I love reading books that talk about the history of my industry. This one is no exception. However, it focus more on the people and interweave the technological developments within. There are a lot of names to track, but there was a lot of, "Oh, wow! He/she created that!" I lived in the heart of this story in the early 90's, and have a hard time trying to imagine it being as described, but I'll bet it was a fun place to live and work in the 60's and 70's.

If you have interest in the emergence of personal computing, this book won't disappoint.

Nifty book that unveiled a part of the sixties story I hadn't known at all. Markoff, whose book Hackers is a good journalistic intro to a part of computer culture I view from a distance (well, that covers all of computer culture, actually), makes an absolutely convincing argument that the personal computer revolution traces its roots to the sixties counterculture of the Palo Alto area (and by extension the Bay Area counterculture). The technological pieces for PCs and the internet were all in place out east (upstate NY and MIT), but those cultures were committed to a vision of the future of computing that centered on big computers serving the needs of big institutions. As Markoff argues, the California cultural mix was perfectly comfortable with the notion of computers as machines that could augment human potential. It's not just meta, either. A large number of the pioneers of the work that led to PCs were part of the LSD experiments that radiated out from Menlo Park; Stewart Brand, who'd handled most of the electronics for Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, was instrumental in the 1968 unveiling of PC technology by Doug Engelbart that pretty much defined the future. Like most all of the other good sixties ideas, the freewheeling computer counterculture got sucked into the mainstream fairly quickly, but it's an important and largely forgotten piece of the puzzle.

This is a fun book. I have read it a few times, and have now incorporated it into my California History course, as it complements material on the Bay Area's cultural history, and it especially offers a solid knowledge base concerning the establishment and development of the industries of Silicon Valley. Indeed, one of the more groundbreaking insights that I gained when reading this work is the undeniable and significant involvement of government-financed projects in developing the foundational concepts and technological breakthroughs that we enjoy today in the world of personal computers and electronic social networking.

Great read. History of Silicon Valley - history of computing.

Markoff is a great writer and will introduce you to the brilliant and interesting folks. You will learn of the philosophical division of computing improving our lives or replacing us. This and many other threads are still driving us (no pun intended!).

We stand on their shoulders - take the time to learn about them, and in turn about us.

If you have *anything* to do with technology, or want to read this book. Cannot recommend it enough.

I really wanted to like this book. I find the history of computers and the Internet to be a fascinating subject. However, this book is dense. Very dense. I'm going to have to shelve this and return to it another time.

An interesting book for anyone interested in the history of personal computing and counter culture in the Bay Area. The book contains a plethora of names and bounces back and forth between developments in the computer industry, the anti war movement in the Bay Area, counter culture and experimentation with LSD. Each one of these threads seems to progress almost randomly so plotting progress is difficult. To then try and correlate is difficult. Steve Jobs was certainly not the only personal computing pioneer that took LSD but just what effect it had on his and other's creativity is hard to fathom. the larger dynamic here is the conflict between corporate and personal, democratic and institutional, community and capitalism.

Still, this is an interesting book for touching on all the bases and naming the players and their roles.

One of the best history of computing books I’ve read. Great way to put technology into the lens of the political and social sphere in which it is designed

A very interesting read if you want to know where the idea of a personal computer came from. The idea of a personal computer was a ridiculous notion in the 60s and early 70s. Not only because of the cost but also because few could imagine what use it could possibly have to normal people.

If you want to know what cultural changes had to happen alongside the technological ones you really should read this book.

How a bunch of social misfits and hippies made the personal computer and made the computer, personal. It was starched white shirts and country club memberships that piloted what we know today as our laptops and desktops, but folks who wanted to enhance their minds, expand their art and decentralize authority.

"In the late 1950s, however, McCarthy's notion was prescient and and similar to Doug Engelbart's Augmentation machine. However, they re,aomed fundamentally different concepts. At the deepest level, the question was whether humans would remain in the loop. Brilliant machines that could both mimic and surpass human capabilities were not what Engelbart foresaw, and although the two camps didn't directly quarrel they did pursue opposite agendas, representing humanist and mechanist ideas about the future of computing and technology." (84)

"'It's the next thing after acid.'" (Ken Kesey on Augment's NLS system, 165)

"Stewart Brand expressed the fundamental tension most clearly: 'Information wants to be free,' he said, 'and information also wants to be very expensive.'" (286)

Great book, it lays out the history and impact of the silicon revolution by following the tales of several radical radical academics. These researchers piloted the future of computing into uncharted territory, accelerating research by experimenting with using LSD as a problem-solving aid. A good read if you enjoy an anecdotal story-telling style, on a very interesting topic.

60s counterculture and its relationship to the development of the personal computer. Gave to Dad Christmas 2006. Everything happens in and around Stanford. Focused on early early history of personal computer, most names I didn't know. Not organized well...treats like one long article and bounces around.