Portraits in Silicon
By, Slater, Robert
Publisher: MIT Press
Class No.: 004.092 2 SLA
Accession No.: 011968
Year: 1989
Pages: 374p.

The book contains clearly written thumbnail sketches of 31 people who were of paramount importance in the conception and creation of the computer industry. There are 10- to 15-page portraits of the early workers, such as Babbage, Turing, and von Neumann. It also includes silicon chip inventors such as Jack Kilby, mainframe designers Gene Amdahl and Seymour Cray, and software specialists Grace Hopper (COBOL), John Backus (FORTRAN), Kemeny and Kurtz (BASIC), and Richie and Thompson (UNIX) and many others.

The book starts with a brief bio of Charles Babbage from the nineteenth century and then continues with twenty-seven twentieth century masterminds behind computer software, hardware, and business models. Each subject receives ten to twelve well-written pages by prolific journalist Robert Slater - Von Neumann and Shannon, Mauchly and Aiken, Shockley and Cray, Gates and Jobs, Backus and Knuth, and many others.

This book is for the serious reader, interested in the history of science and technology.