A few good men from Univac
by David E. Lundstrom · first published 1987
75% recommend25% neutral
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Some of my favorites, that haven't been mentioned yet - The Supermen (Charles Murray), essentially a biography of Seymour Cray. A Few Good Men from Univac (Lundstrom and Aspray), similar thoughts about the same era of computing. Showstopper (Pascal Zachary), essentially a biography of David Cutler, plus a bunch of the development of Windows NT.
on “Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?” ↗…took 45 minutes turnaround during the day, but only 5 minutes at night, and guess who didn't see the sun for their first six months at Atari? If you liked this book, I also recommend: Lundstrom's A Few Good Men from Univac (essentially a biography of Seymour Cray) Murray's The Supermen (well . . . ditto :-) )
on “Revolutions and NAND Gates, Eight Cents, Wholesale” ↗A Few Good Men from UNIVAC
on “Ask HN: Books for soon to be Software Engineers” ↗…it signed by Tannenbaum at Computer Literacy in San Jose. What a crowd. I miss that store). That's about it. Of course there are many other computer-related books that I couldn't put down, such as _A Few Good Men from Univac_ and _The Soul of a New Machine_. But these are not about programming.
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗If you're into mainframe systems, A Few Good Men From UNIVAC is pretty interesting. Also recommend The Friendly Orange Glow, which is about PLATO
on “Inventing the Atari 2600 (1983)” ↗“Becoming Steve Jobs” is a much better book than Isaacson’s lazy effort. I wish someone would write more about Univacy, CDC, and Cray big iron. “A Few Good Men From Univac” and “Supermen” are fine books, but not exactly comprehensive the way the IBM 360/370 books are.
on “The Joy of Computer History Books” ↗…received memos from a second senior executive thanking them for their efforts and stating that the corporation had elected to go in a different design direction. Seymour immediately resigned." From "A Few Good Men From UNIVAC"
on “I automated my job over a year ago and haven't told anyone” ↗