Landmarks in Digital Computing: A Smithsonian Pictorial History

This nearly pocket-sized book is an illustrated history of computation devices, of which only the last third can be considered computers. It starts with a description of knots in strings, with an emphasis on quipu, where the ancient Incas used knots to store information. Although little is known about the coding, it would have to have been elaborate, as the Incas had no written language. There is a photo of an undated quipu, but there is no translation. While I knew about the Inca use of quipu, I did not know that they were used by native Americans all the way up to British Columbia. Other devices described and illustrated are abacuses, Napier's rods, slates, and adding machines. There are many pictures of devices that are on display in the Smithsonian. It is the pictures that I found of most interest. The descriptions of the devices are short and most are part of the IT lore. Therefore, if you have been in IT for a few years, they will be familiar to you. For people with a little gray in their IT hair, the photos will be a trip down memory lane. I had to smile when I encountered the picture of the TRS-80, it was the first computer that I programmed. This is a short, interesting trip through the history of the computing device. In a few pages, you are taken from the simplest of devices to the most complex in existence in 1994.