a historical perspective. I've read several but the one that comes to
mind immediately is "God and Golem, Inc". While unfinished, it goes into
cybernetics, which was a practice or idea that technology could interface with
biological life in a complementary way and those ways should be pursued. I
think he was ultimately successful since we take a lot of those ideas for
granted today.

"The Computer and The Brain" by John von Neumann is a great and short read. It
mostly talks about how binary signals can be fired by synapses in the brain.

~~~
homarp
for the 'road ahead', I guess it's interesting to read both versions (the
original edition and the 'Completely revised and up-to-date' that actually
takes into account the Internet)

~~~
Rerarom
I only read the first one (I knew about the existence of the second). It's
very funny how he waxes poetic in several chapters about the future
"Information Highway" (not superhighway as some have said) and takes a lot of
care to make sure we understand that the Internet is not it, but just a
precursor.

------
nkassis
Haven't seen anyone mention these but I like them a lot:

"Show-Stoppers: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next
Generation at Microsoft" One of my favorite, exposes how large software
project can really grind on people. Dave Cutler an interesting character and
some of the connections between the NT team, DEC and Cutler hate of UNIX is
fun.

"Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--Saving Privacy in the
Digital Age" \- Others have mentioned Hackers by Levy but this one is also
really interesting. Talks about the story of Whitfield Diffie and Marty
Hellman (Of diffie-helman fame) and others.

"Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet" Cover the early
creation of the internet.

"What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer Industry" \- If you've heard of the mother of all demos, this covers
Doug Englebart and a few other important folks from the 60s.

~~~
spondyl
I can also recommend Showstoppers. One thing I thought was interesting is that
Dave Cutler swore by taking his vacations on time, every time. It's a stark
contrast to the "hustle" culture you sometimes hear, given how highly regarded
he is at his profession

------
monk_the_dog
Two lesser known books that I enjoyed: 1) "Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley
Park's code-breaking computers", and 2) "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider
and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal".

One thing I learned from the "Colossus" book was the contribution of British
engineers to early computers (Tommy Flowers in particular). They didn't get
the credit they deserved because their work was kept secret for so long.

~~~
arman_ashrafian
The Dream Machine might be my favorite book of all time.

~~~
JeremyReimer
Agreed. I only found out about the Dream Machine from Hacker News (I think it
was Alan Kay who recommended it) and it was absolutely the best book ever
written on the topic.

------
jll29
Agree with all posted before.

Adding Clifford Stoll, Cuckoo's Egg; white it's not so much a history of
computing as a personal history of a geek astronomer catching a hacker, it
represents a lot of early computing culture, and I enjoyed it a lot.

~~~
madhadron
I second The Cuckoo's Egg. It's a great read and provides a vivid portrait of
a particular point in time of Unix culture.

------
eyegor
Code: the hidden language of computer hardware and software, by Charles
Petzold.

It's a modern classic (2000). It's less technical and more about the history
behind the idea/theories of coding itself. It also explains some basic
principles of how computers work, at a high level. Very well written.

~~~
fossuser
I also think it's a great book, but partly because it _is_ technical.

Charles is great at explaining how computers actually work with circuit
diagrams from the ground up in a way that's articulate, clear, and engaging. I
think I learned more from this book than I did in my CS architecture class.

The historical context he puts it in helps with clarity since it's easier to
understand when you know how each successive step built on the previous one.

In addition to the Dream Machine, I'd also mention Steven Levy's Hackers as an
obvious one to read.

Some others I've read:

\- What the dormouse said (this one was just okay, but interesting to see some
of the cultural context at the time).

\- Crypto (about the history of cryptography). I really liked this one, but
people I've recommended it to found it dry.

\- In the Plex (history of Google)

\- Masters of Doom (John Carmack, John Romero and Id Software)

Related Fiction:

\- Microserfs

\- The Soul of a New Machine

\- The Phoenix Project (fiction paired with the Dev Ops Handbook)

~~~
madhadron
If you're going to read the Phoenix Project, skip it and go back to Goldratt's
'The Goal'. And take it with a grain of salt.

~~~
fossuser
The Phoenix project was inspired in part by the goal - I think it's still good
and the software focus makes it more fun to read if you're in software.

