CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer
| CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer | |
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| Category: History | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: A short history of the computing company CDC, given clear technical detail but also told with verve and humour. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 96 | Date: November 2022 |
| Publisher: Books on Demand | |
| ISBN: 978-3756228713 | |
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The history of the development of IT could fill books of several hundred pages.
Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen to tell us about the short, but explosive, history of the Control Data Company, CDC, for whom he worked. It's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdote.
Formed in 1957, CDC was a major player in computing right up until the late 1980s when a series of missteps led it to exit computer manufacturing. The remaining business is now Ceridian. Bodmer went to work for CDC in the 1960s. He had been working for the European computing company Bull, but was bored and unfulfilled. There were some cultural confusions in his interview but to his amazement, he got the job and from there it was off to Minneapolis and more culture shocks; some very funny. And there he was, at the very centre of American computer development, working with luminaries such as Seymour Cray and William Norris.
This short book crams in a lot - Bodmer covers CDC's product development history in detail together with the surrounding social and business forces. We learn about how those big old computers worked, about the development of networking and the move from supercomputers to superminis. And eventually, to the demise of CDC itself, which was partly self-inflicted but also speaks to the failure of the financial markets to suffer temporary setbacks. . But the book isn't dry or dull, mostly thanks to Bodmer's own wry attitude to life and work. The whole thing is peppered with fabulous anecdotes and observations. For example, Seymour Cray orders all the champagne in Chippewa Falls when he sells a computer model for $2m. There were only three to be had!
I found the book fascinating. I found out a lot that I did not know. It also made me think about genericisation - when a brand or trademark becomes so popular that it becomes a generic term for all products of the same type. Hoover for vacuum cleaner is a good example of this. I'm not a computer specialist and I had never heard of CDC. And yet I had heard of IBM. As Bodmer points out, CDC and IBM were bitter enemies. IBM survived. But even before CDC's demise, and when Bodmer is still new to America, he meets a girl and tells her that he works in computers. “Ah, with these IBM machines?” she says. Branding is powerful.
The book ends with Bodmer's reflections on the influence of computing and the internet in our lives today. He suggests that nothing comes without a cost. And he's quite right about that. If you're interested in technology, or how we came to be as dependent on computing as we are, this little book is for you.
Recommended.
You might also be interested in Alan Turing (Real Lives) by Jim Eldridge, another tale that helps to explain how computing developed.
You can read more about Hans Bodmer here.
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You can read more book reviews or buy CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena' by Hans Bodmer at Amazon.com.
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