Giant Brains or Machines That Think.

BERKELEY, Edmund C.

$20,000.00

Item Number: 147369

New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1949.

First edition of this important work which popularized cognitive images of early computers. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper to the author to his ACM collaborator, Austrian mathematician Franz Alt (who is also thanked in the acknowledgements), “To Franz, with thanks again and warmest greetings, Ed. Nov. 28, 1949.” The recipient, Franz Alt was an Austrian Jew who made important contributions to econometrics and to early computers, specializing in their ‘applications in science, engineering, management and data processing. He also dealt with information retrieval, automatic language translations, numerical analytical operations research, econometrics, and geometry of metric space’ (Museum of the Jewish People). After fleeing the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 he emigrated to the US and worked in high positions at the Econometric Institute in New York, the Aberdeen Proving Ground’s Ballistic Research Laboratories, the Computation Laboratory at the National Bureau of Standards, and the Information Division of the American Institute of Physics. Together with Berkeley he was one of the founders of the Association for Computing Machinery, serving as its president between 1950 and 1952 and as editor of its journal during the 1950s. Alt is first on the list of those thanked in the acknowledgements for, ‘careful reviews and helpful comments.’ Near fine in a very good dust jacket. An exceptional association linking these two pioneers in the field.

Edmund C. Berkeley became famous in 1949 with the publication of his book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think in which he described the principles behind computing machines (called then "mechanical brains", "sequence-controlled calculators", or various other terms), and then gave a technical but accessible survey of the most prominent examples of the time, including machines from MIT, Harvard, the Moore School, Bell Laboratories, and elsewhere. In Giant Brains, Berkeley also outlined a device which some have described as the first "personal computer", Simon. Plans on how to build this computer were published in the journal Radio Electronics in 1950 and 1951. Simon used relay logic and cost about $600 to construct. The first working model was built at Columbia University with the help of two graduate students. Berkeley founded, published and edited Computers and Automation, the first computer magazine. He also created the Geniac and Brainiac toy computers.