~~~
madhadron
Sure, just don't expect it to apply in reality.

~~~
fossuser
It definitely does - nothing is perfect, but the core ideas of version control
for config, continuous deployment, automated testing, focusing on bottlenecks,
and tracking data are all valid.

The dev ops handbook is a good compliment for real world examples. I’ve
personally seen good dev ops turn things around and make products way better.

------
johnb
A few good ones that haven't been mentioned yet:

* "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems " [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ibms-360-and-early-370-system...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ibms-360-and-early-370-systems)

* "Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet" [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35953464-broad-band](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35953464-broad-band)

* "Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer" [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1427580.Fire_in_the_Vall...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1427580.Fire_in_the_Valley)

~~~
Uhhrrr
I second Fire in the Valley - there are a lot of good Mac-era anecdotes.
Hertzfeld put a lot of them at
[https://www.folklore.org/](https://www.folklore.org/) as well.

------
elipsey
Bentley, Jon., Bell Labs. "Programming Pearls" 1986\. --Coding excercises,
advice, and annecdotes about problem solving. Get up on grandpa's knee and
listen to a bunch of stories about UNIX.

Stephenson, Neal. "In the Beginning...Was the Command Line" 1999\. --History
of the evolution of UI's and their impact on people, culture, productivity,
especially 80's and 90's.

Van Wyk, Christopher J., Bell Labs. "Data Structures and C Programs" 1988\.
--D & A textbook, 80's style. Like Bently, more focus than we are now used to
on things like space time trade offs, resource constraints, in-place
operations, etc.

------
elviejo
"Let it go" by Madame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley

Creating a software company 100% remote 99% women In the 1960s!!!!

How was it possible?? Easy "programmers" programmed flawless programs in their
homes with pencil.

Which would later be typed in Punch cards in the "office".

She also struggled family life raising a heavily autistic son, when the
condition wasn't well understood. And then became a philantophist.

I think every woman in tech should read that book.

~~~
pjbk
I second this one. That book was awesome, as well as her story.

------
sien
The Friendly Orange Glow : The Untold Story of the PLATO system and the dawn
of cyberculture (2017) is a really interesting book about a system few people
here would probably have heard of.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34373814-the-friendly-
or...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34373814-the-friendly-orange-glow)

How the Internet Happened is very good. The podcast that was created while
writing the book is also worth a listen.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38212134-how-the-
interne...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38212134-how-the-internet-
happened)

Accidental Empires is also very good

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27652.Accidental_Empires](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27652.Accidental_Empires)

~~~
homarp
on the PLATO book,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784052)
has interesting comments from the author. On PLATO itself,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615420)

While i'm at it, the book 'Minitel, Welcome to the Internet' \-
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minitel](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minitel)
is about the history of the french Minitel (previous HN discussion on the
Minitel -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14681561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14681561)
)

~~~
gxqoz
That Minitel book is okay, but I didn't get too much out of it that wasn't on
an early Reply All podcast episode.

~~~
homarp
this one [https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-
all/8whoda](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/8whoda) ? "In the early
80's, way before the world wide web existed, the French government shipped a
$200 terminal to every home with a phone line, and created a service that for
decades ran alongside the internet. It was called The Minitel. Producer Carla
Green speaks to reporter Jean-Marc Manach, who, in the early 90's, made a
living posing as a woman in sex chat rooms on Minitel. "

------
PaulAJ
* Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence by Andrew Hodges. The definitive biography, with lots of detailed explanations of his work.

* Making Software, edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about evidence-based software engineering.

* Beautiful Code, also edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about especially elegant pieces of software.

* Eiffel, by Bertrand Meyer. What Java should have been.

* The Devil's DP Dictionary, by Stan Kelly Bootle. A satirical look at the computer industry circa 1980.

* The Jargon File. ([http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/)). The language of the Elder Days.

* Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert Glass.

* The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt & Thomas.

------
kratom_sandwich
Haven't read them, but they are on my to-do-list:

"Turing's Cathedral" [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/25/turings-
cathed...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/25/turings-cathedral-
george-dyson-review)

"The Innovators"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovators_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovators_\(book\))

~~~
wmf
I thought Turing's Cathedral was pretty good but note that it's mostly about
John von Neumann not Alan Turing.

