Alan Turing and his Contemporaries

Building the world's first computers

Contributions by Chris Burton, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Roger Johnson, Simon Lavington Edited by Simon Lavington

Publication date:

11 February 2012

Length of book:

126 pages

Publisher

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

Dimensions:

246x189mm
8x10"

ISBN-13: 9781906124908

Secret wartime projects in code-breaking, radar and ballistics produced a wealth of ideas and technologies that kick-started the development of digital computers. This is the story of the people and projects that flourished in the post-war period. By 1955 computers had begun to appear in the market-place. The Information Age was dawning and Alan Turing and his contemporaries held centre stage. Their influence is still discernable deep down within today’s hardware and software.

1. The ideas men. 2. Ivory towers and tea rooms. 3. The Manchester machines 4. Meanwhile, in deepest Hertfordshire 5. One man in a barn 6. Aces and Deuces 7. Into the market place 8. Hindsight and foresight: Turing’s legacy 9. Bibliography and references 10. Timeline: Alan Turing’s life with computers. 11. Index.

Fantastic! This is an excellent romp through early computer history, placing Alan Turing’s work in a broader context and introducing the reader to some of the significant machines and personalities that created our digital world. The myth of a lone inventor is rarely true - this book leads the reader through complex but intriguing stories of the sung and unsung heroes and machines of a pioneering computing industry.