Computer Histories: A History of Computing in 100 People, Places and Things - Computer History Course | Computer History | Computing History

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One of the goals of this course is to equip you with an intellectual toolkit for the lifelong multi-disciplinary study of computing enabling you to undertake meaningful discussion and debate as computing plays an ever more crucial role in our society and our lives. Here are some recommended resources for your toolkit:

Here are some excellent news Web sites:

@CHM Blog - the blog of the Computer History Museum, updated weekly
I, Cringely - the blog of Robert X. Cringely, computer journalist and computer historian
John Markoff - New York Times computer journalist and computer historian

Here are some Twitter feeds you can follow:

@tomstandage - Economist journalist and computer historian
@stevenlevy - Wired journalist and computer historian

Here are some excellent radio shows available as podcasts that cover current topics in computing and relate them to the past:

Big Picture Science from the SETI Institute, hosted by Seth Shostak, often covers topics related to computing.
Click from the BBC reports on how computers and digital technology affect our lives around the world.
Science in Action and Discovery are general science programs from the BBC and often cover topics related to computing.

Here are excellent television programs that cover the history of computing very well:

Computer History Museum YouTube Channel - hundreds of talks at the Computer History Museum
Silicon Valley - from PBS' American Experience

Here are some excellent magazines:

Core Magazine - a yearly publication of the Computer History Museum

Here is the one book to read that best introduces you to computer history: Computing: A Concise History by Paul Ceruzzi.

Here are a number of excellent videos and the topics they relate to. The videos are primarily TED Talks (~15 minutes each) and from The Computer History Museum (~2-5 minutes each):

Topic 1 - Introduction

Who Invented the Computer? (from The Computer History Museum)
American Artifacts: History of Computers Part 1 and Part 2 (from The Computer History Museum and C-SPAN3 American History TV)

Topic 2 - Computers as an Innovation Engine (Makers + Entrepreneurship)

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die (from TED)
Excerpts from Hewlett Packard's "All the People" (from the Computer History Museum)
David S. Rose on pitching to VCs (from TED)
Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success (from TED)
Bill Gross: The single biggest reason why startups succeed (from TED)
Silicon Valley (from PBS The American Experience)

Topic 3 - What Are Computers Made Of (How Computers Work)

The Secret Life of Machines - The Word Processor
Stewart Brand on the Long Now (from TED)
Danny Hillis: Back to the future (of 1994) (from TED)
Kevin Kelly tells technology's epic story (from TED)
Kevin Kelly: How technology evolves (from TED)

Topic 4 - Computers in the Ancient World

The Antikythera Mechanism (from the Computer History Museum)
Ancient Computer (from PBS NOVA)
Tom Wujec demos the 13th-century astrolabe (from TED)

Topic 5 - Computers in the Steam Era (Not Hackers But Clackers)

Human Computers (from the Computer History Museum)
False Dawn: The Babbage Engine (from the Computer History Museum)
Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine #2 (from the Computer History Museum)
John Graham-Cumming: The greatest machine that never was (from TED)
Doron Swade - Babbage's Calculating Engine (from The Computer History Museum)
Nathan Myhrvold and Doron Swade - Babbage's Difference Engine (from The Computer History Museum)
Bill Worthington: What is a Punched Card? (from the Computer History Museum)
The IBM Punched Card (from the Computer History Museum)
IBM: Ever Onward (from the Computer History Museum)

Topic 6 - Computers in War (War as a Crucible)

Early Innovators: Howard Aiken (from the Computer History Museum)
Colossus: Breaking the Code (from The Computer History Museum)
John Brainerd: What is ENIAC? (from the Computer History Museum)
John Mauchly: ENIAC Reliability (from the Computer History Museum)
J. Presper Eckert: Little Pink Lights (from the Computer History Museum)
Jean Bartik: ENIAC's Programmers (from the Computer History Museum)
Computer Pioneers and Pioneer Computers Part 1 and Part 2 (from The Computer History Museum)

Topic 7 - Computers in the Electronic Era

George Dyson at the birth of the computer (from TED)
A Universe of Numbers: What is the Stored Program? (from the Computer History Museum)
Tom Kilburn discusses the Manchester Electronic Brain (from the Computer History Museum)
Albert Hoagland: RAMAC Innovation and Legacy (from the Computer History Museum)
Bob Evans: Clearing the Way for System/360 (from the Computer History Museum)
Fred Brooks, Jr.: Birth of the 360 Project (from the Computer History Museum)