~~~
djmips
Turing’s Cathedral but von Neumann was the Pope.

------
cpach
Lots of good recommendations in this thread. Here’s some more:

• Turner, Fred (2006) _From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the
Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism_

• Slatalla, Michelle & Quittner, Joshua (1995) _Masters of Deception: The Gang
That Ruled Cyberspace_

• Schlender, Brent & Tetzeli, Rick (2015) _Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution
of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader_

• Isaacson, Walter (2011) _Steve Jobs_

This one might also be worth lookin in to:

Hertzfeld, Andy (2004) _Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of
How the Mac Was Made_

I haven’t read it in book form but AFAICT the contents of the book are also
available over at [https://www.folklore.org/](https://www.folklore.org/)

By the way, you might also want to have a look at this project someone
published recently:

Meta book recommendations from Ask HN threads
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22693634)

------
Mongoose
Highly recommend A History of Modern Computing [1]. Starting with the ENIAC in
the '40s through the successive generations of computing technology in the
20th century, it gives a fantastic overview of the field's history.

Sadly, now that I look into it, it looks like it's out of print. There are a
few copies available on Amazon, so act now!

[1] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-
computing](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-computing)

~~~
cptnapalm
There's apparently a second edition which goes up through the dot com crash.

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-computing-
seco...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/history-modern-computing-second-
edition)

------
djhworld
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution ~ Steven Levy

The Soul of a New Machine - Tracy Kidder

~~~
dbcurtis
That came out when I was a CPU logic designer, deep in the middle of a major
mainframe project. (100K ECL, 20 BTU ton water chiller per CPU). My cube-mate
and I both gave that book to our wive's and said: "Here. This is what I do."

------
j1mr10rd4n
I thought Renegades of the Empire was a fascinating look into the internal
machinations at Redmond and a bit of DirectX history too

[https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Empire-Software-
Revolution-...](https://www.amazon.com/Renegades-Empire-Software-Revolution-
Microsoft/dp/0609604163)

------
pmcjones
[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/)

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/)

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/)

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/c_plus_plus/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/c_plus_plus/)

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/prolog/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/prolog/)

------
freehunter
As a follow-up, anyone have any books written about the Dotcom era? I was
still fairly young at the time so I don’t remember a lot of it and I can’t
find any books or shows that cover it. Lots of stuff from the 70s/80s/early
90s (Masters of Doom, Cuckoos Egg, Halt and Catch Fire, Pirates of Silicon
Valley), and lots of stuff from modern Silicon Valley (Bad Blood, Silicon
Valley, the various Steve Jobs movies/books) but it seems like the startup
world from 1995 to 2002 is just a blank space waiting to be filled.

What about Yahoo and Amazon and Pets.com and Webvan and eBay? What about stock
being used for toilet paper and employees wheeling their Aeron chairs home
when the company folded? What about Enron? How did 9/11 impact the Dotcom
bust? Hell, what programming languages/frameworks were they using?

~~~
packetslave
There's "The Nudist on the Late Shift" by Po Bronson, which is an expansion on
his various Wired writing from the Dotcom era. It's pretty good.

[https://www.amazon.com/Nudist-Shift-Other-Silicon-
Valley/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Nudist-Shift-Other-Silicon-
Valley/dp/B0000544NZ)

You can read the first (and best) chapter here:
[https://www.wired.com/1999/07/pilgrims/](https://www.wired.com/1999/07/pilgrims/)

------
cbare
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu

[https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/194417/the-
master-s...](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/194417/the-master-
switch-by-tim-wu/)

A great book on history of the information economy over the periods of Radio,
Telephone, and cable TV that has a lot to say about how the longer cycles of
technology play out.

~~~
intopieces
I second this recommendation and his book "The Attention Merchants" as well.

------
CJefferson
These are going to seem a bit strange, as they don't go that far into history,
but I found the really interesting in showing how projects grow and evolve
over time.

The Design and Evolution of C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup: This book is quite old
itself now, but it talks about the early days of C++, and does a good job of
describing how we ended up with the language we did.

