Burnside Rare Books, ABAA (16 results)

First edition. First edition, first printing. 248, [4] pp. Bound in publisher's wraps. Very Good+, bump to top corner, sticker shadow to rear wrap. A very early home computing book published by the Menlo Park-based People's Computer Company. Rare.

Seller Inventory # 140944932

First Edition. First edition. Signed by Jacques Vallee on the title page. x, 213 pp. Publisher's wraps. Near Fine with light rubbing along edges. Information theorist and computer science pioneer Jacques Vallee's vision of the future of computers and "the new information networks." Only two copies found in OCLC WorldCat, neither in the US. Rare in its first edition as a paperback original, especially so signed.

Seller Inventory # 140943016

First edition. First edition. xii, 359 pp. with fold-out chart in rear pouch. Bound in publisher's crimson cloth with black and gilt lettering. Near Fine with light rubbing, a little sunning to spine; contents bright and unmarked. Toning to endpapers and one panel of the fold-out chart. Lacking jacket. An attractive copy in uncommonly nice shape. One of the first books on computer science by the Czech pioneer of the fault-tolerant computer system. He designed the first Czech computer, SAPO in 1950, the first fault-tolerant computer that was much more advanced than its better-known contemporary, ENIAC. This volumes issued as #27 in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Radiation Laboratory Series.

Seller Inventory # 140945400

Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Signed by Freeman Dyson on front free endpaper, from the collection of entomologist Frank Radovsky, although not marked so. xvi, 124, [3] pp. Publisher's black cloth and boards with gilt lettering. Third printing of the first edition. Fine in Fine unclipped dust jacket. The British-American physicist, mathematician, and statistician's history of science, uncommon signed.

Seller Inventory # 140940676

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. First edition, first printing. Presentation copy, signed by Norbert Wiener on the front free endpaper and warmly inscribed to former dean of residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Frederick G. Fassett, "in token of many years' friendship." Wiener was a mathematician and professor at MIT, and is best known for his book, Cybernetics. Bound in publisher's black cloth with titles stamped in green and silver on the spine. Near Fine with cloth lightly sunned through lettering on the spine, pages toned with corners a little bumped, small stain to front free endpaper. In a Very Good price-clipped dust jacket with a sunned spine, some edge wear and light rubbing. A nice association copy.

Seller Inventory # 140940368

First British Edition. First British edition. 102, [1, ad], [1, blank] pp. Bound in publisher's black wraps lettered in red. Small chip in top of front wrap near head, else Near Fine with typical slip pasted over cast on copyright page and associated wrinkling. This sci-fi play is the origin of the word "robot," borrowed from the Czech word "robota," for forced labor.

Seller Inventory # 140942509

Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. First edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's original grey cloth stamped in dark blue. Near Fine, pages lightly toned and light offsetting from jacket flaps to endsheets. In a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket with light edge wear and light soiling. An uncommon first edition by the computer science pioneer, journalist, and mathematician who observed the UNIVAC, Simon (the first personal computer designed by Berkeley himself), and the Harvard Mark I among other early computers in action. This book brought the concept of the computer to the lay public for the first time.

Seller Inventory # 140942390

The first 14 issues of the most influential microcomputing magazine of its time. Vol. 1, No. 1 (September 1975) - No. 14 (October 1976). Very Good condition overall. The very first issue, unfortunately, is in the roughest shape with a dampstain to its last half, a little associated wrinkling. Generally, pages toned with age, light shelf wear, a few small stains. A highly technical computing journal that began just after the first home computers were starting to be advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Do-it-yourself columns were popular as was the column "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar." Byte continued in the US as a print mag until 1998. Rare.

Seller Inventory # 140942662

The first four issues of the trailblazing early '70s video art magazine with a technical bent that included early programming and computer art. Nos. 1-3 are in a tabloid folded newspaper format; no. 4 is saddle stapled. Very Good overall, wear along edges, a few ink stains to front wrap of no. 1, a few tidemarks and more edge wear to nos. 3 & 4. Many of the leading avant garde artists of the time contributed including Nam June Paik, Ira Schneider, and Frank Gillette. Uncommon.

Seller Inventory # 140943552

First edition. First edition. Signed by Frank Herbert on the title page with his printed name crossed out. 304 pp. Bound in publisher's black cloth and boards with gilt spine lettering. Small remainder mark to bottom edge, else Fine in a Near Fine dust jacket with a little sunning to red of spine panel, slight toning. Nice shape overall.A rare signed copy of the Dune author's guide to computers at the dawn of the era of the personal computer. Includes some programming/coding instructions too, as that was required of users at the time. As with his science fiction, Herbert was way ahead of his time.

Seller Inventory # 140945150

Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+. First Edition. First hardcover edition, first printing. Bound in publisher's original maroon cloth with spine lettered in silver. Pages toned, else Fine, in a very Good+ unclipped dust jacket with chipping at the edges and with a nick to the front spine joint. The first hardcover edition of Shannon's most important work, reprinting "the Mathematical Theory of Communication" first published in the Bell System Technical Journal in 1948, with minor corrections and additional material.

