If you have ever wanted to know about the history of the technology which you are using right now, Computers by Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro is a must read. Everything from computation methods used before computers to microprocessors are explained within the first four chapters of the book. Personally, the brief timeline printed before the book even begins is enough information to fulfill my curiosities about computers. However, for a tech savvy person, the very thorough history presented in the book might be very entertaining.
When the history of computers is considered, it is easy to date the birth of computers back to 1939 when John Vincent Atansoff and Clifford E. Berry's computer which was "digital, used vacuum tubes, used binary numbers, used logic circuts..." (27-28) but what Swedin and Ferro acknowledge is that the journey of the computer began centuries before. In fact, the first chapter of the book begins by discussing a computing machine which is speculated to have been made by Romans "between 100 and 40 BCE"(1). Mathematics, which is the base of any technology regarding computers, is dated even further back in time; artifacts like notched bones from 35000 BCE prove that people used mathematics in their daily lives (x). Most importantly, counting and numbers proved useful in commerce and finger calculation which "existed prior to 500 BCE" has "allowed bargaining without the need to learn another language" (8). Having various minimum wage cashiering jobs over summer breaks has taught me that this is as true today as it was then; when dealing with customers who speak very little English, it is always a relief to know that numbers are universal. Through these personal experiences, I have also come to appreciate computer cash registers which I have to thank Pierre de Fermet for leading the way to mechanical adding and subtracting through his invention, the Pascaliner (11).
One theme which resonates throughout the beginnings of the book is that the journey to making the first computer was an international effort; it is not a credit which can be given to the United States alone. In the first chapter, Before Computers, countless nations are mentioned which birthed computational ideas and inventions. To name a few there was the Peruvian Incas and their knotting string system, China and their tally sticks (6) Hindu-Arabic numbers, the Japanese soroban abacus, Greece and the astrolabe, Italy and the sector(8),and Scotland's Napier's bones(9). The list goes from nation to nation across the globe. Even the numerical bases which John Vincent Astansoff studied and used for creating the electronic computer rooted from different societies like the ancient Babylonians and Mayans (26).
The development of technology and science became a race between nations by World War II; ideas for innovation were bouncing back and forth from one nation to the next (30).For example, Germans patented the Enigma encoding machine in 1919 which helped encode and decode messages (31) and soon the Dutch, Italians, Poles and British were purchasing and utilizing this invention to get ahead in their military efforts to win the war. Later, during the Cold War, computer technology developed at a rapid pace through the United States and the Soviet Union's competition to have "more advanced computers, computer networks,the internet..." than the other.
It can be argued that the reason why the United States has made the most computer advances is not only due to the federal governments efforts to advance but also because of the country's acceptance of brilliant foreign immigrants. Johann von Neumann who has been dubbed the "father of computers" was a Hungarian native who "received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Budapest" and only later moved to the US to become a professor at Princeton University and member of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study(40). The United States is a place where people of all backgrounds can come and share their ideas and innovation and through this the country's efforts to get ahead of foreign competition in technological development is enhanced.
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