Book Review: by Jim Scheef The excellent series of articles that Charlie Bovaird is writing (see “Before Computers—The Tab Card Epoch” in the July 2009 issue) got me thinking about my library of books on IBM. The books below are all excellent, fun reading.
These four books can be divided into two categories. The first two books are histories of IBM from the management perspective. The Robert Sobel book covers the formation of IBM as a company, the story of how Thomas J. Watson, Sr., came to run it and how his son, Tom, Jr., moved it from tabulating machines to computers. Paul Carroll carries the story thru to about 1993 when Lou Gerstner took over. Both of these books are more about the people than the machines and software that made or unmade IBM leadership, although the stories about OS/2 and similar projects figure prominently. As the titles imply, the other two books are somewhat the reverse. These books focus on the development of the machines that made IBM the giant of the computer industry. Naturally, these stories must talk about the people and the management decisions involved in making the machines, but the focus is decidedly different from the first two books. Given their orientation, you will find more details about machine architecture and why they were that way than in the other books. Like most of the books I review, all four of these books are undoubtedly out of print. When I see a reference to a computer history book on an email list or website, I go to my source, AbeBooks.com. This site indexes the inventories of hundreds of used bookstores in the U.S. and U.K. Competition amongst the stores keeps prices down. I just checked and all four books are available at reasonable prices. Be sure to read the description of the book’s condition, which I find to be fairly accurate. I find many books for as little as $5 delivered to my door. |
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