Bibliography - Precomputing
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Offers a concise survey of computing technology prior to the development of the modern computer. Shows the continuity of the history of computing by tracing several distinct older traditions that have converged into today's technology.
The first scholarly study of the development that led up to the computer technology revolution. Ceruzzi relates the prehistory of the computer on remarkable projects which paved the way for digital devices of the postwar period.
Fully explores the data processing industry in the United States from its nineteenth-century inception down to the period when the computer became its primary tool. The author interprets reliance on computer as a development within an important segment of the American industry that was early represented by tabulating machines and calculators, etc.
Provides a picture of the difference engines that were the mechanical predecessors of today's digital computer, emphasizing them as part of the history of numerical tables and to give equal weight t the technical and social aspects of their creation. Lindgren analyzes the difference engines of Muller and Babbage, discusses the design and operation of the Scheutz machine, and tells why Babbage failed technically and the Scheutz failed commercially.