Personal computers have been a "thing" now for well over forty-five years and have quite a convoluted history, full of drama, skulduggery and more than a few urban myths. This is where Matt Nicholson's excellent 2014 book comes in. Contained within is a narrative history of how, from its very beginnings to 2010, the personal computer transformed the world.
The author has a long history working in technology journalism, having edited What Mirco? (of which I have a few later issues in my library) before joining Amstrad Action as editor in 1986. He wrote a piece in issue 8 of Pixel Addict which mentioned this book and I thought it worth a read.
The story of how the computer made to from big businesses to the home is a complex one, with many familiar names as well as more than a few that have been lost to the mists of time. There were numerous losers to the few winners, and even those successful in grabbing market share or establishing an industry standard were neither guaranteed that success nor destined to maintaining it.
The author has an easy writing style with the ability to explain complex situations and concepts with ease. There is a timeline at the back of the book to keep things organised for the reader, as well as an explanation as to how computers work. All combine to make reading the core of the book an enjoyable and informative experience.
And when I say informative, I mean informative. The bibliography covers 19 pages, and as it always seems with tomes like these, it prompts me to start looking for some of these original sources, and then stop once the "collector"prices are taken into account. Still, it reveals the depth of research that has gone into this book - the man knows truly of what he speaks. And yes, this book dispels more than a few urban legends about how certain individuals and companies acted.
Of course, nothing is perfect and there are couple of things to note. Firstly, and this is an ask as I really have enjoyed this book - it would be great to see an updated version taking the tale up to 2020 or so. Secondly, if you're a fan of computing outside of the 'Personal Computer', you may be disappointed. I should clarify. The tale focuses on how the PC (including the Mac) got into the home. While there are mentions of other "personal computers", these are but brief mentions and the author notes this. Similarly, the tale focuses mostly on the US as that's where, in his introduction, he states that most of the important events happened pertaining to the story. It's hard not to disagree and yeah, it would be lovely to have more detail on the 8-bit home computers, the 16-bit battles and even RISC OS, but these were just side stories to the rise of CP/M, then the IBM PC and DOS, and then the duopoly of Windows and MacOS. Linux does get a piece of the action too, but that's just a small part near the end and hell, we're still waiting for 20xx to be the year of Linux on the desktop ;-)
I can whole-heartedly recommend this book as I found it well worth reading. For the period it covers, I have found no singular source that compares to it and in such an easy to read way. You can pick up a copy directly from Amazon here. If you want to read more about digital culture then check out Pixel Addict here. You can also pick up copies at most WH Smiths in the UK, as well as selected retailers internationally.
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