100 books like The Innovators

Kidder’s book follows the lives of a group of brilliant, funny, and maniacally driven entrepreneurs as they race to get their new minicomputer, the “Data General Eclipse MV/8000,” to market.

The technology is totally obsolete – who under the age of 40 has heard of a minicomputer? – but the story is somehow timeless. The book won the Pulitzer and is still a fun and riveting tale of what it takes to get a product to market on an ever-changing technological frontier.

This is a book that is at once a biography, a testament to human genius in the face of imminent danger, and a story of human injustice. Alan Turing had an idea about a ‘universal machine’. A machine, when built at Bletchley Park, allowed the Allies in World War II to crack the German Enigma ciphers. This universal machine laid the foundations for modern computing and all the amazing advances we enjoy today. But at a price for Turing, he fought inner demons about his homosexuality and eventually paid the ultimate price.

I marveled at his genius, cheered his cryptographic successes with each cipher cracked, shouted against the tragedy of his arrest, cried at his untimely death. A death at his own hand at the age of 41. The world lost a genius due to a society’s labelling of homosexuality as a crime.

We still live in this world of… show more.

Savvy entrepreneurs and executives have always been able to spot what’s just over the horizon. T.J. Stiles’ book charts the epic and sometimes unimaginable life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who helped to shape our modern world through a combination of sheer will and vision.

He built his fortune on steamships but divested of those assets when he saw that the railways he had built were opening up America’s bountiful frontier. He traded legacy technology for something better. In business, as in politics and life, history does not repeat, but it often rhymes.

I always find myself applying algorithmic thinking in my everyday life—it affects the way I put away dishes, navigate to the store, and organize my to-do lists. And I think others could benefit from that mindset.

So, when I read this book, my reaction was "Yes! That's what I want people to know. I just wish I could have said it that well!" The authors (who I know, but didn't know they wrote a book together), did a fantastic job of selecting algorithms with deep human connections. Really! And they explain them just right, without getting too mathematical but while still hitting the key ideas with clarity and accuracy. Fantastic!

This book provides a brief introduction to the concept of algorithms before discussing the limitations of computation. Specifically, Harel explains undecidable problems (that is, problems for which no algorithm exists) and infeasible problems (that is, problems for which only algorithms are known that have an exponential runtime). I like this book (and its splendid title) because of its focus on the limitations of computation. Harel does a marvelous job in explaining two difficult topics about computation. The understanding of any scientific discipline requires the understanding of its limits, and the limits of computation are as significant as they are surprising.

The software interface for Apple’s innovative Macintosh was largely (and legally) modeled on system software designed at the Palo Alto < California research center of Xerox, an East Coast photocopy company whose stodgy executives failed to realize the value of the coding breakthroughs they had funded and nurtured in the heart of northern California’s computer cauldron. Before anyone at the top of Xerox realized the enormity of their errors, the company had licensed to Steve Jobs and Apple key software technologies that animated the Macintosh revolution in the 1980s. Hiltzik’s richly detailed and readable history, based on scores of interviews, is the best account of the epic failure of an American corporate icon. Apple and Jobs went on to achieve glory while Xerox ultimately became a zombie company, having missed the greatest industrial wave of the past 75 years. 

This popular book takes a broad perspective that surveys the main physical and logical layers from which all digital devices are made.

I like the accessible writing style, aimed at lay readers, and the book’s companion website, where one can experiment interactively with many of the artifacts described in the book. The second edition includes a new section that focuses on a functional subset of Intel 8080, the microprocessor that ushered the personal computing revolution, and the instruction set used by many PCs and servers today.

Whoever controls the computer chips controls the world?

Not quite, but computer chips are a critical ingredient in making the powerful AI systems that dominate the headlines, and there is a high-stakes global competition for the fastest and newest chips.

These chips are so difficult to design and make, yet so important, that the U.S. is overtly restricting China’s access through export controls, and China is not yet able to build its own.

Miller provides an excellent overview of the history and development of computer chips. The book provides detailed information about the key players and different countries involved, as well as the strengths and limitations, all the while remaining accessible. 

Computer architectures have historically followed two paradigms: CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) and its later contender RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing).

RISC processors, which presently power most smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices, were pioneered by Cocke, and later by Patterson and Hennessy – all winners of the Turing Award. Patterson and Hennessy’s classical book series Computer Organization and Design became the go-to textbooks in many academic computer architecture courses.

When reading these books, I enjoy the direct connection with the architects of the systems described. And, I appreciate the numerous insights about compilation, systems, and engineering at large, and the generous and balanced comparisons with competing, non-RISC architectures.

This weighty tome delves deep into the low-level working of computer programs.

This book is a great resource for professional programmers who work close to the machine in such fields as embedded software, cybersecurity, and device drivers. Assuming a basic knowledge of the C language, Bryant and O’Hallaron, two CMU professors, teach how to read and understand compiled code, how to optimize it for better performance, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

This is a hard-core technical book, written by engineers for engineers, in a dense style that is nonetheless accessible and practical. I like the numerous applied problems, each accompanied by a worked-out solution.