C.O.D.E. by Charles Petzold

“The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software”

If I wasn’t impressed enough of what technology can do now a days these book surprised me even more from how everything started with 0 and 1 to the the understating of the language of a Computer and the mechanism of it.

What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In Code, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new means of communicating with each other. And through Code, we see how this ingenuity and our very human compulsion to communicate have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries.

Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold weaves an illuminating narrative for anyone who’s ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines.

It’s a great book to learn from the basics; Why we count from 1 to 10? What is electricity? Are computers really smart and complex or everything comes down to simple instructions? What has time to do with a computer? Relays? Vacuum Tubes? It really breaks down every single part of a computer and the mechanism of it and I hadn’t been able to come by each chapter without being shock about how really everything comes down to really small simple steps and all the new knowledge I didn’t knew about.

The book also has a very big presence of dates, important names and biographies that for me has been interesting to situate in a timeline all the processes and evolutions as well as learn the different work from each persona and the impact it meant at every different time.

Book C.O.D.E. by Charles Petzold

“ Jeff Atwood says “It’s another love letter to the computer. Instead of a long, rambling love letter, Code is a collection of elegantly written sonnets. It has an austere layout, filled with beautiful diagrams. It gently guides you through the history of the computer, at the lowest and most fundamental levels, from Babbage to modern times.”

In conclusion, I will say that this book has opened my eyes and given me even more interest in the world of computers specially now that I know how everything started. If we have been able to do everything we see now coming from 0 and 1, what will be the next step for the future?

Wallboard notes I took from the book C.O.D.E.