The Old New Thing, Practical Development Throughout the Evolution of Windows
by Raymond Chen. You can also read lots of the parts of this book on Raymond's
blog, of the same name. This book really gave me a lot more respect for
Windows and Microsoft on a technical level, giving many small fun stories on
how functionality evolves over time, and how sensible decisions cause pain 10
years later.

------
pjbk
Since these have not been mentioned already:

* Brian Bagnall trilogy on the history of Commodore/Amiga: [http://variantpress.com](http://variantpress.com)

* Severo Ornstein's "Computing in the Middle Ages", about how it used to be a professional programmer back in the early days. You can find his CHM oral history interview at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q243lfVdQ9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q243lfVdQ9E).

* "Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer". A candid view about how the PC industry unfolded.

* "Introduction to Algorithms" by Udi Manber. IMHO one of the best books about how to approach problems with a programmer's mindset.

------
n_t
1\. UNIX: A History and a Memoir

2\. The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind
the Supercomputer

3\. The idea factory - Bell Land and the great age of American innovation

4\. Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

5\. The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a
Revolution

7\. Intel Trinity,The: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built
the World's Most Important Company

8\. The Dream Machine

9\. The Soul of a new machine

~~~
japhyr
+1 UNIX: A History and a Memoir

I read it after seeing a recommendation here, and I've been recommending it
ever since. I loved reading the early history of the development of UNIX and
all the command line tools we use on a regular basis. The history was
wonderful to read, and it made me a little better at the command line as well.

------
nprescott
A People’s History of Computing in the United States - Joy Lisi Rankin

 _Joy Rankin draws on detailed records to explore how users exchanged
messages, programmed music and poems, fostered communities, and developed
computer games like The Oregon Trail. These unsung pioneers helped shape our
digital world, just as much as the inventors, garage hobbyists, and eccentric
billionaires of Palo Alto._

~~~
tuke
[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2612112367?book_show_a...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2612112367?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1)

------
dkislyuk
The Dream Machine is a fantastic and thorough history of the early days of
computing, woven together as a partial autobiography of J. C. R. Licklider,
though the scope of the book is substantially grander.

It’s a long read, and I opted to do the audiobook option, which I found
entertaining and captivating. It covers the origins of computing from the WWII
days, to the early debates in the computing world, to ARPA and all of its
resulting projects, Xerox PARC formation, and finally the emergence of
microcomputers.

------
Aaronstotle
The Information: a History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick is great. Starts
with Ada Lovelace/Charles Babbage and goes on from there, I found it
fascinating.

~~~
westurner
"The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" starts with "1 | Drums That
Talk" re: African drum messaging; a complex coding scheme:

> _Here was a messaging system that outpaced the best couriers, the fastest
> horses on good roads with way stations and relays._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_Theory,_a_Flood)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8701960-the-
information](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8701960-the-information)

From "Polynesian People Used Binary Numbers 600 Years Ago"
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polynesian-
people...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/polynesian-people-used-
binary-numbers-600-years-ago/) :

> _Binary arithmetic, the basis of all virtually digital computation today, is
> usually said to have been invented at the start of the eighteenth century by
> the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz. But a study now shows that a
> kind of binary system was already in use 300 years earlier among the people
> of the tiny Pacific island of Mangareva in French Polynesia._

------
mysterydip
"It's Behind You" by Bob Pape chronicles the porting of the arcade game R-Type
to the ZX Spectrum. He never published it and instead created a website where
it can be downloaded freely: [http://bizzley.com/](http://bizzley.com/) It's a
great short (136pg) read on the development processes necessary back in the
day to squeeze performance out of limited hardware.

------
mhh__
I haven't touched it in ages but "where wizards stay up late" is about the
origins of the internet

------
gxqoz
A good history of early British computing is Programmed Inequality. Gets at
why that country squandered its WW2-era computing lead (spoiler alert: sexism
was part of it). [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-
inequality](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-inequality)

------
Impossible
Racing the Beam [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-
beam](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-beam) Wolfenstein Black Book
[http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/](http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbwolf3d/)
Doom Black Book
[http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/](http://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/)

Platform studies book series in general cover a lot of this
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/series/platform-
studies](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/series/platform-studies).

