When I first heard about this book, I couldn't wait to get my copy. I ordered the Collector's Edition because early micro history is special to me -- I was there, a software seller and early user. This book gets a lot of it right because it was originally written in the 1980s and the authors knew a lot of the people involved in early micro hardware and software. They are strong on Silicon Valley history, but weak on what was happening in the rest of the country, where microcomputers sold in Radio Shack stores reached across America. People in big cities and little towns snapped up the $600 TRS-80 and users created tons of software. The book barely mentions Steve Leininger who worked alone in an old factory in the stock yards of Fort Worth Texas to build the first TRS-80. I was privileged to be part of that era, beginning with a TRS-80 Model I in 1978, going into business, and selling some great stuff. Computer users had so many choices that a software guidebook from the 80s listed more than 30 word processors, businesses of that era bought custom-programmed software written by kids still in high school, and thousands of little companies created and sold the software that was the first wave of the small computer revolution. It was a heady time and reading this book brought some of it back.
The authors correctly credit Michael Shrayer with creating the first word processor for micros -- Electric Pencil. My husband, David Welsh, authored a best-selling word processor for the TRS-80, which we sold all over the world in the years from 1979 to 1985. See our web site ... for more on computer history.
I was disappointed with the CD that came with the book. I thought it would contain the book's text, but it doesn't. The interview clips are very short and don't add much, although they are historic since they are from the 1980s interviews. The newly-written parts of the book are not as good as the old parts. There was an excitement in the early days that cannot be recaptured, even with the explosive growth of the internet.
On the whole, this book has a lot of great tales from the early days and will show readers a time when computers were not all about big money and IPOs, but were about vision and freedom, the freedom to have your own personal computer. Once upon a time, all computer users were programmers; now few people learn to program. The computer has become an appliance. But this thing we all use now and take for granted had a beginning. Those early pioneers, who you will meet in the pages of this book, are responsible for the ubiquity of computers today; they deserve to be remembered and their stories are better than fiction. Buy this book and be prepared for some good reading.
