COMPUTING THROUGH THE AGES

A history of mathematics and measuring devices from prehistory to early-modern times.

Offering a revised text and an overall redesign, if little new material, this refurbished version of Ancient Computing Technology (2011) presents descriptions (textual ones, at least; not all are actually illustrated) of ancient numbering systems and mathematical techniques worldwide up to binary code. The book also includes tools ranging from tally sticks and beam scales to calendars and mechanical calculators, such as the Antikythera mechanism. Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing get nods, but the development of modern electronic computing is packed into the final two paragraphs, with nary a mention of AI or quantum computing, and the appended timeline ends at 2005. Many of the pictures, while attractive, are at best tangentially relevant to the passages they accompany, but a few images of historical artifacts and reconstructed devices are included. A list of more recent “further reading” has been tacked on to the out-of-date bibliography, which is dominated by works from the 1970s and 1980s; the most recent source in the selected bibliography is a 2010 paper on Mayan mathematics.

Strictly for report writers and school libraries where the original is worn out.