~~~
gxqoz
The NES book in the Platform Studies series (I Am Error) is the best of the
lot, although they're pretty good (particularly Racing the Beam).
[https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9805921.Nathan_Altice](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9805921.Nathan_Altice)

~~~
Impossible
Thanks, I've only read Racing the Beam but I've been meaning to check out some
of the other ones. I'll start with that one.

------
nieksand
Kernighan's "UNIX: A History and a Memoir" is a fun read.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I'm in the middle of this right now. It really is an interesting read. He's
clear enough, and keeps out of too much detail, so a civilian can read it, but
there's enough meat to be interesting to a techie.

------
NateEag
If you want to learn about the proto-history of the computer, a graphic novel
called "The Thrilling Adventures Of Lovelace And Babbage" is well worth your
time.

The comic itself is pure fiction of a zany cartoon comedy variety.

The writer is obsessed with the actual history, though, to a point where her
footnotes sometimes take as much space on the page as comic panels.

It's a glorious thing and provides more insight into who Babbage and Lovelace
really were than anything else I've personally read.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thrilling_Adventures_of_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thrilling_Adventures_of_Lovelace_and_Babbage)

------
dstein64
Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists
[https://cs.nyu.edu/shasha/outofmind.html](https://cs.nyu.edu/shasha/outofmind.html)

------
oneplane
Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfeld is pretty good. Not purely about
the technical details but definitely the mindset, culture and activities that
made a huge impact on modern consumer computing.

------
bryananderson
I'm really enjoying "The Code" by Margaret O'Mara, which is specifically a
history of Silicon Valley. It's not particularly technical, but the history is
fascinating. O'Mara does a great job of presenting a nuanced view of the
different factors that formed Silicon Valley as we know it: entrepreneurship,
academia, defense. Defense in particular is usually omitted from the
narrative, but has been a crucial ingredient from the start.

------
SaxonRobber
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

One of my favorite books, it covers everything from braille to
microprocessors. A great book for anyone interested in technology.

------
TruffleLabs
The Computer History Museum has lots of history on line
[https://computerhistory.org/](https://computerhistory.org/)

~~~
rjsw
The articles that I have read could use some editing, I'm guessing they were
transcribed from audio recordings by people who were not computer experts.

------
robotbikes
I really enjoyed "What the Dormouse Said"
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said)
it was about how the 60s counter culture interacted with the personal computer
industry being formed, so a lot of computer science interwoven with politics.

------
pjc50
"Racing the Beam", on the early Atari; notable for nailing both the
techological and sociological sides of the games it studies.

~~~
pinewurst
Also "I Am Error" (from the same series) on the Nintendo NES - a really great
book.

------
billfruit
Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution by Fred Brooks, Etc is a
comprehensive look into the evolution of computer architecture.

~~~
cptnapalm
I had not heard of this one, somehow. Will certainly put it on my reading
list. Thanks.

------
mitchelldeacon9
The following is a list of my favorite books on software engineering, cyber-
security, and the history of IT business development.

Bowden, Mark (2011) Worm: The First Digital World War

Brooks, Frederick (1995) Mythical Man-Month, 2nd ed.

Christensen, Clayton (1997) Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause
Great Firms to Fail

Hafner, Katie and Matthew Lyon (1996) Where Wizards Stay Up Late: Origins of
the Internet

Hunt, Andrew and David Thomas (1999) Pragmatic Programmer

MacCormick, John (2012) Nine Algorithms that Changed the Future

McConnell, Steve (2004) Code Complete, 2nd ed.

Mitnick, Kevin and William Simon (2002) Art of Deception

Poulsen, Kevin (2011) Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar
Cyber-Crime Underworld

Raymond, Eric (2003) Art of Unix Programming

Stone, Brad (2013) The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Torvalds, Linus and David Diamond (2001) Just for Fun: Story of an Accidental
Revolutionary

Wallace, James and Jim Erickson (1992) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and Making of
the Microsoft Empire

Williams, Sam (2002) Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free
Software

Wilson, Mike (1996) The Difference between God and Larry Ellison: Inside
Oracle Corp

------
cptnapalm
IBM's Early Computers and IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems. They are an
incredible wealth of information for the research, design and implementations
of early computers. Been aching to know about how the different transistors
were developed, by whom and what their benefits and drawbacks were? It's all
in these two.

