The Untold Story of Everything Digital

"For those studying the complexities of technological change, this volume plus Bright Boys forms a foundation for understanding how our ensnarled ‘system of digital systems’ was created, nurtured, then exploded worldwide. Must be examined by any serious student of the history of technology."

—Dik Daso,Author of Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Airpower, and Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary

"Informed and informative, The Untold Story of Everything Digital: Bright Boys, Revisited is a unique and extraordinary history and one that unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library collections"

—John Burroughs, Midwest Book Review

"For those studying the complexities of technological change, this volume plus Bright Boys forms a foundation for understanding how our ensnarled ‘system of digital systems’ was created, nurtured, then exploded worldwide. Must be examined by any serious student of the history of technology."
—Dik Daso,Author of Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Airpower, and Doolittle: Aerospace Visionary

"Informed and informative, The Untold Story of Everything Digital: Bright Boys, Revisited is a unique and extraordinary history and one that unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library collections"
—John Burroughs, Midwest Book Review

"This book tells the story of the first few years of modern computing in the USA. The 180 pages give a detailed account of the many different people and organisations working with computing from 1949 up until around 1955.

The book opens with a clear introduction to different aspects of the situation in the USA. On the one hand a group of pioneering "computer scientists" (a term we have only created subsequently) who are at the cutting edge of developing and building computers, and on the other hand the realisation by the US military of the need for quick analysis of vast amounts of data (principally the need to analyse radar data from thousands of low-level radar stations to be able to intercept a potential low-level bombing raid from Russian planes).

There are many aspects of these early days of computing that I knew nothing about, and this book has taught me many fascinating things."
—The Mathematical Gazette