The first history of computing book I have read, highly recommend. In depth descriptions of the conceptual underpinnings (information theory, cybernetics), and then rich history of decade after decade of research and development.
Worth reading for the Grand Inquisitor chapter. Meandering and slow, then dense explosive conversations, then slow again. Dmitri Karamazov is the classic Underground Man, mercurial, ruinous, yet all the same righteous.
"Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone without a penny, in the center of an unknown town of a million inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he were not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure."
Begins with art and beauty and ends in an electromagnetic shotgun to the head. So many relevant essays that are getting refiltered through AI & e/acc.
"This is because what appears to humanity as the history of capitalism is an invasion from the future by an artificial intelligent space that must assemble itself entirely from its enemy's resources."
"Only proto-capitalism has ever been critiqued."
"Garbage time is running out. Can what is playing you make it to level-2?"