Overview

Everything has a beginning. None was more profound--and quite as unexpected--than Information Technology. Here for the first time is the untold story of how our new age came to be and the bright boys who made it happen. What began on the bare floor of an old laundry building eventually grew to rival in size the Manhattan Project. The unexpected consequence of that journey was huge---what we now know as Information Technology. For sixty years the bright boys have been totally anonymous while their achievements have become a way of life for all of us. Bright Boys brings them home. By 1950 they'd built the world's first real-time computer. Three years later they one-upped themselves when they switched on the world's first digital network. In 1953 their work was met with incredulity and completely overlooked. By 1968 their work was gospel. Today, it's the way of the world. Special Foreword by Jay W. Forrester Includes notes by chapter, bibliography, index, and portfolio of archival photography. Tom Green talks about his book in a recent video available on YouTube.

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9781568814766

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Reviews

Bright Boys cuts right to the heart of how complex technologic systems are conceived, incubated, and grown across generations. Tom's clever writing style draws a reader into the story and the remarkable depth and breadth of his research holds the reader firm, often enthralled, throughout. This is a remarkable case study of the birth and development of a technological system that indispensably beats as the heart of the economy, communications, transportation, and culture- circulating life's blood of information around the globe in the blink of an eye. -Dik Daso, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 fascinating story of how it felt to be present at the creation of the Information Age, at a time when, as the author says, there was less than a megabyte of computer memory on the whole planet. -Paul E. Ceruzzi Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 rich and broad recapturing of the subject period. Marvelous and exciting writing! -Wes Clark, designer of the TX-0 and TX-2 computers, February 2010 Bright Boys: The Making of Information Technology, by Tom Green, offers a thorough and compelling insight into how modern information technology came about, how all the pieces work together, and who was responsible for what. From 1938 to 1958, history was in the making and much of our modern world was a direct result. The bright boys played an integral part, and their efforts directly affected generations thereafter. Their huge machine shook the world and provoked a revolution in electronics. Bright Boys delves into the genius of their giant creation and how it became ever smaller and then disappeared into the new age of modern computers and the high-tech wizardry of today. -View the book trailer on You Tube!, March 2010 Every time you book an airline ticket, retrieve cash from an ATM machine or even thaw a steak in a microwave oven, you owe a debt to two young men who in the summer of 1946 conceived the first real-time digital computer in a rundown former laundry building near the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. ... Robert Everett and Jay Forrester were the leaders in the design of that first digital computer, which they called Whirlwind, a behemoth that filled an entire floor of the vacant factory. They are the foremost bright boys of the title. With the creation of the Whirlwind leviathan, the bright boys launched the country on one of the greatest and most successful projects in the history of American engineering. -Tom Mackin, New Jersey Star-Ledger, May 2010 The twentieth century had untold growth and advancement in technology. 'Bright Boys' tells the story of one group of individuals who were driven to push these ideas further and spurred the technological development of the nation following World War II. Working with next to nothing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, these college students brought forth the beginning of many of today's technical ideas. 'Bright Boys' is a riveting read of technological history, highly recommended. -Midwest Book Review, July 2010 The story that unravels between the front and back covers provides a well-written, well-researched discussion of the intricate configuration of circumstances and individuals that conspired in two major firsts: (1) Whirlwind, a first-of-its-kind digital computer capable of processing and delivering information in real time and (2) digital networks capable of transporting information. In the book, Green takes special care to make the reader aware of the social and scientific contexts in which the 'bright boys' worked and flourished; the result is a highly enjoyable history lesson with a true feel for the human aspect of many of the key players. -Cyntrica Eaton, AAAS Science Books & Films, August 2010

