Description:
Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press, Inc, 1951. First printing. Near fine.. First edition of this early and important work in computer programming. PREPARATION contains programming instructions for the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), an early British computer built by author Wilkes and colleagues at the University of Cambridge. Known as the first textbook on computer programming, and proportionately influential, THE PREPARATION OF PROGRAMS captures an early and defining moment in the history of computer programming. As scholar Michael R. Williams has written: "EDSAC holds a prime place in the history of the world's first computers, not only because it was the first full-scale operational electronic digital computer, but because its ability to construct programs from relocatable subroutines, and to link them together at load time, provided a model for almost all others to follow. [...] It provided the basic ideas as to how one should go about creating a computing system" 9'' x…
Read More THE PREPARATION OF PROGRAMS FOR AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER, with Special Reference to the EDSAC and the Use of a Library of Subroutines. by Wilkes, Maurice V. with David J. Wheeler and Stanley Gill - 1951
by Wilkes, Maurice V. with David J. Wheeler and Stanley Gill
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THE PREPARATION OF PROGRAMS FOR AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER, with Special Reference to the EDSAC and the Use of a Library of Subroutines.
by Wilkes, Maurice V. with David J. Wheeler and Stanley Gill
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- Hardcover
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Cambridge, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1951 A Pioneering Book From The Dawn Of The Computer Age. A Review Copy in Dustwrapper Of The First Practical Text Book On Digital Computing. First Edition. An especially Fine Copy in a previously unrecorded dustwrapper. Tall 8vo., pp [14] incl. 2 full-page, photo illus. before title-page (one on back of half-title), 167, [3]. Light, red RSM diagonally across half-title 'BOOK REVIEW COPY'. Original brown cloth. Light-brown, plain dustwrapper which, due to its minimal wear, slight browning & exact fit, has all the appearances of having been issued with the book, allowing the covers of the book to have been preserved in 'as-new' condition. A narrow section of the dustwrapper spine-panel has been removed, presumably to allow the book to be identified without removing the plain unprinted dustwrapper & discarding it which was likely the case in every case. Internally fresh & clean. Excellent fine copy. Remarkable as this title ended up primarily in libraries to be marked stamped, coded & pocketed accordingly. The first generally published text on computer programming. Refs: (Williams, Hist. Computing Technology, p. 337; see also pp. 331-38). Lee, Computer Pioneers, pp. 730-35. OOC/Origins of Cyberspace 1030. Working with the EDSAC at Cambridge, Wilkes used a symbolic assembly language [Assembler] which was further developed by Wheeler under Wilkes' management in 1949. With Gill, they developed the concept of subroutines in programs to create reusable modules & as a team produced the first textbook on "The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer". This breakthrough was seminal to the very conceptualization of formalized "software" development; a term that was just a spec of dust on the horizon.. 1st Edition.
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Bookseller
TBCL The Book Collection Library
(CA)
- Book Condition Used
- Edition 1st Edition
- Binding Hardcover
- Publisher Addison-Wesley
- Place of Publication Cambridge, Mass
- Date Published 1951
We have 2 copies available starting at $1,000.00.
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THE PREPARATION OF PROGRAMS FOR AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER
by Wilkes, Maurice V.; Wheeler, David J.; Gill, Stanley
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Used - Near fine.
- Edition
- First printing
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- 1
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Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
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$1,000.00
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THE PREPARATION OF PROGRAMS FOR AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER
by Wilkes, Maurice V.; Wheeler, David J.; Gill, Stanley; [Woods, Mary Lee]
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Used - Very good plus.
- Quantity Available
- 1
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Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
- Item Price
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$4,500.00
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Description:
Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Press, Inc, 1951. Very good plus.. First edition, important association copy of this early work in computer programming, owned and annotated by Mary Lee Woods, noted computer scientist and programmer (and mother of World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee). This book contains programming instructions for the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), an early British computer built by author Wilkes and colleagues at the University of Cambridge. Mary Lee Woods (later Berners-Lee), to whom this copy belonged, was a member of the working group responsible for developing the Ferranti Mark 1, aka the Manchester Electronic Computer: the first commercially available digital computer, completed and delivered a year ahead of the U.S.-developed UNIVAC I. In 1951, the year of this text's publication, Woods returned from a disappointing Australian astrophysics fellowship and was swiftly recruited by Ferranti's team in Manchester, though she had never programmed before…
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$4,500.00