Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation (Mit Press)

Great content for nerds, heavy book, heavy paper, great photography and use of color in the book. This will get a lot of finger traffic sitting on our living room table.

Great nostalgic trip back to the 1970's and 1980's microcomputer revolution! It includes interesting perspective on the British computing scene from that era which is often overlooked in similar US-centric discussions. For those of us that "lived it", this is a very fun book.

The book is very sturdy with beautiful photographs. Each computer only has a brief amount of text describing its place in computer history. Still, it's a fun, but brief trip down memory lane. I missed not seeing the Coleco Adam or Atari Falcon included. I expect this won't get many re-reads but will be more of a conversation piece/coffee table book for my more nerdish visitors.

Just a wonderful library of home computers of yesteryear. The black font on darker green and blue pages is a bit difficult to read, but these pages are few and far between. The stand outs of the book are the photographs; closeups let you see the textures of each keyboard, each mouse, and each floppy drive. It's a really fun book, I recommend it.

It’s exactly what I hoped it would be. Perfect size, perfect price, and beautifully crafted with great photos and info. This book is a wonderful addition for any fan of vintage computers.

Each computer is devoted a couple pages of space and any related references are noted by page number within each description. It is fun to read about an old computer or two each day.

The headline sums it up I believe.

I love the idea of this book, but this is just another case of the publisher taking control of what should be the writer/designer purview, and that is the content and layout. Assuming the target demographic for this book is baby boomerish, the font sizes are too small and the graphics are too hard to see. I have augmented 20/20 vision but 8 or 9 rather than 10 point or 11 typefaces are just too hard to read. A black text on a green background is just visually and typographically stupid. Reading further into this book, the use of page space is horrid. There is so much blank space that could have been used for more and better photos, more informative text etc. So much story is left untold here. The treatment of the original IBM PC is downright disrespectful. This is that machine that started it ALL. It killed the proprietary Apple II and forced Apple to release a technically advanced but failed Lisa and then follow with a poor selling Mac. (They didn't call it a $2000 Etch-a-Sketch for nothing.) Compare the treatment of the IBM PC to the DEC Rainbow. Way too much coverage of a failed machine. Also too much coverage of one hit wonder computers at the expense of truly innovative American computers. There are no photos of computers with the covers off, no mention of ISA, EISA, SCSI, OS/2, Windows is barely mentioned. No mention of Intel, AMD chips, 286, 386, 486, Pentium and II, III and 4. If you are going to make me hold up this heavy book to read it, at least make that effort more worthwhile. And why stop in 1998? PC innovation didn't die until 2012 and Windows 8. There are far too many typos. Oh and BTW, printed and bound in China and still sells for $30 bucks. Really? We would not be where we are without the IBM PC and the clone makers who stood on their shoulders.

Schöne Zusammenstellung aus der Frühzeit der PCs und Homecomputer.

Well written and beautiful photos. The history of home Computers . One fab observation that the Acorn Atom sold as a kit, but their engineers became frustrated by end users gluing the components into the PCB!

Se siete arrivati alla pagina di questo libro ciò dire che siete appassionati dell’argomento e quindi non potete non comprarlo , fantastiche le storie , fantastiche le foto, ottima la qualità dell’impaginazione e della carta.Compratelo.

Might not be the perfect book as many are saying, but still a lovely designed book for my computer shelf. Recommended! It covers many systems I have never heard of.

I bought this book expecting a trip down memory lane. What I didn't expect was to be transported via warp-speed nostalgia back to the golden age of tech—where modems screamed, monitors weighed more than microwaves, and the scent of warm circuit boards filled the air like digital incense. Each page is like a reunion with an old friend: the Amiga that taught me pixel art (and patience), the IBM clone I tried to install Doom on (and accidentally nuked the family finances via dial-up charges), and that glorious beige tower that once doubled as both gaming rig and furniture. Reading about the birth of real computing innovation reminded me that this was the era when inventors wore pocket protectors, not black turtlenecks. We didn’t swipe to unlock—we typed our way into the matrix. In short: buy this book. Laugh. Cry. Boot up a DOS emulator and weep softly into your mechanical keyboard. The real age of invention wore static wristbands and had a BIOS beep code for everything. 5/5 floppy disks. Would Ctrl+Alt+Del again.