Before the Computer; IBM, NCR, Burroughs, & Remington Rand & the Industry They Created, 1865-1956

Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993. Third Printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xx, [2], 344 pages. List of illustrations. Illustrations. List of figures. Figures. List of tables. Tables Preface. Acknowledgments. Notes. Index. James W. Cortada is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota and the author of Information and the Modern Corporation (MIT Press) and other books. He worked at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, managerial, and research positions. The author 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 computers as a development within an important segment of the American economy that was earlier represented largely by such instruments as typewriters, tabulating machines, adding machines, and calculators. He also describes how many of the practices of the office appliance industry evolved into those of the computer world. Before the Computer 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. As James Cortada challenges our view of the digital computer as a revolutionary technology. Cortada interprets reliance on computers as a development within an important segment of the American economy that was earlier represented largely by such instruments as typewriters, tabulating machines, adding machines, and calculators. He also describes how many of the practices of the office appliance industry evolved into those of the computer world. Drawing on previously unavailable industry archives, the author adds to our understanding of IBM's early history and offers short corporate histories of firms that include NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand. Before the Computer is a unique source of knowledge about the companies that built office equipment and their enormous impact on economic life.