Go to: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists and Iconoclasts - the Programmers Who Created the Software Revolution [Paperback]

Now for my hot buttons. Why am I not surprised that the history is wrong? It's because the author suffers from the writers' "Curse," assuming things written down are the truth. Johnny von Neumann never even saw the ENIAC until its design was fixed and the system almost built. He did consult with Dick Clippinger and his programming group from 1947/48 when they turned the ENIAC into a stored program computer. At that time, people were presenting various instruction sets for computers and von Neumann suggested a one-address code with a central accumulator architecture for the ENIAC, which we used. My group at the Moore School was under contract to do the ENIAC programming. Actually, Dick Clippinger, Adele Goldstine and I, with some help from DRs. Giese and Galbraith from Aberdeen did the actual programming.

When von Neumann saw the ENIAC, he was excited by it and, learning Pres Eckert and John Mauchly and their design team were already at work on EDVAC, the ENIAC successor, he asked if he could sit in on the meetings. The EDVAC design already included the stored-program concept. See Eckert's interview with Peter Vogt for the Smithsonian Computer History Project. After a number of meetings, von Newmann skipped some meetings to go to Las Alamos, but he sent back the article, which Pres and John took as an internal document, summarizing the content of the meetings. Other members of the team were not allowed to write or talk about it. Goldstine, who was the Security Officer distributed von Neumann's article widely. Some Security Officer. Both Goldstine and von Neumann came from the University World where publishing is used to stake out claims. Both knew exactly what they were doing. They betrayed their colleagues and continued to do so. When Pres and John applied for an EDVAC patent, they discovered that this enterprising duo had already applied. Not too many people took von Newmann seriously when he said he did it to ensure that it remained in the public domain and not used for commercial purposes. Apparently, Goldstine felt von Newmann was a better meal ticket than one from Pres and John. He was wrong. Pres and John went on to develop BINAC, the first stored program computer. Yes, it ran for 48 hours without an error in March 1949. Reported in the Franklin Institute newsletter. Then, they went on to build the first electronic commercial computer. As far as I know, nobody, other than the organizations von Newmann consulted with, ever built the Johnniac while the computer industry switched with UNIVAC to the commercial world.

I could continue on, but I know I am unfair to expect you to buck the tide. However, I am now 77 years old and I feel that someone should tell the truth, and if not me, who?

The book is strongest where the history is known. Present day developments such as Linux and open software along with the key people are discussed in the last chapter, but no one knows yet what importance will come of that, and this is left up in the air.

There are not that many books that range over the history of software development as this one does. Lohr is no gee whiz amateur; this is a solid professional job where the flavor of a development is really captured (at least in my view). One can just imagine how the development of Fortran opened up immense possibilities in simulation and modeling. Good word processors had broad applications and made life much easier for all of us. Lohr chooses his subject and enlivens it.

He discusses the people involved in many of the developments with a varying degree of detail, so we capture some of the flavor of the personalities. This is done well without giving us ranging biographies or too much psychoanalysis. This is a book well worth reading.