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.
WILKES, Maurice Vincent, David J. WHEELER and Stanley GILL. The preparation of programs for an electronic digital computer. With special reference to the EDSAC and the use of a library of subroutines. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Press, 1951.
Details
WILKES, Maurice Vincent, David J. WHEELER and Stanley GILL. The preparation of programs for an electronic digital computer. With special reference to the EDSAC and the use of a library of subroutines. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Press, 1951.
4o. Dittoed errata sheet laid in. Label with imprint of Scientific Computing Service Ltd, London, tipped to title-leaf ndicating that they were the English distributors of the book. Text illustrations and diagrams. Original brown cloth.
FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION OF THE FIRST TEXTBOOK ON COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. SIGNED BY WILKES ON THE TITLE. "The form of constructing programs and how they should be linked together to form a load module, as described in this book, reappears many times for different computers being constructed in different countries. It provided the basic ideas as to how one should go about creating a computing system rather than simply providing a bit of hardware to be used only by a few specialists" (Williams).
Wilkes, Wheeler, and Gill's work had its genesis in the privately issued Report on the Preparation of Programmes for the EDSAC (1950; see the previous lot a dittoed typescript prepared by the Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory and distributed to a limited number of computer researchers. Wilkes believed that the report deserved a wider publication, and through an American colleague was put in touch with the then-small Addison-Wesley Press, which offered to publish the report after some necessary revision. In his autobiography, Wilkes states that "[Addison-Wesley] must have felt that they were taking a great risk in publishing a book on so obscure a subject as computer programming, and in order to minimize their risk in the event that no-one bought it, they offered the following terms. There were to be no royalties on the first 1,000 copies sold, 20 on the second 1,000 and after that 10 royalties. I am glad to say that the 1,000 mark was passed within fifteen months of the book's being published in July 1951 ... I like to think that its success contributed in a small way to the growth of Addison-Wesley from being a very small concern to its present large size." Because Addison-Wesley was then a small publisher with no offices in England, Scientific Computing Service, founded by L. C. Comrie, handled the English distribution. From Gutenberg to the Internet 9.4. OOC 1030.
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FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION OF THE FIRST TEXTBOOK ON COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. SIGNED BY WILKES ON THE TITLE. "The form of constructing programs and how they should be linked together to form a load module, as described in this book, reappears many times for different computers being constructed in different countries. It provided the basic ideas as to how one should go about creating a computing system rather than simply providing a bit of hardware to be used only by a few specialists" (Williams).
Wilkes, Wheeler, and Gill's work had its genesis in the privately issued Report on the Preparation of Programmes for the EDSAC (1950; see the previous lot a dittoed typescript prepared by the Cambridge University Mathematics Laboratory and distributed to a limited number of computer researchers. Wilkes believed that the report deserved a wider publication, and through an American colleague was put in touch with the then-small Addison-Wesley Press, which offered to publish the report after some necessary revision. In his autobiography, Wilkes states that "[Addison-Wesley] must have felt that they were taking a great risk in publishing a book on so obscure a subject as computer programming, and in order to minimize their risk in the event that no-one bought it, they offered the following terms. There were to be no royalties on the first 1,000 copies sold, 20 on the second 1,000 and after that 10 royalties. I am glad to say that the 1,000 mark was passed within fifteen months of the book's being published in July 1951 ... I like to think that its success contributed in a small way to the growth of Addison-Wesley from being a very small concern to its present large size." Because Addison-Wesley was then a small publisher with no offices in England, Scientific Computing Service, founded by L. C. Comrie, handled the English distribution. From Gutenberg to the Internet 9.4. OOC 1030.
Further details
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