------
coleca
Since Show Stopper was already mentioned and I didn't see this one mentioned,
so I'll throw this one out there:

Fatal Defect by Ivars Peterson [https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Defect-Chasing-
Killer-Computer/...](https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Defect-Chasing-Killer-
Computer/dp/0679740279)

It's a few stories about the impact software bugs can have on real life. For
example, the THERAC-25 bug that literally killed people.

It's been eons since I read the book, but I recall a passage about how
computer scientists had been so opposed to Reagan's Star Wars program,
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), not because it's a war machine, but
because it was so complex that there would be no way to be sure it was bug
free. I'm sure it was more nuanced than that but that's my 20+ year
recollection of that part of the book.

------
justicezyx
The Intel Trinity About the early days until 90s for Intel, having stories on
Shockley's semiconductor lab, Fairchild then Intel etc.

The soul of a new machine Not much history, but more on how a small computer
manufacturer in 70s. It's quite relevant today, as the process very much
resembles a software startup's.

------
odie88
A lot of great books are already mentioned.

I also enjoyed "Masterminds of Programming: Conversations With The Creators Of
Major Programming Languages" [0]

It's a collection of interviews with creators of languages (FORTH, C++,
Python, Haskell, and many more) You learn a lot about language design
decisions and their pitfalls.

And a shameless plug: I shared MapFilterFold as a Show HN earlier, a project
that collects recommendations from Ask HN threads. Browsing the books tagged
computer science might yield some interesting results[1]

[0]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596515170/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596515170/)

[1]
[https://mapfilterfold.com/books/?genre=computer%20science](https://mapfilterfold.com/books/?genre=computer%20science)

------
acd
UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan.

UNIX is the predecessor to Linux/BSD and was created at Bell laboratories.
Also C was created there.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29)

"Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather
than complicate old programs by adding new "features"."

One could say Micro services is a form that, do one thing and do it well.

------
pjmorris
"Programmers At Work" by Susan Lammers was a great read in its time, and I
keep referring to ideas from it. Might be worth a look. Peter Seibel's done a
great job with continuing the idea, e.g. "Coders At Work", "Founders At Work."

Is it time to read "Godel, Escher, Bach?"

~~~
Agathos
Gamers at Work is also great if you're curious about the early days of the
games industry. The discussions focus on the business side, so it reads more
like Founders than like Coders. Interesting to see where some of today's
giants began.

------
di4na
Programmed Inequality by Mar Hicks,
[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-
inequality](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/programmed-inequality)

On the history of women in programming in Britain and how they got discarded
from the profession.

------
samhenke
"Code" by Charles Petzold is a great read. It describes how computers work
from the bottom up, starting with how you can get electricity to do math. I've
recommended it to people of all backgrounds, and everyone loves it.

------
voxadam
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon
Gertner

------
amatic
I've enjoyed "The Analogue Alternative: The Electronic Analogue Computer in
Britain and USA, 1930-1970", By James S. Small. Really got me thinking about
the possibility of forgotten ideas from that space.

------
Rochus
\- ENIAC - The triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer

\- Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age

\- From airline reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog - a history of the software
industry

\- History of programming languages Volumes 1 to 3

------
raphaelrk
I really loved "Valley of Genius"

500 pages of straight quotes. It reads like everyone is gathered around a
campfire talking about the past, and you're there with them. Great book

[https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Foun...](https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Genius-Uncensored-History-
Founders/dp/1455559024/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1531347283&sr=8-1&keywords=valley+of+genius&linkCode=sl1&tag=ope06-20&linkId=fc2e4a34c0d2eea0fc8204adf16aef3f)

------
drej
Code is excellent, Innovators are immersive, the Code Book is brilliant,
albeit less about computer history and more about cryptography in general (all
books by simon Singh are super interesting).

------
mjn
Two on AI history:

Pamela McCorduck's _Machines Who Think_ , either the 1979 original edition, or
the 2004 2nd ed, which adds a 100-page afterword covering 1979–2004.

Nils Nilsson's _The Quest for Artificial Intelligence_ (2009).

They have somewhat different styles and focuses. McCorduck is a writer (of
popular science and sci-fi), while Nilsson was an AI researcher. Which isn't
to say that McCorduck lacks knowledge about AI or that Nilsson can't write,
but their backgrounds are noticeable in how the books are organized and
written.

------
voidray
The Dream Machine is very long but IMO very good and worth the effort. Part-
biography, part-history (going all the way back to the early days e.g.
Turing), and extremely thorough!

------
bachmeier
Sophistication & Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer

[https://apple2history.org/book/](https://apple2history.org/book/)

Not technically a book (I think that was the original plan) but there are
significant interviews on the History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific
Computing

[http://history.siam.org/oralhistories.htm](http://history.siam.org/oralhistories.htm)

------
contingencies
_Underground_ @ [http://www.underground-
book.net/download.php3](http://www.underground-book.net/download.php3)

