B J Wakelin (5 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good. Facsimile Edition. 8vo, Paperback, reprint ed. "This is an authorized Facsimile of the original book, and was produced in 1975 by microfilm-xerography by xerox university mircrofilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A." This book is in good condition with slight bumping to edges/shelf wear. Some foxing to page edges. Blue spine/no text. Size: 8vo. Paperback.…

Hard Cover. Condition: Near Fine. Gilt-stamped heavy black cloth boards, no text markings, NOT ex-lib, binding tight pages bright, slight shelf wear & slight quiet scuffing front panel, from collection of UCLA mathematician Nathaniel Grossman with his neat name to endpaper, else Fine copy of this landmark early title in the history of computing; 8vo; (xi) 451pp indexed.…

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine in Fair dust jacket. First Edition, Fourth Printing. 23.5 x 16 cm. xi 451pp. Diagrams, index. Dark blue cloth in price-clipped dust jacket. Fourth printing of the first edition with roman numeral "IV" on coypright page. Jacket is worn and has several large pieces out. Name on front free endpaper. Binding is tight. Uncommon in jacket. Considered to be the first textbook on digital computing and a window into the state of computing in the late 1940s. Each section has thorough bibliographies covering mostly American computing literature. …

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Stated first edition, 8vo., original navy cloth binding with gold lettering on spine, in a very good unclipped mylar protected DJ with a sunned spine. A thorough early study of the origins of the computer. Charles Brown Tompkins, a pioneering academic in the fields of numeric analysis and computing, wrote the majority of the text, much of which summarizes the work of the Engineering Research Associates computer company, of which he was founder in 1946. I particularly like this quote: A new type of amplifier called the transistor was recently announced by the Bell Telephone Laboratories. It seems likely that this device will simplify computer circuits considerably. It will probably be competitive with the electron tube in total cost per stage.…

New York, McGraw-Hill, 1950. 8vo. In the original full cloth with the original dust-jacket. Dust-jacket with light miscolouring to spine and and a tear to capitals. Small tear to upper part of the back to dust-jacket. A very fine and clean copy. XIII, (1), 451 pp. First edition in the rare original dust-jacket of the first textbook on digital computers. It constitutes "the first genuine textbook on computing techniques and computer hardware, was a pioneering book that influenced both American and foreign computer developments." (Tomash-Erwin E14). "The first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer" (OOC)"High-Speed Computing Devices was written to satisfy a perceived need, following the end of World War II, for a compendium of technologies applicable to the emerging field of the electronic digital computer. Because published technical information was scarce in the US, there can be little question that the book was an important contribution to the computer literature of the 1950s. For today's student of computer history, whether a professional historian or a history buff, the book, with its state-of-the-art picture of the period 1947 through 1949, establishes a well-documented baseline for tracking and evaluating subsequent technological progress" (A.A. Cohen, "Introduction", Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series Edition of the ERA Report, 1983)."It provides the best picture of the state of the industry in its infancy. Ostensibly written as a report to the Office of Naval Research, the work was really undertaken on behalf of the Naval cryptographic establishment. Engineering Research Associates, ERA, was a group formed primarily from demobilized World War II naval cryptographers. It presents a discussion of the mechanical and electrical (both analog and digital) devices that could be usefully incorporated into computing machines. Although it does not survey the computer projects then underway, it does occasionally discuss individual machines in the context of integrating devices into complete systems. Engineering Research Associates (ERA) later became a division of Remington Rand and then of Sperry Rand." (Tomash-Erwin E14)Tomash-Erwin E14.Origins of Cyberspace 584.…