The Cryotron Files

An incredibly thorough but fully accessible deep dive into the cold war battle for computer supremacy that details the increasingly relevant - and increasingly eerie- relationship between geopolitics and technology -- Jesse Eisenberg, laywright, New Yorker contributor and Oscar-nominated actor who played Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. For me, Dudley Buck remains one of the most endlessly fascinating - and bogglingly creative - engineers of the 1950s. If one looks for him, he can be found in many of the most important projects and contexts developing electronics and computing in service of the early Cold War. I thought I knew a lot about Buck, but the Cryotron Files held many surprises: Deuterium for computer memory?! Superconducting ICBM gyroscopes?! Spy satellites?! Secret meetings with German computer-pioneer Zuse?! While I cannot vouch for everything in the Cryotron Files and differ from some of its suggestions, Iain Dey has woven very partial and confusing records into a real story that will make every reader stop and wonder what Dudley Buck could have dreamed and realized had he survived 1959, his 32nd year. -- David C. Brock, Director, Center for Software History, Computer History Museum Dey takes on the fascinating- and disturbing story of Cold War computing pioneer Dudley Buck. * The Sunday Times *