~~~
contingencies
Oh and _MITRE: The First 20 Years_

------
Rerarom
Curious that "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric S. Raymond hasn't been
mentioned yet.

Also: Logicomix, about the development of modern logic up to Gödel.

------
mr-ron
The innovators by Walter Isaacson.

He did Steve jobs bio, Ben Franklin bio, Leonardo davinchi bio, but this is my
favorite since it's basically 30 biographies in one.

~~~
qchris
I finished this one a couple months ago, highly recommended! After I started
his Einstein biography in college, I missed several classes after getting
caught up in it and losing track of time.

------
pmcjones
Metropolis, N., J. Howlett, and Gian-Carlo Rota, A History of Computing in the
Twentieth Century, Academic Press, 1980.

[https://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Twentieth-
Nicholas-...](https://www.amazon.com/History-Computing-Twentieth-Nicholas-
Metropolis/dp/0124916503)

This is based on papers presented at a 1976 conference by many of the original
pioneers.

------
netsharc
20 years ago I downloaded a text version of the Jargon File [1] and read it
back to front. It wasn't dry at all and gave me an insight into the 60's/70's
Silicon Valley hacker culture...

[1] I don't know where I got it 20 years ago but DDGing gave me
[https://jargon-file.org/archive/](https://jargon-file.org/archive/)

------
faitswulff
Not a book, but Oxide Computing's podcast, "On the Metal" interviews a lot of
interesting people in computing:
[https://oxide.computer/podcast/](https://oxide.computer/podcast/)

I found it both entertaining and informative and if you're looking for
something to kill time while you exercise, this is a good option.

------
blueyes
Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer

High Stakes, No Prisoners - history of the birth of the Internet written by
the founder of FrontPage, with a keen critique of Netscape's history - Charles
Ferguson

Computer Wars - a look at the decline of IBM by the early 90s - Charles
Ferguson

Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley - An oral history
of the Valley in the 80s and 90s.

------
Ahmedb
I was about to recommend Dealers of Lightning :D

~~~
jackofalltrades
And that would be an excellent recommendation! :)

------
feydaykyn
"Dreaming in code" by Scott Rosenberg

It tells the story of a software team which has everything, money, talent,
time... but doesn't find how to materialize their idea. I've kept the warning
in mind ever since

[http://www.dreamingincode.com/](http://www.dreamingincode.com/)

------
manaskarekar
Here’s one that’s a hit or miss depending on your interests: The Design And
Evolution of C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup himself.

[https://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-
Stroustrup/...](https://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-
Stroustrup/dp/0201543303)

------
noobdood
I second some of the ones others have mentioned, e.g. like Soul of a New
Machine,the Hackers book by Levy, the 2 Programming Pearls books by Jon
Bentley, etc.

Bentley also wrote a less-often-mentioned gem of a book: Writing Efficient
Programs. It is about performance tuning of programs at many levels, micro to
macro.

------
RMPR
I wonder why

Free as in freedom, Sam Williams

Wasn't mentioned (maybe it's too recent?), the book is written as biographical
snapshots of Richard Stallman, basically the story of the Free software, I
think it's a great complement for The Cathedral and the Bazaar which was
already mentioned.

~~~
RMPR
Something I also liked as far as history is concerned:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20797521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20797521)
while it's not a formal book, it covers the motivation and some nitty gritty
stuff you might find useful.

------
occamschainsaw
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson looks at the different eras in the history
of computing, from Ada Lovelace, looms to transistors and microchips to the
development of the web. It's a fun read with emphasis on both the technology
and the people behind it.

------
lord5et
"The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation" by Jon
Gertner.

