Ask HN: Anything Like Carl Sagan's Cosmos for Computer Science?

Code by Charles Petzold would be the best in my opinion.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softw...

+1. Great gift for non-technical friends/relatives. It does get at a technical depth of computer organization and stuff, but it has a nice gradual intro. But if op focus is computer science history, there may be better options (don't know which ones, and Code does share some history detail, but not that much. It should get your niece interested in computer science though).

Although you're probably looking for something a bit more technical, somebody really should mention:

"Triumph of the Nerds: How the Personal Computer Changed the World"

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX5g0kidk3Y - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiffgiRAYUI

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGTPdLxf7FQ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yamGfoFUXsA - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dK-gzpjIVI

The New Turing Omnibus: https://www.amazon.com/New-Turing-Omnibus-Sixty-Six-Excursio...

Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing: https://www.amazon.com/Algorithmics-Spirit-Computing-David-H...

+1 for The New Turing Omnibus

Neither of these is exactly what you asked for, but both are awesome in their own way, and both are (narrow and somewhat dated) histories:

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.

The Pulitzer Prize Winning) The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder. The second one literally changed my life in leading me to computers.

Links: https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution-An...

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/0316...

Brian Cantrill also enthusiastically recommended Soul of a New Machine.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy absolutely changed my life when I found it as a young boy in the local library. Possibly the most read book on my bookshelf!

Gleick's "The Information" and Dyson's "Turing's Cathedral" would be 2 other good pop sci books on the origins of CS.

https://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/1...

https://www.amazon.com/Turings-Cathedral-Origins-Digital-Uni...

I would recommend the book - Innovators by Walter Issacson. It contains the history for computing from Charles Babbage to the invention of the Internet by Tim Berners Lee. Though it has some factual errors, it was a very interesting book. https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-R...

There's a PBS (I think) series called "the machine that changed the world". This is the best history of computing I've seen yet.

+1 http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-machine-that-changed-the-...

I absolutely love this book. It's very accessible, though perhaps not for younger kids.

[But How Do It Know?] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F25LEVC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...)

This is an article is very interesting (very very long) https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-co...

I loved A History of Modern Computing by Paul Ceruzzi

https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Computing/dp/026253203...

Computer #History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

Outline of Computer Engineering #History of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_computer_engineerin...

History of Computer Science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_science

Outline of Computer Science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_computer_science

History of the Internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

History of the World Wide Web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web

... maybe a bit OT; but, interestingly, IDK if any of these include a history section:

#K12CSFramework (Practices, Concepts): https://k12cs.org

- "Impacts of Computing" (Culture; Social Interactions; Safety, Law, and Ethics): https://k12cs.org/framework-statements-by-progression/#jump-...

"Competencies and Tasks on the Path to Human-Level AI" (Perception, Actuation, Memory, Learning, Reasoning, Planning, Attention, Motivation, Emotion, Modeling Self and Other, Social Interaction, Communication, Quantitative, Building/Creation): http://wiki.opencog.org/w/CogPrime_Overview#Competencies_and...

Code.org (#HourOfCode): https://code.org/learn

Not really in keeping with the idea of a gift suitable for a niece.

No, but particulary more comprehensive and informative than any one video. These links (to #OER) would be useful for anyone intending to try and replicate the form and style of the "Cosmos" video series with Computer Science content.

Cosmos was also a dead tree book. [1] It was not uncommonly given as a gift.

The original TV series was broadcast the same year as its publication, 1980, but I don't think it was readily available on consumer tape until several years later and then not at normal holiday gift prices. Back in those days, most video libraries were built by the librarian directly recording broadcasts. But most people would just wait for a rebroadcast.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_(Carl_Sagan_book)