Author | Walter Isaacson |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Biography |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | October 7, 2014 |
Media type | E-book, print (hardback and paperback), audiobook |
Pages | 488 |
ISBN | 1-4767-0869-X |
OCLC | 876012030 |
Preceded by | Steve Jobs |
Followed by | Leonardo Da Vinci |
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution is an overview of the history of computer science and the Digital Revolution. It was written by Walter Isaacson, and published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster.
The book summarizes the contributions of several innovators who have made pivotal breakthroughs in computer technology and its applications—from the world's first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, and Alan Turing's work in artificial intelligence, through the Information Age of the present. [1] [2]
In December 2015, Simon & Schuster published a revised electronic edition of The Innovators, which corrected significant errors and omissions in the original edition's Chapter 9, which covers software. Isaacson – who in researching the book interviewed Bill Gates but not Paul Allen – had assigned virtually all credit for the company's early innovations and success to Gates, when in fact they were the product of highly collaborative efforts by several people, including Allen. In the revised edition, among other edits, Isaacson includes archival material from 1981 which Gates credits Allen for being the "idea man" in charge of R&D at Microsoft, while he, Gates, was "the frontman running the business". [3]
In the 2019 three-part Netflix docuseries Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates , this conflict is briefly mentioned by who appears to be Gates's secretary as she goes over the books that Gates was reading at the time of recording.
Isaacson explains in his book that, as he was writing about Wikipedia and how it worked, he decided that his book should be collectively examined in a Wikipedia manner. Hence he uploaded a draft on Medium, allowing readers to make dozens of comments to correct and improve the book.
Innovators discussed in the book by chapter:
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.
Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. He is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
William "Bill" D. Atkinson is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990.
Gary Arlen Kildall was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur.
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0-385-19195-2) is a book by Steven Levy about hacker culture. It was published in 1984 in Garden City, New York by Doubleday. Levy describes the people, the machines, and the events that defined the Hacker Culture and the Hacker Ethic, from the early mainframe hackers at MIT, to the self-made hardware hackers and game hackers.
Eternal September or the September that never ended is Usenet slang for a period beginning around 1993 when Internet service providers began offering Usenet access to many new users. The flood of new users overwhelmed the existing culture for online forums and the ability to enforce existing norms. AOL followed with their Usenet gateway service in March 1994, leading to a constant stream of new users. Hence, from the early Usenet point of view, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.
Donald Watts Davies, was a Welsh computer scientist who was employed at the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL).
Stephen Russell, also nicknamed "Slug", is an American computer scientist most famous for creating Spacewar!, well known for being the first widely distributed video game.
Paul Baran was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the dominant basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide, and went on to start several companies and develop other technologies that are an essential part of modern digital communication.
SoundJam MP is a discontinued MP3 player for classic Mac OS-compatible computers and Rio-compatible hardware synchronization manager that was released in July 1999 and was available until June 2001. Jeff Robbin and Bill Kincaid developed SoundJam MP with assistance from Dave Heller. Robbin and Kincaid chose Casady & Greene to publish SoundJam MP. Apple, Inc. purchased SoundJam MP in 2000 and further developed the code to create iTunes version 1.0. Casady and Greene ceased publication of SoundJam MP in June 2001 at the request of the developers.
Walter Seff Isaacson is an American author, journalist, and professor. He has been the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., the chair and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time.
Nicola Pellow is an English mathematician and information scientist who was one of the nineteen members of the WWW Project at CERN working with Tim Berners-Lee. She joined the project in November 1990, while an undergraduate maths student enrolled on a sandwich course at Leicester Polytechnic. Pellow recalled having little experience with programming languages, "... apart from using a bit of Pascal and FORTRAN as part of my degree course."
The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science, usually appearing in forms like mathematics or physics. Developments in previous centuries alluded to the discipline that we now know as computer science. This progression, from mechanical inventions and mathematical theories towards modern computer concepts and machines, led to the development of a major academic field, massive technological advancement across the Western world, and the basis of a massive worldwide trade and culture.
The Alan Turing Year, 2012, marked the celebration of the life and scientific influence of Alan Turing during the centenary of his birth on 23 June 1912. Turing had an important influence on computing, computer science, artificial intelligence, developmental biology, and the mathematical theory of computability and made important contributions to code-breaking during the Second World War. The Alan Turing Centenary Advisory committee (TCAC) was originally set up by Professor Barry Cooper
Ada Lovelace Day is an annual event held on the second Tuesday of October to celebrate and raise awareness of the contributions of women to STEM fields. It is named after mathematician and computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace. It started in 2009 as a "day of blogging" and has since become a multi-national event with conferences.
Steve Jobs is the authorized self-titled biography of American business magnate and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The book was written at the request of Jobs by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN and TIME who had previously written best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.
An innovator is a person or organization who is one of the first to introduce into reality something better than before.
Bob Albrecht is a key figure in the early history of microcomputers. He was one of the founders of the People's Computer Company and its associated newsletters which turned into Dr. Dobb's Journal. He also brought the first Altair 8800 to the Homebrew Computer Club and was one of the main supporters of the effort to make Tiny BASIC a standard on many early machines. Albrecht has authored a number of books on BASIC and other computer topics. He is mentioned as one of the "who's who" in Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
The Ada Lovelace Award is given in honor of the English mathematician and computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, by the Association for Women in Computing. Founded in 1981, as the Service Award, which was given to Thelma Estrin, it was named the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, the following year.