Ask HN: Best way to learn about computing history?

I haven’t read it, but heard good things about “The Soul of a New Machine” about Data Generals efforts create a new 32-bit superminicomputer.

https://www.tracykidder.com/the-soul-of-a-new-machine.html

Another comment mentioned “Pirates of Silicon Valley” as a good dramatization of MS/Apple and there’s also the miniseries “Valley of the Boom” about the rise and fall of Netscape and “Halt and Catch Fire” which is a fictional and thematic view of 80s/90s computer history.

I'm not at all sure that learning about computer history and learning about how computers work are the same thing. For example, looking at early microprocessors would give you the idea that instruction set architectures are completely random when in fact their designers were faced with a limited transistor budget and very short development times. Often, microprocessors were offered as a replacement for discrete logic, rather than as generally programmable computing devices.

The history of computing is replete with really dumb ideas, from addition and multiplication tables in memory (IBM 1620) to processors optimized for Ada that ran too slowly to be useful (Intel iAPX 432). There were really smart ideas, too, such as cache (IBM System/360 Model 85) and RISC (too many systems to mention). What you want is just the smart ideas, I'd say.

If you want to get an understanding of how modern computers work, and given your CS degree, I would recommend David Patterson/John Hennessy's Computer Organization and Design, any edition. A lot of universities use this book in a second-year architecture course.

In terms of relating this information to the overall hierarchy of computer systems, I would also recommend Nisan and Schocken's Elements of Computing Systems.

Ben Eater also sells a kit for those who want to follow along by building their own: https://eater.net/shop

I came here to post this - fascinating book, which I loved.

Agreed. For me, the course was eerily able to hit my exact sweet spot of difficulty. Almost every project had me in the "I'm about to give up" stage just long enough before I had a breakthrough and kept continuing.

>and you will see huge performance problems in almost all software from them on, because none of this (I gesture vaguely at everything everywhere) should be as slow as it is. none of it.

Hah! Yes! After finishing, the first optimization I made was to add an "inc" command to the high-level (Java-like) language you implement. It annoyed me that any time you have "i = i + 1", it translates into VM code of "push 1 onto stack, push i's value onto stack, add, pop stack to i's location", each of which translates into several machine instructions. Especially given that the CPU has an increment instruction!

So I added the inc keyword that would ensure you bypass all of that, if you just want to increment a variable, and thus use significantly fewer cycles. It was really thrilling (well, as much as a technical project can be) to have the level of insight and control needed to make a change like that.