Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer

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Publisher : MIT Press (MA)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer by : Maurice Vincent Wilkes

Download or read book Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer written by Maurice Vincent Wilkes and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1985 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maurice Wilkes was one of the leading scientific explorers in the development of the modern digital computer. He directed the Mathematical Laboratory (later named the Computer Laboratory) at Cambridge University, where he and his team built the EDSAC, the first stored program digital computer to go into service. Wilkes describes in nontechnical detail the growth of EDSAC and its successor, EDSAC 2, his introduction of microprogramming, and the first experiments with time-sharing systems. In the 1950s, when machines were still getting larger rather than smaller, Wilkes was one of the few who foresaw a time when nonspecialists would be using computers almost universally, and he reviews his anticipatory efforts to develop simple programming systems. But his book is more than a history of computing, it also recounts the allied scientific effort when he was one of those scientists and engineers ("boffins" as they were called by the RAF) who were in the thick of it, his electronics skills enlisted in the new and exciting development of radar. In this absorbing autobiography, Wilkes is as concerned with people and places as he is with computer components and programs of development. He deftly sketches his childhood in the English midlands and his student days at Cambridge where he studied mathematical physics, and his boyhood fascination with radio matured. He conveys the excitement of sudden insights and long-sought breakthroughs against life's simpler pleasures and trials. His account brims with assessments and anecdotes of such contemporaries as Turing, Hartree, von Neumann, Aiken, and a dozen others. And with his impressions of America and Germany formed during his scientific journeys.

Learn, Earn & Return

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780615305455
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (54 download)

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Book Synopsis Learn, Earn & Return by : Harlan E. Anderson

Download or read book Learn, Earn & Return written by Harlan E. Anderson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography of Harlan E. Anderson, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), includes an appendix "The Rise and Fall of a Computer Empire" chronicling DEC's amazing growth and decline during the period after Anderson resigned and many photos which have never been seen before. Anderson writes on learning about computers and writing programs when the first stored program computers were still under construction. He writes about his earning days which were closely tied to the co-founding of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957. For the first time, Anderson discusses his close relationship with co-founder Ken Olsen and how it came apart during the first decade of DEC's existence. Anderson also writes about his returning days which are still going on through his contributions to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and many other organizations.--harlaneanderson.com/

A History of Modern Computing, second edition

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262532037
Total Pages : 468 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Modern Computing, second edition by : Paul E. Ceruzzi

Download or read book A History of Modern Computing, second edition written by Paul E. Ceruzzi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-04-08 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first digital computer to the dot-com crash—a story of individuals, institutions, and the forces that led to a series of dramatic transformations. This engaging history covers modern computing from the development of the first electronic digital computer through the dot-com crash. The author concentrates on five key moments of transition: the transformation of the computer in the late 1940s from a specialized scientific instrument to a commercial product; the emergence of small systems in the late 1960s; the beginning of personal computing in the 1970s; the spread of networking after 1985; and, in a chapter written for this edition, the period 1995-2001. The new material focuses on the Microsoft antitrust suit, the rise and fall of the dot-coms, and the advent of open source software, particularly Linux. Within the chronological narrative, the book traces several overlapping threads: the evolution of the computer's internal design; the effect of economic trends and the Cold War; the long-term role of IBM as a player and as a target for upstart entrepreneurs; the growth of software from a hidden element to a major character in the story of computing; and the recurring issue of the place of information and computing in a democratic society. The focus is on the United States (though Europe and Japan enter the story at crucial points), on computing per se rather than on applications such as artificial intelligence, and on systems that were sold commercially and installed in quantities.