~~~
oizin
I second this, so interesting to learn about all the characters that went
through Bell Labs and the variety of things they worked on.

------
reverendbyte
James Cortada's books \--> Before the computer \--> The Digital Hand (Vol
1,2,3) - Real great detail

Also Paul Cerruzzi has written in depth on computing history I seem to recall
there is also some special history group over on acm.org

------
racl101
[https://www.folklore.org/](https://www.folklore.org/)

has pretty good yarns about the people who worked on the original Macintosh.

------
fellellor
"The Annotated Turing" by Charles Petzold is an in depth look into the seminal
paper by Claude Shannon that started this whole "tech" thing.

~~~
leg100
I think you might have gotten that wrong...

------
didgeoridoo
Top five, summaries easy enough to find via Amazon:

\- Turings’s Cathedral

\- The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood

\- A Mind at Play

\- The Victorian Internet

\- Dawn of the New Everything

Plus two that I haven’t read but hear amazing things:

\- Mindstorms

\- Dream Machine

------
jonjacky
Computer: A History of the Information Machine by Martin Campbell-Kelly and
William Aspray. Good on prehistory: pre-computer data processing in the 19th
and early 20th centuries -- there was a lot of it! --- the founding and early
history of IBM and the computer industry etc.

Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum. From 1976. Not exactly a
history, but now of historical interest as the first thorough ethical and
humanist critique of computing and AI, by the MIT computer scientist who wrote
the original Eliza program. The chapter on the hacking culture at MIT has been
widely quoted and was one of the first popular accounts of that scene.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines by Ted Nelson. From 1974. Another book now of
historical interest. Self-published, with a DIY look similar to its
contemporary Whole Earth Catalog. Along with advocacy ("You can and must
understand computers now!") it is also an opinionated survey of the computing
world right before the personal computer appeared. Nelson is now best known as
the author of the Xanadu hypertext proposal, which does get a few pages here,
but I think this book might be his most influential contribution.

------
mesaframe
The Annotated Turing Machine

It tells about history of Turing Machine and explains Turing's paper.

------
op03
Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age.

------
hydandata
In no particular order:

Sunburst and Luminary: an Apollo Memoir
[https://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html](https://www.sunburstandluminary.com/SLhome.html)

The Brain Makers [https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Makers-HP-
Newquist/dp/067230412...](https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Makers-HP-
Newquist/dp/0672304120)

Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence
[https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Computing-Machine-
Intellige...](https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Computing-Machine-
Intelligence-1983-1993/dp/0262182262)

The Soul of a New Machine [https://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-
Machine/dp/B01FCTJCR0](https://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine/dp/B01FCTJCR0)

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution [https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-
Heroes-Computer-Revolution-An...](https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Heroes-
Computer-Revolution-Anniversary/dp/B017RV1I3C)

Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet
[https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/B00AQU7...](https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/B00AQU7OFS)

Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
[http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-
TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn...](http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-
TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEngineering.pdf) Not a dedicated history book, but
Hamming talks a lot about personal experiences and observations

UNIX: A History and a Memoir [https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-
Brian-Kernighan-e...](https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-
Kernighan-ebook/dp/B07ZQHX3R1)

Masters of Doom [https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-
Cult...](https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-
Culture/dp/B008KGXM6A) linking to audiobook because it is read by Wil Wheaton
:)

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
[https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds-
Wanted/...](https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds-
Wanted/dp/0316037729)

It might be just me, but I really enjoy reading biographies of people
important to the science, for example here is one for John Tukey
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.2003...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.2003.0032)

~~~
madhadron
Hamming's 'Art of Doing Science nad Engineering' is absolutely worth reading.

------
Macintosh007
Check out “Fire in the Valley.” It’s a classic!

~~~
srb24
agreed, also see if you can find the made-for-tv movie adaptation of it "The
Pirates Of Silicon Valley"

------
Insanity
some that I read and recommend:

\- Turing's cathedral

\- Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution

\- masters of doom (game dev history more than cs)

------
RocketSyntax
\- The Dream Machine

\- The Innovators

------
dntbnmpls
There was a HN post a while back about "Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian
Kernighan". It also has a lot of good recommendations in the comment section.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21373800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21373800)

