ENIAC: the triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer [Book Review]
Granta Books, London, 1999, £9.99, 423 pp. ISBN 1-86207-285-X. At first glance a review of a biography of a crystallographer, no matter how famous, appears to offer little to those interested in the history of computing. In fact Georgina Ferry’s excellent, and most enjoyable, biography of Nobel laureate Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin gives an unintentional insight into how changes in computing machines and techniques influenced the research of X-ray crystallographers. Computation is never a main theme of this book but the casual computing references (not all of them accurate in their detail) paint a brief but telling picture of the effect that computing machinery development had on science. Mention is made of slide rules and logarithm tables, of desk calculating machines and Fourier syntheses using BeeverLipson strips, of Hollerith machines and the analogue X-RAC, of the English Deuce and the American SWAC, and beyond. The whole spectrum of 20th-century computing is briefly covered within the context of developments in another science. The impact that changes in computing techniques had on different sciences opens up huge areas of possible research for computer historians. Books such as this illustrate just how much work there is still to be done in understanding mid-20th century computing. Mary Croarken National Maritime Museum