The Story of Magic

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Story of Magic by : Frank B. Rowlett

Download or read book The Story of Magic written by Frank B. Rowlett and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Pioneer

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Publisher : Candlewick Press
ISBN 13 : 1536204064
Total Pages : 175 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (362 download)

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Book Synopsis Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Pioneer by : Emily Arnold McCully

Download or read book Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Pioneer written by Emily Arnold McCully and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illuminating biography reveals how the daughter of Lord Byron, Britain’s most infamous Romantic poet, became the world’s first computer programmer. Even by 1800s standards, Ada Byron Lovelace had an unusual upbringing. Her strict mother worked hard at cultivating her own role as the long-suffering ex-wife of bad-boy poet Lord Byron while raising Ada in isolation. Tutored by the brightest minds, Ada developed a hunger for mental puzzles, mathematical conundrums, and scientific discovery that kept pace with the breathtaking advances of the industrial and social revolutions taking place in Europe. At seventeen, Ada met eccentric inventor Charles Babbage, a kindred spirit. Their ensuing collaborations resulted in ideas and concepts that presaged computer programming by almost two hundred years, and Ada Lovelace is now recognized as a pioneer and prophet of the information age. Award-winning author Emily Arnold McCully opens the window on a peculiar and singular intellect, shaped — and hampered — by history, social norms, and family dysfunction. The result is a portrait that is at once remarkable and fascinating, tragic and triumphant.

The Man who Invented the Computer

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Publisher : Random House LLC
ISBN 13 : 0385527136
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man who Invented the Computer by : Jane Smiley

Download or read book The Man who Invented the Computer written by Jane Smiley and published by Random House LLC. This book was released on 2010 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff's role in the invention of the computer, describing his innovative construction of an unpatented electronic device that eased the lives of burdened scientists by performing calculations using binary numbers.

Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262517264
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age by : Kurt W. Beyer

Download or read book Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age written by Kurt W. Beyer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-02-10 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The career of computer visionary Grace Murray Hopper, whose innovative work in programming laid the foundations for the user-friendliness of today's personal computers that sparked the information age. A Hollywood biopic about the life of computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) would go like this: a young professor abandons the ivy-covered walls of academia to serve her country in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and finds herself on the front lines of the computer revolution. She works hard to succeed in the all-male computer industry, is almost brought down by personal problems but survives them, and ends her career as a celebrated elder stateswoman of computing, a heroine to thousands, hailed as the inventor of computer programming. Throughout Hopper's later years, the popular media told this simplified version of her life story. In Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Kurt Beyer reveals a more authentic Hopper, a vibrant and complex woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry. Both rebellious and collaborative, Hopper was influential in male-dominated military and business organizations at a time when women were encouraged to devote themselves to housework and childbearing. Hopper's greatest technical achievement was to create the tools that would allow humans to communicate with computers in terms other than ones and zeroes. This advance influenced all future programming and software design and laid the foundation for the development of user-friendly personal computers.

Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer by : Stan Veit

Download or read book Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer written by Stan Veit and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating history of the personal computer from Altair to the IBM PC revolution. Written by computer legend Stan Veit, who turned Computer Shopper into the world's largest computer magazine.

Enchantress of Numbers

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101985216
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Enchantress of Numbers by : Jennifer Chiaverini

Download or read book Enchantress of Numbers written by Jennifer Chiaverini and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Cherished Reader, Should you come upon Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini...consider yourself quite fortunate indeed....Chiaverini makes a convincing case that Ada Byron King is a woman worth celebrating.”—USA Today The New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker and Switchboard Soldiers illuminates the life of Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace—Lord Byron's daughter and the world's first computer programmer. The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. But her mathematician mother, estranged from Ada's infamous and destructively passionate father, is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination—or worse yet, passion or poetry—is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize how her exciting new friendship with Charles Babbage—the brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly inventor of an extraordinary machine, the Difference Engine—will define her destiny. Enchantress of Numbers unveils the passions, dreams, and insatiable thirst for knowledge of a largely unheralded pioneer in computing—a young woman who stepped out of her father’s shadow to achieve her own laurels and champion the new technology that would shape the future.

