A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. With a Foreword by James Bryant Conant.

First edition, rare in the dust jacket, of the first computer programming textbook: the operating manual for the electromechanical Harvard Mark I. It was largely written by Grace Hopper, "one of the most famous of the postwar computer pioneers" (OOC). This copy was owned by the inventor and environmentalist Theodore Miller Edison, the son of Thomas Edison. Designed by Howard Aiken (1900-1973) and operational from May 1944, the Harvard Mark I was almost immediately commandeered for war work by the US Navy. Hopper (1906-1992) - who had joined Aiken's team that year and quickly become its lead programmer - was tasked with writing an instruction manual for it, "a task so monumental that she referred to her project as a computer 'bible'. It was a detailed treatment of Mark I's physical components, operation, and maintenance. Most importantly, the manual described with elaborate care how to program Mark I, thus becoming the first ever computer programming textbook" (Harvard). It was published as the first volume of the Annals of the Computation Laboratory. Hopper was involved in a number of other influential technological developments. She was central to the development of UNIVAC and pioneered compiler technology. She also co-developed the commercial language COBOL. An addressed card stating that this copy was from the library of Theodore Miller Edison (1898-1992) is loosely inserted; his purchase notes are also pencilled on the front free endpaper. As a child, Edison's interest in science led him to be known in his family as "the little laboratory assistant", and he went on to serve as the Technical Director of Research and Engineering for his father's company. He also founded his own firm, Calibron Industries, Inc., which became famous for the Calibron 12 puzzle. Edison accumulated over 80 patents in his career, including for a device that eliminated vibration in machinery and a stereoscopic mapping instrument. Origins of Cyberspace 411. "Harvard IBM Mark I", Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard University, accessible online. Quarto. With 17 black-and-white photographic plates, diagrams and tables within text. Original dark blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Cloth and contents clean, spine ends gently rubbed, bumps to extremities; jacket unclipped, spine faded, nicks to top edge, covers lightly soiled: a very good copy in like jacket.…