Introduction

Abstract

A mere chronology of inventions relating directly to the mechanisation of digital calculation starting, say, with Napier or Pascal, can give an entirely misleading view of the origins of computers. In some cases a particular step forward can be seen to have been directly influenced by knowledge of the efforts of previous pioneers, but in many cases no such evidence is readily discernable. More importantly, such a chronology tends to obscure the role played by other less directly related events, for example, improvements in technology, and changes in governmental and public attitudes, such as occurred at the onset of World War II when vast sums of money were made available for computer development [1]. A proper treatment of the development of the digital computer is therefore very much a task for an historian of science. In this book only the briefest of introductions have been provided to each of the subsequent chapters, in a modest attempt to put the work described in the original accounts that form the bulk of the text into perspective.