Here is the essential guide to computers, an authoritative reference book and timeline about the most powerful tools ever devised. Computing has been the sharp end of cutting-edge technology for a generation and it now permeates all our lives. But to many computer science remains something of a mystery. Our story begins long before the silicon chip, when the pinnacle of binary code was found in the Chinese I-Ching, when Algorithm was a man from Baghdad, and when Lord Byron's daughter wrote the first software--in ink. Above all the first computers were humans, but today they are anything but. Our journey hacks through the jargon jungle of blockchains, botnets, and bitcoins, to arrive at the latest computing technologies, which will no doubt be changing our world all over again.

• Contains chronological articles that tell the story of computers through 100 discoveries and inventions.
• A guide to computer science demystifies the subject, setting out the basics with light-hearted text and simple diagrams.
• Includes biographies of the great computer scientists, such as Babbage, Turing, and Berners-Lee.
• A series of infographics presenting the mind-boggling facts and figures of modern computing at a glance also boosts the contents for all readers.
• Includes a 12-page fold-out Timeline which stretches out to 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) long.