Topic 8 - Computers as Something to Interact With (Interactivity)

Jay Forrester: Whirlwind's Origins (from the Computer History Museum)
Whirlwind: Making Electrons Count (from the Computer History Museum)
Bob Everett: Whirlwind's Applications (from the Computer History Museum)
Doug Engelbart mouse demonstration (from the Computer History Museum)
The Demo - Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing (watch all 10 parts)

Topic 9 - Computers as Minis (Birth of the Hacker / Personalized Computers)

DEC Digital: From the Beginning (from the Computer History Museum)
Catherine Bracy: Why good hackers make good citizens (From TED)

Topic 10 - Computers and Philosophers

Topic 11 - Computers on the Desktop (Personal Computers)

The Silicon Engine (from The Computer History Museum)
From Sand to Silicon: Integrated Circuit Design and Manufacturing (from The Computer History Museum)
Eldon Hall: Where was the Guidance Computer in the Apollo Spacecraft? (from The Computer History Museum)
Richard Egan: Who Worked on the Apollo Guidance Computer? (from The Computer History Museum)
The Story of the Intel 4004 (from The Computer History Museum)
Len Shustek, Lee Felsenstein: The Homebrew Computer Club (from The Computer History Museum)
Steve Wozniak: The Homebrew Computer Club and the Apple I (from The Computer History Museum)
First Computers: Forrest Mims: The Altair 8800 (from The Computer History Museum)
Roots of Microsoft (from The Computer History Museum)
Chuck Thacker: Why the Xerox Alto? (from The Computer History Museum)
Chuck Thacker: Xerox Altos in the White House (from the Computer History Museum)
Adele Goldberg: Bean Bags and PARC Culture (from The Computer History Museum)
Adele Goldberg: About Smalltalk (from The Computer History Museum)
Charles Simonyi: WYSIWYG (from The Computer History Museum)
Bill Gates 2.0 (from 60 Minutes)

Topic 12 - Computers on the Network (The Network is the Computer)

Robert Metcalfe: The Naming of the Ethernet (from the Computer History Museum)
Dave Boggs: Office Networks (from the Computer History Museum)
Chuck Thacker: EARS: PARC's First Laser Printer (from the Computer History Museum)
Gary Starkweather: The Eureka Moment (from the Computer History Museum)
Chuck Thacker: Dover: Prints Anything (from the Computer History Museum)
Vint Cerf: The Road to the Internet (from the Computer History Museum)
Birth of the World Wide Web (from the Computer History Museum)
John Kohler: Building on Mosaic's User Base (from the Computer History Museum)
Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web (from TED)
Jeff Bezos: The electricity metaphor (from TED)
Andrew Blum: What is the Internet, really? (from TED)
Sergey Brin and Larry Page: The genesis of Google (from TED)
Kevin Kelly: The next 5,000 days of the web (from TED)
Juliana Rotich: Meet BRCK, Internet access built for Africa (from TED)
Jamie Bartlett: How the Mysterious Dark Net is Going Mainstream (from TED)

Topic 13 - Computers in Your Hand (Ubiquitous Computing)

Topic 14 - Computers and Speed (Supercomputing)

Don Tapscott: How the blockchain is changing money and business (from TED)
Neha Narula: The future of money (from TED)
Bettina Warburg: How the blockchain will radically transform the economy
Introducing IBM Stretch (from the Computer History Museum)
The Cray Way (from the Computer History Museum)
Seymour Cray: The Challenge of Supercomputer Design (from the Computer History Museum)
Gary Smaby: Cray and the Cold War (from the Computer History Museum)
Gordon Bell: Three Phases of Supercomputing (from the Computer History Museum)

Topic 15 - Computers as Thinking Machines (Artificial Intelligence)

The Writer Automaton (from the BBC)
Maillardet Automaton Demo (from The Franklin Institute)
Artificial Intelligence (from the Computer History Museum)
Rodney Brooks says robots will invade our lives (from TED)
Rodney Brooks: Why We Will Rely On Robots (from TED)
Jeff Hawkins: How brain science will change computing (from TED)
Dennis Hong: My seven species of robot (from TED)
Ken Jennings: Watson, Jeopardy and me, the obsolete know-it-all (from TED)
Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate (from TED)
Henry Markram: A brain in a supercomputer (from TED)

