My copy has an illustration of Asimov himself, pointing over his shoulder at a simple desktop computer.

Because it was written in the early 80s, the last chapter is quaintly dated with solar powered calculators and the wonderful storage capacity of floppy disks.

The first chapter discusses counting and some simple mechanical devices, abaci, Blaise Pascal's simple gear based calculator, John Napier's work on logarithms, and William Oughtred's invention of the slide rule.

The second chapter discusses the goal of precise computation, which the slide rules does not allow, as well as the goal of greater automation, as the use of the slide rule requires judgement on the part of its operator. It introduces Charles Babbage, whose Difference Engine was motivated by his concerns about the inaccuracy of published logarithmic tables. It discusses Lord Kelvin's tide tables calculator, which was an analog device, and the Hollerith tabulating machine for the 1890 census.

The third chapter brings in the use of vacuum tubes, in Vannevar Bush's differential analyzer, a special purpose math machine, and the idea that Boolean arithmetic might be better than decimal, when using binary electical devices like vacuum tubes and relays. WWII intervenes, more or less terminating Konrad Zuse's work, but stimulating Howard Aiken's work on the Mark I (for calculating trajectories) and the British work on Colossus (for decrypting German codes).

The fourth chapter discusses Mauchly and Eckhert work at Penn developing the ENIAC (still a decimal computer). The idea of the general purpose computer is introduced by John von Neumann, with his notion of stored programs. Eventually transistors are introduced, first as more reliable replacements for transistors, and then as the foundation of IC (Integrated Circuits).

The very last chapter deals with events up until modern times (the '80s).

It does not fit all that well into the series, since we did not find out about computers so much as build them. ( )