Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (History of Computing)

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Synopsis: Biography of Howard Aiken, a major figure of the early digital era, by a major historian of science who was also a colleague of Aiken's at Harvard.

Review: Great controversies never die. The brouhaha surrounding the unveiling of the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (or Harvard Mark I), the first general-purpose automatic computer, is a perfect example: Who invented it, IBM engineers or Harvard applied mathematician Howard Aiken? Science historian I. Bernard Cohen knew Aiken and tells the whole story in Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer, both an engaging life story of a unique man and a tale of the rancorous struggle for recognition between strong personalities.

Through Cohen's painstaking research, including exhaustive looks into the archives of Harvard and IBM, interviews with Aiken and other principals, and his own reminiscences, the reader gets a glimpse into the partnership between business, academia, and the military, which, like it or not, propelled us headfirst into the Information Age. We catch a glimpse of how Aiken's self-described "laziness" in graduate school led him to dream of a machine that would ease the burden of complex calculations. From this passivity the development of the Mark I followed between 1937 and 1944, and the never-completely-resolved conflict over inventor's credit.

Cohen is a mild partisan on Aiken's behalf but argues convincingly that subsequent developments in our understanding of computer design moot or at least temper the problem--acknowledging that crucial contributions were made on both sides, he suggests that the problem never would have arisen today. --Rob Lightner

Bibliographic Details

Title: Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer...
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication Date: 2000
Binding: Paperback
Condition: very good