The Origins of Cyberspace collection described as lots 1-255 will first be offered as a single lot, subject to a reserve price. If this price is not reached, the collection will be immediately offered as individual lots as described in the catalogue as lots 1-255.
BERKELEY, Edmund C. Giant brains or machines that think. New York: John Wiley & Sons; London: Chapman & Hall, 1949.
Details
BERKELEY, Edmund C. Giant brains or machines that think. New York: John Wiley & Sons; London: Chapman & Hall, 1949.
8o. Text illustrations. Original gray cloth, yellow pictorial dust-jacket; boxed. Printed prospectus laid in.
Provenance: Edmund C. Berkeley, with his signature on the front free endpaper. Above his signature is stamped "Nov 22 1949" (presumably the date received), with "3:46 pm" written below in Berkeley's hand.
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST POPULAR BOOK ON ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS, published just after the completion of Eckert and Mauchly's BINAC. When Giant Brains was published, electronic computers were virtually unknown to the general public. The few that existed were unique machines that belonged to the government; UNIVAC, the first commercial mainframe, was still in early stages of development (UNIVAC I, serial 1, was not turned over to the United States Census Bureau until June 1951, and even then it remained at Eckert-Mauchly's Philadelphia offices for another twenty-one months). Apart from occasional newspaper and magazine articles, there was virtually no information on electronic computers available for the nonspecialist reader. Berkeley's book was intended to explain a difficult subject to curious people, most of whom would probably never see an actual electronic digital computer.
As the publisher's contract (see lot 62) indicates, the book was originally entitled Machines to Help Us Think. The final title, Giant Brains or Machines That Think, built on and probably nurtured the popular conception of electronic computers as "brains." In explaining electronic digital computers to a lay audience, Berkeley was doing something that had never been done before, and he found it convenient and probably necessary to develop the anthropomorphic machine-brain analogy in order to relate the abstract logical, mathematical processes of electronic computers to ordinary processes of thought. Berkeley's book is written in a clear, easy-to-read style that remains quite accessible even after the passage of over fifty years. Study of the much-corrected typescript and the galley proofs (see previous lot) of this work shows that this did not come effortlessly, as Berkeley and his editors struggled to make a completely new subject clear to a general audience.
Berkeley's book includes chapters on the Harvard Mark I and ENIAC, as well as notices of electronic computers then under construction. Punched-card machines and Bush's Differential Analyzer are also discussed, and the final chapters deal with the future impact of computers on society. Pages 229-60 contain the first attempt at a comprehensive annotated bibliography of computer literature, which listed a high percentage of the very small number of publications then available on the subject.
Giant Brains also contains the earliest description of Berkeley's own "Simon" machine, which has been called the first personal computer. Simon, designed to demonstrate the simplest mechanical "thinking" processes, was "a miniature mechanical brain containing 129 relays, a stepping switch, and a five-hole paper tape feed. It takes in numbers and instructions on a punched paper tape, and shows the answers to a problem in lights. It can take in numbers from 1 to 255 in binary notation, and it can perform any of nine operations including addition, subtraction, greater than, selection, etc." (Berkeley 1956). The first Simon was built in 1950, and by 1959 over four hundred Simon plans or kits had been sold. From Gutenberg to the Internet 8.6. OOC 463.
8
Provenance: Edmund C. Berkeley, with his signature on the front free endpaper. Above his signature is stamped "Nov 22 1949" (presumably the date received), with "3:46 pm" written below in Berkeley's hand.
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST POPULAR BOOK ON ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS, published just after the completion of Eckert and Mauchly's BINAC. When Giant Brains was published, electronic computers were virtually unknown to the general public. The few that existed were unique machines that belonged to the government; UNIVAC, the first commercial mainframe, was still in early stages of development (UNIVAC I, serial 1, was not turned over to the United States Census Bureau until June 1951, and even then it remained at Eckert-Mauchly's Philadelphia offices for another twenty-one months). Apart from occasional newspaper and magazine articles, there was virtually no information on electronic computers available for the nonspecialist reader. Berkeley's book was intended to explain a difficult subject to curious people, most of whom would probably never see an actual electronic digital computer.
As the publisher's contract (see lot 62) indicates, the book was originally entitled Machines to Help Us Think. The final title, Giant Brains or Machines That Think, built on and probably nurtured the popular conception of electronic computers as "brains." In explaining electronic digital computers to a lay audience, Berkeley was doing something that had never been done before, and he found it convenient and probably necessary to develop the anthropomorphic machine-brain analogy in order to relate the abstract logical, mathematical processes of electronic computers to ordinary processes of thought. Berkeley's book is written in a clear, easy-to-read style that remains quite accessible even after the passage of over fifty years. Study of the much-corrected typescript and the galley proofs (see previous lot) of this work shows that this did not come effortlessly, as Berkeley and his editors struggled to make a completely new subject clear to a general audience.
Berkeley's book includes chapters on the Harvard Mark I and ENIAC, as well as notices of electronic computers then under construction. Punched-card machines and Bush's Differential Analyzer are also discussed, and the final chapters deal with the future impact of computers on society. Pages 229-60 contain the first attempt at a comprehensive annotated bibliography of computer literature, which listed a high percentage of the very small number of publications then available on the subject.
Giant Brains also contains the earliest description of Berkeley's own "Simon" machine, which has been called the first personal computer. Simon, designed to demonstrate the simplest mechanical "thinking" processes, was "a miniature mechanical brain containing 129 relays, a stepping switch, and a five-hole paper tape feed. It takes in numbers and instructions on a punched paper tape, and shows the answers to a problem in lights. It can take in numbers from 1 to 255 in binary notation, and it can perform any of nine operations including addition, subtraction, greater than, selection, etc." (Berkeley 1956). The first Simon was built in 1950, and by 1959 over four hundred Simon plans or kits had been sold. From Gutenberg to the Internet 8.6. OOC 463.
Further details
For further information about The Origins of Cyberspace Library and to view the reference catalogue, please visit https://www.historyofscience.com.