Timeless Graduation Present for a Computer scientist

July 17, 2014 4:30 PM

My Partner is graduating this summer, with a degree in computing, I'm looking for a present relevant to computing that would be a timeless present.
posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

I got this binary clock for my BIL, a computer nerd, and it was a big hit.
posted by DrGail at 4:37 PM on July 17, 2014

Kinesis keyboard? So her wrists can be timeless as well?

Wrap with a long strip of those candy dots, for the tape on a Turing machine.
posted by batter_my_heart at 5:41 PM on July 17, 2014

You didn't set a price tag, so :-)

Ever since *I* was a CS grad, I've wanted a Curta calculator:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

Warning, these are at least $1,000 - but they are amazing instruments.
posted by scolbath at 5:45 PM on July 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

A boxed set of The Art of Computer Programming would be pretty great. Sure, some of the stuff in there will be out of date at some point. But I'd be willing to bet that some of those level 50 exercises will never be solved.
posted by grouse at 6:16 PM on July 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

Pay to frame the CS diploma.

There are some seminal volumes like The Art Of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth. Also biographies of the greats like von Neumann and Turing.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:07 PM on July 17, 2014

The "correct" Turing biography is Andrew Hodges's Alan Turing: The Enigma, by the way. (There's at least one hilariously bad Turing biography out there.) But I think I vote AOCP (or even just one volume if you can figure out which one would please them the most).
posted by hoyland at 7:14 PM on July 17, 2014

How much do you want to spend? On the "cheap" side you could go with a Babbage Difference Engine poster/print, or on the more pricey side you could pick up a first edition print of Lardner's book that describes it.
posted by Poldo at 7:22 PM on July 17, 2014

I came here to post The Art of Computer Programming, and I'm glad to see people already did. Not only is it an incredible set of books in pretty much every way, the box set is also a major prestige item for any computer scientist to have on their desk/in their office.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:22 PM on July 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

An Abacus, mounted behind glass in a large frame, with an optional brass plaque that reads "In Case of Emergency".
posted by dws at 9:53 PM on July 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I bought myself a Commodore LED watch; nerdy and useful and time-y.
posted by beerbajay at 12:31 AM on July 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

nthing that the knuth books would make a terrific present.
posted by lescour at 8:32 AM on July 18, 2014