lightweight pop cultural history. ( )

Arrived Lausanne

Great history of the early days of the computer history, though very dated. I read this in 1994 or so. The end prophesies dark days for the world because of the Y2K bug... ( )

My version was printed in 1996. It was a set book for an Open University course which I was taking, and is Cringely's own account of how the personal computing industry started up. I was concerned that it would be stuffed with jargon and concepts beyond my understanding, but it wasn't. I found it informative, entertaining, and most importantly, it was easy to read. At times, I found myself laughing out loud- my favourite tale was about dust contaminating silicon wafers used by Intel to make their microprocessors. Despite every precaution being taken by the supplier and Intel, Intel were receiving a high proportion of duff wafers. An investigation showed that an Intel shipping clerk had been opening the hermetically sealed boxes as they arrived to count each item inside, which naturally spoiled the product. Cringely tells the story so much better, and he left me with a comic vision which still comes to mind today. ( )

This was enormously entertaining when I read it after it was first published. No doubt it will feel dated now, but perhaps it might be worth a re-read. ( )