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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Well…re: Neal Stephenson…dated and relevant in light of some current and some ongoing events. Also not a bad primer in cryptography with both technical and more illustrative perspectives (walking through London, stepping off curbs and crossing streets as a basis for a coding system). It was a white hat hacker who turned me onto this one originally. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Thank You,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Lance Hassan<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Roy Talman and Associates<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Chicago [mailto:chicago-bounces+lance=roytalman.com@python.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Daniel Fehrenbach<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, September 25, 2013 9:51 AM<br><b>To:</b> The Chicago Python Users Group<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Chicago] Good readings on the history of computing<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>@Randy - I had Dr. Chuck as a professor at Michigan, hope that his Coursera stuff was as engaging as he is in person<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>A lot softer than a lot of things mentioned previously but Neal Stephenson has a, really outdated but readable essay on operating system history as seen through his experience <a href="http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html">http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html</a>.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Randy Baxley <<a href="mailto:randy7771026@gmail.com" target="_blank">randy7771026@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>This makes me wish I had unlimited time and also had my young eyes back.<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I lived some very good pieces of all of this.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I hate to keep recommending Dr-Chuck but his course on Coursera in Internet History, Technology and Security is an enjoyable romp.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Jordan Bettis <<a href="mailto:jordanb@hafd.org" target="_blank">jordanb@hafd.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On 09/24/2013 02:40 PM, Jason Wirth wrote:<br><br>><br>> Does anyone have suggestion for articles on the history of computing?<br>><br>> Note, Python specific stuff would be great but it doesn't have to be<br>> python specific, and almost by definition probably won't be.<br>><br><br>I can recommend a few books that I've read:<br><br>*Computing in the Middle Ages* by Servero M Ornstein<br><br>This guy became a programmer on a drum memory machine, went to Lincoln<br>Labs at MIT when they were building SAGE. He was part of the transition<br>from Lincoln Labs to MITRE and worked on the TX-1. He then worked on<br>LINC (Which became the PDP-8), went to BBN and worked on ArpaNet, then<br>to Xerox PARC and worked on Alto.<br><br>The book is a memorial of his career and what it was like working on the<br>above projects.<br><br>*Before the Computer* by James W Cortada<br>*A History of Modern Computing* by Paul E Ceruzzi<br><br>These are two academic treatments of the subject by academic historians.<br>The first covers mechanical and electro-mechanical information<br>processing from the invention of the cash register and type writer,<br>through adding machines and ends with the creation of vacuum tube computers.<br><br>The second begins with UNIVAC and ends with the invention of the Web.<br><br>Like I said, they're academic treatments of the subject so fairly<br>rigorously written.<br><br>A final one I might hesitatingly recommend is:<br><br>*The Universal History of Computing* by Georges Ifrah<br><br>This was written in French and translated into English. The writing is<br>quite dense and it goes off into the weeds at the end, which is why I<br>hesitate to recommend it.<br><br>But it begins with a discussion of numbering systems, and demonstrates<br>how the positional numbering system was a precondition for even thinking<br>about mathematics as something that could be done mechanically.<br>_______________________________________________<br>Chicago mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Chicago@python.org" target="_blank">Chicago@python.org</a><br><a href="https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago" target="_blank">https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>_______________________________________________<br>Chicago mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Chicago@python.org">Chicago@python.org</a><br><a href="https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago" target="_blank">https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>