Pioneer Programmer

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781612480862
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Pioneer Programmer by : Jean Bartik

Download or read book Pioneer Programmer written by Jean Bartik and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early 1945, the United States military was recruiting female mathematicians for a top-secret project to help win World War II. Betty Jean Jennings (Bartik), a twenty-year-old college graduate from rural northwest Missouri, wanted an adventure, so she applied for the job. She was hired as a "computer" to calculate artillery shell trajectories for Aberdeen Proving Ground, and later joined a team of women who programmed the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), the first successful general-purpose programmable electronic computer. In 1947, Bartik headed up a team that modified the ENIAC into the first stored-program electronic computer. Even with her talents, Bartik met obstacles in her career due to attitudes about women's roles in the workplace. Her perseverance paid off and she worked with the earliest computer pioneers and helped launch the commercial computer industry. Despite their contributions, Bartik and the other female ENIAC programmers have been largely ignored. In the only autobiography by any of the six original ENIAC programmers, Bartik tells her story, exposing myths about the computer's origin and properly crediting those behind the computing innovations that shape our daily lives.

The Computer in the United States

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315287757
Total Pages : 181 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (152 download)

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Book Synopsis The Computer in the United States by : James W. Cortada

Download or read book The Computer in the United States written by James W. Cortada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies how a technological innovation -- in this case the computer -- progresses from its origin as an idea in someone's mind to its eventual manifestation as a useable and marketable consumer product.

The First Computers

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262681377
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (813 download)

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Book Synopsis The First Computers by : Raul Rojas

Download or read book The First Computers written by Raul Rojas and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-07-26 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history of computing focuses not on chronology (what came first and who deserves credit for it) but on the actual architectures of the first machines that made electronic computing a practical reality. The book covers computers built in the United States, Germany, England, and Japan. It makes clear that similar concepts were often pursued simultaneously and that the early researchers explored many architectures beyond the von Neumann architecture that eventually became canonical. The contributors include not only historians but also engineers and computer pioneers. An introductory chapter describes the elements of computer architecture and explains why "being first" is even less interesting for computers than for other areas of technology. The essays contain a remarkable amount of new material, even on well-known machines, and several describe reconstructions of the historic machines. These investigations are of more than simply historical interest, for architectures designed to solve specific problems in the past may suggest new approaches to similar problems in today's machines. Contributors Titiimaea F. Ala'ilima, Lin Ping Ang, William Aspray, Friedrich L. Bauer, Andreas Brennecke, Chris P. Burton, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Paul Ceruzzi, I. Bernard Cohen, John Gustafson, Wilhelm Hopmann, Harry D. Huskey, Friedrich W. Kistermann, Thomas Lange, Michael S. Mahoney, R. B. E. Napper, Seiichi Okoma, Hartmut Petzold, Raúl Rojas, Anthony E. Sale, Robert W. Seidel, Ambros P. Speiser, Frank H. Sumner, James F. Tau, Jan Van der Spiegel, Eiiti Wada, Michael R. Williams

Creating the Computer

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Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 9780815707219
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Creating the Computer by : Kenneth Flamm

Download or read book Creating the Computer written by Kenneth Flamm and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of the first electronic digital computers in the 1940s signaled the beginning of a new and distinctive type of industry—an industry marked by competition through innovation, and by the large percentage of revenues spent on research and development. Written as a companion volume to Targeting the Computer: Government Support and International Competition, this comprehensive volume provides a new understanding to the complex forces that have shaped the computer industry during the past four decades. Kenneth Flamm identifies the origins of technologies important to the creation of computers and traces the roots of individual technologies to the specific research groups and programs responsible for major advances. He evaluates the impact of these innovations on industrial competition and argues that the emergence of specialization and product differentiation in the 1950s and the compatibility and standards in the mid-1960s were key factors defining this competition. Flamm also identifies the various market strategies adopted in later decades to challenge an industry leader, strategies linked to the entry and exit of individual firms. In addition to the effects of technology and internal industry developments, international competition and national policies on technology, trade, and investment shaped the evolution of this new industry. Flamm documents the role of government support for technology in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan and describes the critical technological and economic links between national and international markets. Finally, he links these strategies, technological trends, and national policies to one another and shows how they continue to influence current developments in the computer industry.