A+: This is how a computer history book should be written. It's an amazing history of MIT in the 1940s and 1950s around the invention of the computer. Some other places place an ancillary role (like the Moore School at U Penn and Harvard), but MIT and Cambridge are front and center. --Technology Review, May 2010 Bright Boys cuts right to the heart of how complex technologic systems are conceived, incubated, and grown across generations. Tom's clever writing style draws a reader into the story and the remarkable depth and breadth of his research holds the reader firm, often enthralled, throughout. This is a remarkable case study of the birth and development of a technological system that indispensably beats as the heart of the economy, communications, transportation, and culture- circulating life's blood of information around the globe in the blink of an eye. --Dik Daso, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 A fascinating story of how it felt to be present at the creation of the Information Age, at a time when, as the author says, there was less than a megabyte of computer memory on the whole planet. --Paul E. Ceruzzi Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 Astonishingly rich and broad recapturing of the subject period. Marvelous and exciting writing! --Wes Clark, designer of the TX-0 and TX-2 computers, February 2010 Bright Boys: The Making of Information Technology, by Tom Green, offers a thorough and compelling insight into how modern information technology came about, how all the pieces work together, and who was responsible for what. From 1938 to 1958, history was in the making and much of our modern world was a direct result. The 'bright boys' played an integral part, and their efforts directly affected generations thereafter. Their huge machine shook the world and provoked a revolution in electronics. Bright Boys delves into the genius of their giant creation and how it became ever smaller and then disappeared into the new age of modern computers and the high-tech wizardry of today. --View the book trailer on You Tube!, March 2010 Every time you book an airline ticket, retrieve cash from an ATM machine or even thaw a steak in a microwave oven, you owe a debt to two young men who in the summer of 1946 conceived the first real-time digital computer in a rundown former laundry building near the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. ... Robert Everett and Jay Forrester were the leaders in the design of that first digital computer, which they called Whirlwind, a behemoth that filled an entire floor of the vacant factory. They are the foremost bright boys of the title. With the creation of the Whirlwind leviathan, the bright boys launched the country on one of the greatest and most successful projects in the history of American engineering. --Tom Mackin, New Jersey Star-Ledger, May 2010 The twentieth century had untold growth and advancement in technology. Bright Boys tells the story of one group of individuals who were driven to push these ideas further and spurred the technological development of the nation following World War II. Working with next to nothing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, these college students brought forth the beginning of many of today's technical ideas. Bright Boys is a riveting read of technological history, highly recommended. --Midwest Book Review, July 2010 The story that unravels between the front and back covers provides a well-written, well-researched discussion of the intricate configuration of circumstances and individuals that conspired in two major firsts: (1) Whirlwind, a first-of-its-kind digital computer capable of processing and delivering information in real time and (2) digital networks capable of transporting information. In the book, Green takes special care to make the reader aware of the social and scientific contexts in which the 'bright boys' worked and flourished; the result is a highly enjoyable history lesson with a true feel for the human aspect of many of the key players. --Cyntrica Eaton, AAAS Science Books & Films, August 2010

Bright Boys cuts right to the heart of how complex technologic systems are conceived, incubated, and grown across generations. Tom's clever writing style draws a reader into the story and the remarkable depth and breadth of his research holds the reader firm, often enthralled, throughout. This is a remarkable case study of the birth and development of a technological system that indispensably beats as the heart of the economy, communications, transportation, and culture- circulating life's blood of information around the globe in the blink of an eye. -- Dik Daso, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 A fascinating story of how it felt to be present at the creation of the Information Age, at a time when, as the author says, there was less than a megabyte of computer memory on the whole planet. -- Paul E. Ceruzzi Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum, February 2010 Astonishingly rich and broad recapturing of the subject period. Marvelous and exciting writing! -- Wes Clark, designer of the TX-0 and TX-2 computers, February 2010 Bright Boys: The Making of Information Technology, by Tom Green, offers a thorough and compelling insight into how modern information technology came about, how all the pieces work together, and who was responsible for what. From 1938 to 1958, history was in the making and much of our modern world was a direct result. The bright boys played an integral part, and their efforts directly affected generations thereafter. Their huge machine shook the world and provoked a revolution in electronics. Bright Boys delves into the genius of their giant creation and how it became ever smaller and then disappeared into the new age of modern computers and the high-tech wizardry of today. -- View the book trailer on You Tube!, March 2010 Every time you book an airline ticket, retrieve cash from an ATM machine or even thaw a steak in a microwave oven, you owe a debt to two young men who in the summer of 1946 conceived the first real-time digital computer in a rundown former laundry building near the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. ... Robert Everett and Jay Forrester were the leaders in the design of that first digital computer, which they called Whirlwind, a behemoth that filled an entire floor of the vacant factory. They are the foremost bright boys of the title. With the creation of the Whirlwind leviathan, the bright boys launched the country on one of the greatest and most successful projects in the history of American engineering. -- Tom Mackin, New Jersey Star-Ledger, May 2010 The twentieth century had untold growth and advancement in technology. 'Bright Boys' tells the story of one group of individuals who were driven to push these ideas further and spurred the technological development of the nation following World War II. Working with next to nothing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, these college students brought forth the beginning of many of today's technical ideas. 'Bright Boys' is a riveting read of technological history, highly recommended. -- Midwest Book Review, July 2010 The story that unravels between the front and back covers provides a well-written, well-researched discussion of the intricate configuration of circumstances and individuals that conspired in two major firsts: (1) Whirlwind, a first-of-its-kind digital computer capable of processing and delivering information in real time and (2) digital networks capable of transporting information. In the book, Green takes special care to make the reader aware of the social and scientific contexts in which the 'bright boys' worked and flourished; the result is a highly enjoyable history lesson with a true feel for the human aspect of many of the key players. -- Cyntrica Eaton, AAAS Science Books & Films, August 2010

Author Information

Tom Green is an Emmy-nominated, award-winning writer, producer and playwright who uses his print and video expertise to tell stories about science, technology and engineering. His stage plays were produced at Boston's Next Move Theatre and then reproduced as radio plays for National Public Radio. He also wrote and produced the forum-based TV pilot Lifelines at Boston's WCVB-TV, Channel 5. In addition to working for various companies as a writer, editor, and producer, he owned and operated his own video production company for ten years where he produced video for corporations, broadcast, and cable TV. Since 1995, Green has evolved his storytelling skills and video-making experience in tandem with the arrival and growth of the Internet and Web.

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