I am forty years late to the party on this, but better late than never. Originally published in the mid ‘80s the book documents the development of computing from the early days at MIT where people scheduled time on the single computer there to the early days of the home PC. The book is broken up into sections typically focused on an individual or a small team, their impact on computing, and how they embodied the “hacker ethic”.

What I personally enjoyed about the book was that the stories reminded me of why I love analytics and computing. Building a useful tool to help change the way people interact with their world and refining it over time based on my curiosity creativity just does it for me. Hearing about the individuals and what led them to do great things is doubly inspiring because you can at least start to glimpse their headspace and feel that spark as well.

There are sections on Bill Gates and Paul Allen, pre-Microsoft, when they create a version of BASIC for the Altair 8800, an early computer based on the Intel 8080 microprocessor. The computer gained popularity after a mock up was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics despite the fact that the only way to input info was through switches and the user had to interpret output through a series of lights on the front. The twist in the story (spoiler alert) is that software was essentially freely traded at this point Bill Gates took offense to people sharing copies of his version of BASIC without paying for them.

Finally, I grew up playing Sierra On-Line’s adventure games and the fact that a good chunk of the book focused on the development of that company and its contemporaries in the wake of the Apple II was great.

The book was very good and is worth a read / listen for anyone interested in the history of personal computing or just looking for a little development inspiration.