Seller Inventory # 140942697

First edition. First edition. (First printing with title page dated 1940 and no additional printings indicated on copyright page.) xiv, 380, [1] pp. Bound in publisher's red cloth with gilt lettering. Near Fine with light rubbing along edges and to gilt, in Very Good+ price-clipped dust jacket with thin closed tear near head, small stain to rear panel, toning along edges of flaps. Nice shape overall. Rare as a first printing.An engaging and accessible volume on mathematics. This first edition lays claim to the first published use of the now era-defining term "google" (or, as it was originally, the "Googolplex"). Kasner describes with good humor both the immense breadth of the number the Googolplex represents, and the coinage of the term itself from the mouth of his nine-year-old nephew.

Seller Inventory # 140944630

First edition. First edition. Signed by "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor on the front wrap, inscribed "With the compliments of the author, Griffith P. Taylor." 40 pp. printed on rectos only. Bound in original side stapled wraps. Very Good+ with light shelf wear and rubbing to wraps, small tear to front wrap at top staple. Subjects' names handwritten in ink on pages 6 & 8, presumably by Taylor. Truly scarce: no copies in OCLC and no reference to this text yet found. A self-published treatise on the beguiling and still-controversial phenomenon of synthaesthesia, which is when a perceived sensation typically associated with one pathway such as taste, color, sound is experienced in another, i.e. "hearing colors." The author was "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor, famous for officially inventing the earliest known industrial robot in 1937, a crane-like machine called The Robot Gargantua. The designs were published in Meccano Magazine in March 1938. Given his pioneering work in robotics Taylor's thoughts on synaesthesia should hopefully prove enlightening to the curious reader. Also, his signature is quite scarce.

Seller Inventory # 140945100

A collection of 14 issues of the scarce very first hacker newsletter, The Youth International Party Line, including one under its second moniker TAP and two extra pieces of ephemera. Issues 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9-18. Issue 22 (as TAP) included, plus a "Letters to the Editor" sheet (pub. date unknown), and a handwritten sheet about a signaling system. Good+ overall condition, folded in thirds for mailing, some curling and edge wear, a few light stains and some marginal notations in ink. Rare in commerce and institutional holdings, with no physical issues located in an OCLC WorldCat search. What began as a project of the counterculture group Youth International Party (better known as yippies) documenting tactics for hacking payphones and placing free long distance calls quickly became a counter-institution for the nascent "phreaking" culture. With issue #21 the publication, under Al Bell, left the YIP, and changed its name to TAP, which initially stood for Technological American Party, later for the more staid-sounding Technological Assistance Program. As the political focus of TAP waned the beginnings of hacker culture were emerging. By the end of its run in 1984, personal computers were becoming increasingly affordable and hacking was a bona fide cultural phenomenon. A lot happened in computers and popular culture in the '70s, and this 'zine was there at the vanguard the whole time.

Seller Inventory # 140945359

Condition: Very Good. First Edition. First edition. The first printing of Alan Turing's PhD dissertation and seminal work published in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Second Series, Vol. 45., with Turing paper pp. 161-228. Pp. 475. Entire issue, bound without wraps in recent full green cloth with spine lettered in gilt. Circular eagle stamps to roughly 5% of pages, with three stamps on Turing paper but none on title page. Pages toned, lightly handled. "Between inventing the concept of a universal computer in 1936 and breaking the German Enigma code during World War II, Alan Turing (1912-1954), the British founder of computer science and artificial intelligence, came to Princeton University to study mathematical logic. Some of the greatest logicians in the world-including Alonzo Church, Kurt G�del, John von Neumann, and Stephen Kleene-were at Princeton in the 1930s, and they were working on ideas that would lay the groundwork for what would become known as computer science.".

Seller Inventory # 140940040

First Edition. First edition. Three volumes. ix, [5], 666; xxxiv, 772; x, 491 pp. Bound in publisher's navy cloth, spines lettered in gilt; housed in custom folding cloth box. Good condition overall. Unsophisticated copies, pleasantly not-ex-library (very uncommon in commerce thus), but certainly fragile. Rubbing to lettering, staining and edge wear to cloth, boards exposed at extremities; contents toned, brittle with age, and sometimes faintly foxed. Hinges of Vol. I starting; rear board split at head but holding; a few pages detached; about a fifth of pp.1-2 torn off but retained; circular tear to last several leaves of the volume. Vol. II has occasional marginal chipping including to lower corners of about 160 pages, not affecting text; tiny wormholes to inner margins of prelims; hinges worn with a few pages detached. Vol. III cloth chipped along edges; bump to bottom inner corner of textblock. A truly rare first edition of one of the major intellectual landmarks of the 20th century. It marked a milestone in the evolution of mathematical logic, upon which the development of computers and the information sciences would depend, by attempting to construct "the whole body of mathematical doctrine by logical deduction from the basis of a small number of primitive ideas and a small number of primitive principles of logical inference" (DSB, XII, p. 14). In the discipline of philosophy this work represents a culmination of centuries of empiricist and rationalist discourse, an ambitious masterwork.

Seller Inventory # 140942134