Topic 16 - Computers for Communicating (Social Networking)

Tom Standage: Lessons From Ancient Social Media
Ray Tomlinson: The Early Days of Email (from the Computer History Museum)
Lee Felsenstein: The First Community Memory (from the Computer History Museum)
Michael Anti: Behind the Great Firewall of China (from TED)
Bruce Schneier: The Battle for Power on the Internet (from TED)
Jaron Lanier: How We Need to Remake the Internet (from TED)
Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone? (from TED)

Topic 17 - Computers and Languages (Tower of Babel)

Topic 18 - Computer Operating Systems (By Your Command)

Linus Torvalds: The mind behind Linux (from TED)
Linus Torvalds: First Version of Linux (from the Computer History Museum)

Topic 19 - Computer Software (Bits Not Atoms)

Dan Bricklin: Meet the inventor of the electronic spreadsheet (from TED)
The Art of Writing Software (from the Computer History Museum)
Don Knuth: The Art of Programming, Recovering from Errors (from the Computer History Museum)
Jamie Zawinski: The Art of Programming, It's About Style (from the Computer History Museum)
Dan Bricklin: Creating a Better Calculator (from the Computer History Museum)
PC Software Timeline: Bob Frankston: The VisiCalc Grid (from the Computer History Museum)
History of Databases (from the Computer History Museum)
Bill Atkinson, Andy Herzfeld: About MacPaint (from the Computer History Museum)

Topic 20 - Computers in Gaming

Story of SpaceWar! (from the Computer History Museum)
Paola Antonelli: Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA (from TED)

Topic 21 - Computers in the Arts

Harold Cohen and AARON (from The Computer History Museum)

Topic 22 - Computers for Learning

Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas (from TED)
Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child (from TED)
Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code (from TED)
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity (from TED)
Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education (from TED)

Topic 23 - Computers as Libraries

Navigating Knowledge: Hypertext Pioneers (from the Computer History Museum)
Digital Dark Age (from the Computer History Museum)
Ian Ritchie: The day I turned down Tim Berners-Lee (from TED)
Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel: What we learned from 5 million books (from TED)
Brewster Kahle builds a free digital library (from TED)
Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia (from TED)
Frederic Kaplan on How to build and information time machine
William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes

Topic 24 - Computers as a Weapon (Cyberwarfare)

Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers! (from TED)
Guy-Philippe Goldstein: How cyberattacks threaten real-world peace (from TED)
Danny Hillis: The Internet could crash. We need a Plan B (from TED)
Todd Humphreys: How to fool a GPS (from TED)
Mikko Hypponen: Three types of online attack (from TED)
Mikko Hypponen: Fighting viruses, defending the net (from TED)
Mikko Hypponen: How the NSA betrayed the world's trust -- time to act (from TED)
James Lyne: Everyday cybercrime -- and what you can do about it (from TED)
Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyber weapon (from TED)
Avi Rubin: All your devices can be hacked (from TED)
Bruce Schneier: The security mirage (from TED)

Topic 25 - Lawfare

Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture (from TED)
Drew Curtis: How I Beat A Patent Troll (from TED)
Lawrence Lessig: Laws that choke creativity (from TED)
Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix (from TED)
Jonathan Zittrain: The Web as random acts of kindness (from TED)

Topic 26 - Computers in the Future

Sebastian Thrun: Google's driverless car (from TED)
Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road (from TED)
Ray Kurzweil: The accelerating power of technology (from TED)
Ray Kurzweil: Get ready for hybrid thinking (from TED)
Sam Harris: Can we build AI without losing control over it? (from TED)
Bill Joy: What I'm worried about, what I'm excited about (from TED)
Jeremy Howard: The wonderful and terrifying implications of computers that can learn (from TED)
Nick Bostrom: What happens when our computers get smarter than we are? (from TED)
Zeynep Tufekci: Machine intelligence makes human morals more important (from TED)
Grady Booch: Don't fear superintelligent AI (from TED)
Stuart Russell: 3 principles for creating safer AI (from TED)
Shohini Ghose: Quantum computing explained in 10 minutes (from TED)

The BBC Radio 4 series In Our Time has covered many of the topics in this course, in roundtable discussion format. Related episodes may be found in its Science Archive.

The BBC Radio 4 series Great Lives has covered many of the individuals in this course, in roundtable discussion format. Related episodes may be found in its Archive.