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Diana H. Hook & Jeremy M. Norman
With contributions by Michael R. Williams
Origins of Cyberspace: A Library on the History of
Computing,
Networking and Telecommunications
Describes a library of technical reports, books,
pamphlets, ephemera, letters, typescripts, manuscripts, prints, photographs,
blueprints, and medals on the history of computing, networking, and related
aspects of telecommunications ranging from 1613 to about 1970. 1411 annotated
entries.
See our online prospectus at www.historyofscience.com\cyber
19.pdf
(you must have Acrobat Reader to download this file).
For a detailed view of the people and topics covered
in the book you may download the entire author and subject index at the
link below:
Origins_of_Cyberspace_Index
81/2 x 11 inches. x, 670pp. mostly printed in
two columns.
284 illustrations. Printed in two colors throughout on Fortune Matte 80
pound acid-free paper. Bound in heavy cloth with silver stamping. ISBN
0-930405-85-4. Edition limited to 500 copies. Novato, 2002. 38301. Price:
$500.00
Besides the regular limited edition, fifteen
copies, numbered from 1-15 in binary,
signed by the coauthors, the designer, and the binder, have been bound
in full leather, all edges gilt, in a cloth slipcase. The first nine of
these include an original vintage print of the ENIAC duplicated in the
Pres Eckert papers. Price: $1650.00
Copies 10 through 15 do not include the vintage
photograph and cost $1250.00
Pres Eckert (center left) and John
Mauchly (center right) working with the ENIAC, the first large-scale general-purpose
electronic digital computer, from which all later electronic digital computers
descend. Also visible in the photograph (left to right) are Pfc. Homer
Spence, Elizabeth Jennings, Herman H. Goldstine and Ruth Lichterman. First
operational in May 1945, the ENIAC was announced to the public in February
1946. From 1945 to 1948 it was the only operating electronic digital computer
in the world. It weighed 30 tons, contained 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000
resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 6000 switches, and 1500 relays, and required
174 kilowatts to run. (Photograph used by permission of the University
of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.)
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Reviews of Origins of Cyberspace:
"Chronicling the history of computing,
1613-1970, this beautiful reference book is wonderfully illustrated by
copies of pamphlets, letters, blueprints, and many other useful images.
It presents a more serious and thorough treatment than the subject has
received in other recent books. Especially useful is the far-reaching
history, often ignored, of contributions that led to advances in computing.
. . . The authors' backgrounds in rare books show in the collection of
documents, entries, and images, which are unusual and include important
details. One example is a reproduction of an advertisement with one of
the earliest uses of the word 'computer.' An excellent and refreshing
book for large public and middle to large academic libraries."
M. S. Brown-De Sica, in Choice:
Current Reviews for Academic Libraries (October 2002).
"I’m not sure whether it is
brave or rash to publish a bibliography on the history of computing, but
in my view the medal for bravery should be awarded to Hook and Norman
for this first large-scale attempt at defining the important and most
influential works on the history and development of computing by mechanical
or electronic means. The rash aspect is that they must be hopeful of not
having left out something that will later be seen as fundamentally important.
With that in mind, a cut-off date of the early 1970s (the time when the
floppy disc was introduced) seems a wise move.
"The bulk of the volume is a catalogue of a collection, “a
library of technical reports, books, pamphlets, ephemera, letters, typescripts,
manuscripts, prints, photographs, blueprints and medals on the history
of computing, networking and related aspects of telecommunications.”
Those familiar with Hook and Norman’s past joint publication The
Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine, 1991, (now
dispersed) will know what to expect in terms of format.
"However, the task facing the authors is somehow different from
science and medicine for in these subjects both are well-documented and
researched. The history of computing is in comparison an infant-collecting
theme comparatively unexplored. Thankfully, we are given a 60-page introduction
which forms a key to this work, encompassing a history of, computing as
it relates to this amassing of the collection. Jeremy Norman modestly
consigns to a footnote his exertions and frustrations over the “umpteenth”
draft before he would let this introductory essay go to press. Written,
as he admits, as much for himself as for the reader, he tries to make
sense and order of what is and has been important or significant, and
what more daringly could be left out. As a further support to the catalogue,
the authors have constructed an indispensable timeline running from 1599
to 1990, pinpointing all the key inventions, publications and events which,
in turn, is cross-referenced to the item numbers in the collection.
"If this all sounds a bit too technical, you would be wrong. With
an item count of 1,411, the catalogue has managed to bring in every conceivable
artefact procurable, and I do mean artefact, so that it can be read as
lucidly as possible by the non-computer literate. Also, the catalogue
is not restricted to the collection alone but includes additional works
recognised for their importance. The first item listed in the timeline
is Galileo’s Le operazioni del compasso geometrico et militare,
published at Padua in 1606. The most recent copy to come to auction was
in 1988 when it reached a hammer price of £26,000. Rarer still is
Pascal’s pamphlet of 1645: Lettre dedicatoire a monseigneur
le Chancelier sur le sujet de la machine nouvellement... describing
his adding machine, the Pascaline. This item has probably not been seen
for sale by any living collector or bookseller, so it is hardly a surprise
that this too is not part of the collection.
"What also becomes very apparent is that there is pretty well no
linear structure to computer history. Indeed, from the late 1930s, competing
computer design and languages have been developed, dropped and reused
at an alarming rate. Computer technology seems to be of such ephemeral
existence that the bulk of the 20th century publications appear to be
the rarest part of the collection.
"So here we have a bibliography, that will, I predict, become the
standard reference work with the statement “Not in Cyberspace”
becoming the abbreviation for future online catalogue readers and collectors
to decipher. A future hope is that when the post-1970s computing literature
comes collected and codified in future collections and bibliographies,
my Window’s 3.1 User Guide will justify an inclusion."
Jolyon Hudson, in Antiquarian Book Review
(Dec/Jan 2002).
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