JF Ptak Science Books       Post 2368

It is worth reporting on these two perhaps-forgotten (outside of the specialty area) classics in the early history of computation. The first was written by a powerhouse married team of Andrew and Kathleen (Britten) Booth—Andrew was the inventor of the magnetic drum memory and the Booth multiplication algorithm, and Kathleen was the creator of the first assembly language, for starters).

The book was a superior effort and was a survey of the state of computation via digital computer for the Post WWII-1953 era.  The 17 chapters are geared mainly as an instructional–an advanced “how to”, if you will, with plenty of diagrams and illustrations.  After a few historical chapters, we have:  the overall design of a computing system; the control; the arithmetic unit; miscellaneous operations; input-output; gates; single digit storage; miscellaneous components, storage devices.  From this point on, from p136-196, the book deals primarily with programming issues:  definitions of a code and discussion of its form and controls (!), pp 136-151; the techniques of coding; the use of subroutines in coding; program design; some applications of computing machinery.