Regular price: $27.93

Membership details Membership details
  • A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook, free.
  • 1 credit/month after trial – good for any book, any price.
  • Easy exchanges – swap any book you don’t love.
  • Keep your audiobooks, even if you cancel.
  • After your trial, Audible is just $14.95/month.
OR
In Cart

People who bought this also bought...

ENIAC audiobook cover art

  • ENIAC

  • The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer
  • By: Scott McCartney
  • Narrated by: Adams Morgan
  • Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 327
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 139
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 148

The world's first programmable computer was the legendary ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), built by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a dramatic human story and a vital contribution to the history of technology, and it restores to the two inventors the legacy they deserve.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Fascinating history...

  • By Glenn on 12-16-02
Moore's Law audiobook cover art

  • Moore's Law

  • The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary
  • By: Arnold Thackray, David Brock, Rachel Jones
  • Narrated by: Don Hagen
  • Length: 24 hrs and 26 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 42
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 37
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 36

Our world today - from the phone in your pocket to the car that you drive, the allure of social media to the strategy of the Pentagon - has been shaped irrevocably by the technology of silicon transistors. Year after year, for half a century, these tiny switches have enabled ever-more startling capabilities. Their incredible proliferation has altered the course of human history as dramatically as any political or social revolution. At the heart of it all has been one quiet Californian: Gordon Moore.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Interesting back story

  • By Daniel on 08-02-15
Significant Figures audiobook cover art

  • Significant Figures

  • The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians
  • By: Ian Stewart
  • Narrated by: Roger Clark
  • Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 72
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 62
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 62

In Significant Figures, acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart introduces the visionaries of mathematics throughout history. Delving into the lives of twenty-five great mathematicians, Stewart examines the roles they played in creating, inventing, and discovering the mathematics we use today. Through these short biographies, we get acquainted with the history of mathematics.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Fantastic

  • By Derek on 11-23-17
Valley of Genius audiobook cover art

  • Valley of Genius

  • By: Adam Fisher
  • Narrated by: Pete Larkin
  • Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 139
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 120
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 119

A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley - from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Drawing on over 200 in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes listeners from the dawn of the personal computer and the Internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented.  

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Annoying to listen to

  • By Jd on 07-21-18
A Most Elegant Equation audiobook cover art

  • A Most Elegant Equation

  • Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
  • By: David Stipp
  • Narrated by: Sean Pratt
  • Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 69
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 65
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 64

Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Good and Simple

  • By Christopher Alexander Teale Maldonado on 04-16-18
Losing the Signal audiobook cover art

  • Losing the Signal

  • The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
  • By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
  • Narrated by: William Hughes
  • Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 709
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 618
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 616

Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Fascinating

  • By Gerardo on 09-05-15

Publisher's Summary

From one of our most acclaimed novelists, a David-and-Goliath biography for the digital age.

One night in the late 1930s, in a bar on the Illinois-Iowa border, John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics at Iowa State University, after a frustrating day performing tedious mathematical calculations in his lab, hit on the idea that the binary number system and electronic switches, combined with an array of capacitors on a moving drum to serve as memory, could yield a computing machine that would make his life and the lives of other similarly burdened scientists easier. Then he went back and built the machine. It worked. The whole world changed.

Why don’t we know the name of John Atanasoff as well as we know those of Alan Turing and John von Neumann? Because he never patented the device, and because the developers of the far-better-known ENIAC almost certainly stole critical ideas from him. But in 1973 a court declared that the patent on that Sperry Rand device was invalid, opening the intellectual property gates to the computer revolution.

Jane Smiley tells the quintessentially American story of the child of immigrants John Atanasoff with technical clarity and narrative drive, making the race to develop digital computing as gripping as a real-life techno-thriller.
©2010 Jane Smiley (P)2010 Random House Audio

What members say

Average Customer Ratings

Overall

  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Performance

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Story

  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Audible.com Reviews
Amazon Reviews
Sort by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Half Atanasoff biography, half biograph of others

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Overall, I enjoyed the book but the focus was more on the era and the cast of characters involved and less about Atanasoff than I had expected. Still very interesting and, I think, worth while.

What was most disappointing about Jane Smiley???s story?

I was hoping for more information about the actual process of invention undertaken by Atanasoff and Berry and perhaps some technical detail. The book was completely non-technical. A LOT of time was spent on biographies of the other people involved in the birth of the computer, which was interesting, just not what I expected in this book.

What else would you have wanted to know about Jane Smiley???s life?

I didn't and don't want to know anything about Jane Smiley's life. It wasn't her biography. I would have enjoyed a bit more about Atanasoff''s professional life during the time he spent at Iowa State College (now University). The period in which he was actually creating his invention is, perhaps, the least well covered period of his life.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Thank you for Computer History books

Im glad to buy audible computer history books, i hope audible offer more about this computer field, with the better quality voice and the best choice books