A COMPUTER PERSPECTIVE<i> by the office of Charles and Ray Eames (Harvard University Press: $14.95, paper; 175 pp.)</i> .

In 1971, legendary designers Charles and Ray Eames, working in conjunction with IBM, put together a landmark exhibition on the origins and development of the computer. The idea was to demonstrate, in the words of the introduction to this reissue of the accompanying book, “the ways in which dreamers and theorists have interacted with engineers and practical inventors.” Positively crammed with intriguing photographs, this text will help even the veriest Luddite understand the why and how of the computer. Rarely has so much information been so pleasingly condensed and displayed in so small a space.