Modern

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The Computer Museum in Boston hosted the Pioneer Computer Lecture Series, and posters were created as advertisements for each of the events. Some of those posters were donated to the New Media Museum by Brian Silverman. The posters will be custom framed and hung, and then the accompanying descriptions will include pointers to videos of the lectures on YouTube that, taken together, tell the story of how modern computing developed over the course of the 20th Century.

Below are the individual posters with link to the videos of the lectures (when available) and related material on the web.

Z1, Z2, Z3

Konrad Zuse (Computer History Museum)
Charles Babbage, Konrad Zuse and the Computer (Milestones of Science, YouTube)
Architecture and Simulation of the Z1 Computer (Institute of Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin)
Konrad Zuse Biography (Zuse Institute Berlin)
Konrad Zuse And Z1, The First Working Computer (I-Programmer)

Bell Labs Relay Computers

On the Web
The Bell Labs Relay Computers (George Stibitz, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
George Stibitz (Computer History Museum)
George R. Stibitz (Engineering and Technology History Wiki)

Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

On the Web
The ABC Machine: Atanasoff-Berry Computer (John Vincent Atanasoff, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (Computer History Museum)
The John Vincent Atanasoff Virtual Archive US Federal court says this is the 1st electronic digital computer (Iowa State)
ABC – The 1st Computer? (I-Programmer)
The Modern History of Computing: Atanasoff (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Colossus

On the Web
The Colossus, WWII Code-Breaking Machine (Tom Flowers, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
Breaking the Code (Computer History Museum)
Lorenz ciphers and the Colossus (Tony Sale)
The Modern History of Computing: Colossus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Codebreaking and Colossus (I-Programmer)

ENIAC

On the Web
Development of the ENIAC Project (John Brainerd, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
ENIAC (Computer History Museum)
The Minds Behind ENIAC (Computer History Museum)
John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer (University of Pennsylvania)
ENIAC: Celebrating Penn Engineering History (University of Pennsylvania)
ENIAC : Proposal to reconstruct the original ENIAC as a public historical exhibit in Philadelphia
Eckert & Mauchly and ENIAC (I-Programmer)
The Modern History of Computing: ENIAC and EDVAC (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

EDSAC

On the Web
The Birth and Growth of the Digital Computer (Maurice Wilkes, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Computer History Museum)
Maurice V. Wilkes, 2001 Fellow (Computer History Museum)
EDSAC (The National Museum of Computing)
Volunteers aid pioneering Edsac computer rebuild (BBC News)
Museum switches on historic computer (BBC News)
Maurice Wilkes and EDSAC (I-Programmer)

Early Manchester Computers

On the Web
Early Manchester Computers (Dai Edwards, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine aka Baby & The Stored Program (Computer History Museum)
Manchester Mark 1 “The Baby” Mark 1 History: World’s first stored-program computer (Brian Napper / Toby Howard, Computer 50)
The Manchester Machine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
From Baby to Mark I (I-Programmer)
Manchester Computers of the 1950s (I-Programmer)

Whirlwind

On the Web
The Whirlwind Computer (Jay Forrester, Computer History Museum) (YouTube)
The Whirlwind Computer (The Computer Museum)
Whirlwind: Preparing the Way for SAGE (Computer History Museum)
Jay Forrester and Whirlwind (I-Programmer)

Bookshelf

These are some key books in the collection. More…

On the Web
Electronic Computing #2 (Crash Course Computer Science, YouTube)
The Man Who Invented the Computer — an Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Jane Smiley (Todd Miller, SFGate)
Birth of the Computer (Computer History Museum)
Inventing the Computer (Paul E. Ceruzzi, Engineering and Technology History Wiki)
The Modern History of Computing (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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© New Media Museum created by M. E. Hopper