Computer History Books (that are worth reading) By Rusty Keele

About Me Full time programmer Why this talk? No particular order to the presentation of the books I enjoy reading about the history of personal computing, I lived through a lot of it, thought I'd share some of the good books I've discovered

Audience Participation I've read most of these books, but not all of them If you've read any of these books, feel free to give your thoughts about it These slides will be available for download

Many Ways to Get These Books Library Electronic versions Some are freely available online Online libraries Safari Online Books Kindle, Google Books, iTunes Used Copies eBay Amazon You don't have to buy new, dead-tree versions of these books!

Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine 1st edition in 1984 Revised 3rd edition in 2014 About: The first personal computers, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, IBM, computer culture Talks about the development and history of: Altair 880 computer Homebrew computer club in Silicon valley Software companies, computer magazines computer shows and retailers Jobs and Woz Bill Gates IBM, Compaq and the clones Some great stories of the early years of the personal computer Basis for 1999 made for TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"

Commodore: A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagnall 2nd edition in 2010 About: MOS Technologies, 6502 processor, Commodore computers, company culture Talks about: MOS Technologies and the 6502 processor Jack Tramiel, the found of Commodore Business Machines Commodore's early days selling typewriters and hand-held calculators The development and history of the Pet, Vic-20 and Commodore 64 and the ones that came later (128, +4, etc.) The company culture at Commodore, and the high employee turnover rate Designing and marketing Commodore computers The pressure for industry trade shows Intentional problems with the 1541 disk drive

The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll 1st edition in 1989 About: How a 75¢ billing error led to the 10 month search for and capture of a German hacker selling information to the KGB! Talks about: In the mid 1980s Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab A 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system The hacker was an invader from Germany who managed to break into U.S. computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy and setting up an elaborate honey pot to trap the hacker His one-man sting operation finally gained the attention of the CIA They ultimately discovered and trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB

Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic by Brad King and John Borland 1st edition in 2003 About: Richard Garriott and the Ultima series of adventure games, and John Carmack, John Romera and Doom Talks about: Richard Garriott Dungeons & Dragons lead to a desire for computer role playing games The Ultima series - especially the unique play of Ultima IV (where a player's moral actions affected the game) Early networked RPG games and how they gave users anonymity and freedom to explore id Software company, started by 4 people in 1991 - including the 2 programmers John Carmack and John Romero Doom and the first person shooter genre of computer games Quake - first to have online multiplayer mode

Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing by Rod Canion 1st edition in 2013 About: How 3 former Texas Instruments engineers created the first 100% IBM compatible computer, and launched the PC clone era. Talks about: Three ex-Texas Instruments managers founded Compaq in 1982 Legally reverse-engineered a 100% IBM compatible system Created the Compaq Portable computer In 1982 there was no software standardization, so every brand of personal computer required its own unique application software Compaq lead the charge for ISA: industry standard architecture - and brought other PC vendors in How IBM responded with the PS/2 and OS/2 - and we know how that turned out!

Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Programmers Who Shaped the Computer Industry by Susan Lammers 1st edition in 1989 About: Interviews with programmers of famous computer software of the 1980s – including Bill Gates, Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc) and Gary Kildall (CP/M) Talks about: Interviews with some of the 1980s most famous and influential programmers How they came up with products, how they like to write code, what they think of the software and computer industries Dan Bricklin - VisiCalc Bill Gates - MS Basic and MS DOS Wayne Ratcliff – dBASE (created a database to help him win his office football pool, by processing the stats of each game!) Gary Kildall - CP/M operating system Mitch Kapor - Lotus 1-2-3 John Warnock - PostScript, PDF and Adobe Founder (Native of SLC, and U of U graduate!)

Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams 1st edition in 2002 About: A biography of RMS – brilliant programmer and eccentric defender of free software! Read for free online! http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/index.html Talks about: Richard Stallman brilliant coder and hacker at MIT eccentric personality and iron will the last of the old time hackers The hacker culture of the 1970s (sharing software, aversion to central authority and corporations) 1983 - The GNU Project and The Free Software Foundation GPL (GNU General Public License) and Copyleft

Almost Perfect by W. E. Peterson 1st edition in 1994 About: The history of WordPerfect as told by one of its first executives. Read for free online! http://www.wordplace.com/ap/ Talks about: Written by W E Pete Peterson - one of the first WordPerfect employees, worked for 11 years, basically ran the business side of the company the last few years History of the development of the WP Word Processor Bruce Bastian and Alan Ashton How the company and product grew and competed with heavyweights like WordStar and MS Word Talks about a lot of places in Orem, and the Utah culture (influenced by LDS church, aversion to debt)

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy 1st edition in 1984 25th Anniversary edition in 2010 About: The people and events that defined the hacker culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Talks about: Tech Model Railroad club at MIT Phreakers – figured out how to use tones to route long distance calls for free The Hacker Ethic ( Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-on Imperative! All information should be free. Mistrust authority—promote decentralization. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position. You can create art and beauty on a computer. Computers can change your life for the better.) Spacewar! game on the PDP-1 Ricky Greenblat - a hacker who wrote a chess program that beat a human Altair 8800, Homebrew Computer Club, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak West Coast Computer Faire Online games and hacker

Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made by Andy Hertzfeld 1st edition in 2011 About: One of the co-creators relates the development of the Apple Macintosh. (From Wikipedia entry for this book) by Andy Hertzfeld, one of the core members of the Macintosh development team about the birth of the Apple Macintosh personal computer The author was a core member of the team that built the Macintosh system software and the chief creator of the Mac's radical new user interface software The book is a collection of anecdotes tracing the development of the Macintosh from a secret project in 1979 through its "triumphant introduction" in 1984 These anecdotes were originally published on the author's Folklore.org web site - which you can still read online for free

Discussion Any other books that you would recommend?

The End rusty.keele@gmail.com Slides at c64sets.com/slides Questions or comments?