Literature of computing

  • Authors:

  • Eric A. Weiss

  • Affiliations:

  • -

  • Venue:
  • Encyclopedia of Computer Science
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

Before 1947 the only computing literature concerned analog computers (then called "analyzers"), punched card (q.v.) machines, and calculations made with pencil and paper or desk calculators. No periodicals were devoted to the subject. The literature was sparse, entirely technical, and was scattered through the publications of mathematics, statistics, physics, electrical engineering, and other sciences, especially astronomy. A few books (for instance, Whittaker and Robinson's Calculus of Observations, Scarborough's Numerical Mathematical Analysis, and Eckert's Punch Card Methods in Scientific Computation--see ECKERT, WALLACE J.) could, in retrospect, be said to have dealt exclusively with computing, although their subject matter was then considered to be part of applied mathematics.