Abstract :
The recent rapid emergence of the computer as a prominent technology of our own time has generated an entire subfield of the history of technology called the "history of computing," which offers historians new opportunities to investigate a rapidly growing economic and social activity. The history of computing has grown rapidly in the past decade. This paper offers a brief review of the stages in the history of computing, a discussion of the recent trend in the historical literature, and a description of major resource problems that hamper a needed broadening of that literature.