The Government Machine

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262292904
Total Pages : 565 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis The Government Machine by : Jon Agar

Download or read book The Government Machine written by Jon Agar and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-09-26 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of technology and politics in the evolution of the British "government machine." In The Government Machine, Jon Agar traces the mechanization of government work in the United Kingdom from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. He argues that this transformation has been tied to the rise of "expert movements," groups whose authority has rested on their expertise. The deployment of machines was an attempt to gain control over state action—a revolutionary move. Agar shows how mechanization followed the popular depiction of government as machine-like, with British civil servants cast as components of a general purpose "government machine"; indeed, he argues that today's general purpose computer is the apotheosis of the civil servant. Over the course of two centuries, government has become the major repository and user of information; the Civil Service itself can be seen as an information-processing entity. Agar argues that the changing capacities of government have depended on the implementation of new technologies, and that the adoption of new technologies has depended on a vision of government and a fundamental model of organization. Thus, to study the history of technology is to study the state, and vice versa.

From Whirlwind to MITRE

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262264266
Total Pages : 568 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (642 download)

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Book Synopsis From Whirlwind to MITRE by : Kent C. Redmond

Download or read book From Whirlwind to MITRE written by Kent C. Redmond and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000-10-10 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book shows how the wartime alliance of engineers, scientists, and the military exemplified by MIT's Radiation Lab helped to transform research and development practice in the United States through the end of the Cold War period. This book presents an organizational and social history of one of the foundational projects of the computer era: the development of the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) air defense system, from its first test at Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1951, to the installation of the first unit of the New York Air Defense Sector of the SAGE system, in 1958. The idea for SAGE grew out of Project Whirlwind, a wartime computer development effort, when the U.S. Department of Defense realized that the Whirlwind computer might anchor a continent-wide advance warning system. Developed by MIT engineers and scientists for the U.S. Air Force, SAGE monitored North American skies for possible attack by manned aircraft and missiles for twenty-five years. Aside from its strategic importance, SAGE set the foundation for mass data-processing systems and foreshadowed many computer developments of the 1960s. The heart of the system, the AN/FSQ-7, was the first computer to have an internal memory composed of "magnetic cores," thousands of tiny ferrite rings that served as reversible electromagnets. SAGE also introduced computer-driven displays, online terminals, time sharing, high-reliability computation, digital signal processing, digital transmission over telephone lines, digital track-while-scan, digital simulation, computer networking, and duplex computing. The book shows how the wartime alliance of engineers, scientists, and the military exemplified by MIT's Radiation Lab helped to transform research and development practice in the United States through the end of the Cold War period.

Edmund Berkeley and the Social Responsibility of Computer Professionals

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Publisher : Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1970001380
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Edmund Berkeley and the Social Responsibility of Computer Professionals by : Bernadette Longo

Download or read book Edmund Berkeley and the Social Responsibility of Computer Professionals written by Bernadette Longo and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edmund C. Berkeley (1909 – 1988) was a mathematician, insurance actuary, inventor, publisher, and a founder of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). His book Giant Brains or Machines That Think (1949) was the first explanation of computers for a general readership. His journal Computers and Automation (1951-1973) was the first journal for computer professionals. In the 1950s, Berkeley developed mail-order kits for small, personal computers such as Simple Simon and the Braniac. In an era when computer development was on a scale barely affordable by universities or government agencies, Berkeley took a different approach and sold simple computer kits to average Americans. He believed that digital computers, using mechanized reasoning based on symbolic logic, could help people make more rational decisions. The result of this improved reasoning would be better social conditions and fewer large-scale wars. Although Berkeley’s populist notions of computer development in the public interest did not prevail, the events of his life exemplify the human side of ongoing debates concerning the social responsibility of computer professionals. This biography of Edmund Berkeley, based on primary sources gathered over 15 years of archival research, provides a lens to understand social and political decisions surrounding early computer development, and the consequences of these decisions in our 21st century lives.

Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324005882
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games by : Sid Meier

Download or read book Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games written by Sid Meier and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of Civilization, featuring his rules of good game design. "Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today." — Phil Spencer, head of Xbox Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular video games, including Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier’s Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond. Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be “a series of interesting decisions,” Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.