Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything [Paperback]

Steven Levy (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 1, 2000

The creation of the Mac in 1984 catapulted America into the digital millennium, captured a fanatic cult audience, and transformed the computer industry into an unprecedented mix of technology, economics, and show business. Now veteran technology writer and Newsweek senior editor Steven Levy zooms in on the great machine and the fortunes of the unique company responsible for its evolution. Loaded with anecdote and insight, and peppered with sharp commentary, Insanely Great is the definitive book on the most important computer ever made. It is a must-have for anyone curious about how we got to the interactive age.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Back in the early 1980s, word spread about an inviting little personal computer that used something called a mouse and smiled at you when you turned it on. Steven Levy relates his first encounter with the pre-released Mac and goes on to chronicle the machine that Apple developers hoped would "make a dent in the universe." A wonderful story told by a terrific writer (Levy was the longtime writer of the popular "Iconoclast" column in MacWorld; he's now a columnist with Newsweek, the birth and first ten years of the Macintosh is a great read. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This sensible and entertaining book outlines "how technology, serendipity, passion, and magic combined to create . . . the most important consumer product in the last half of the twentieth century: the Macintosh computer." Levy ( Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution ) describes the travails that beset Apple, the company run by Steven Jobs that created the Mac--"dippy new-age culture," a "mission from God" mentality and a Silicon Valley image. "What's the difference between Apple and Boy Scouts?" he queries, reviving a long-running joke. Answer: "The Boy Scouts have adult supervision." And Levy's view of Jobs himself seems reasonable: "a con man," and "a slick marketer" whose impulsive management style and overbearing ego "drove people crazy." As the author recounts, in 1985 Apple's directors forced Jobs out; he left Apple while creating a new comuter company, Next. "It made no dent in the universe," Levy reports. John Sculley replaced Jobs, but he too was relieved of his position as CEO in 1993, when Apple's directors judged him "too much a visionary." This solid work adroitly covers the information age.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140291776
• ISBN-13: 978-0140291773
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #814,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Debunks some myths... June 28, 1999

By C.Molanphy <[e-mail]>

Format:Paperback

1) This book clears up a myth about the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) debacle: In the TLC documentary "Revenge of the Nerds" and in the recently-aired TNT original movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", it is implied that the Xerox researchers were anxious to have their GUI receive exposure in the world of personal computers and were frustrated by the Xerox executives' lack of interest. Levy contradicts this: according to his account the PARC people were "true" scientists, a lot more interested in theory than application and somewhat disdainful of unleashing their ideas on the masses (a notable exception, according to Levy, being Larry Tesler who later joined Apple.) He portrays PARC as something of an ivory tower of computer science academics who were unconcerned with any public reception of their ideas, rather than as a nascent software developer that was swindled of its "props" by the indifference of Xerox and the acquisitiveness of the Macintosh team. As I have not read any of the other books about Apple and the famed PARC heist, I don't know whether Levy's assertions have been confirmed by any other writers.

2) Another issue which is related to the above is the popular belief that the developers of the Mac OS owed everything to the work of the PARC people. Levy challenges this, siting several specific instances in which the Mac developers (notably Bill Atkinson and his "QuickDraw") completely invented solutions to problems in the interface that had been poorly or not at all dealth with by PARC. While Levy admits that the Mac team were indeed standing on the shoulders of giants (more than just PARC, too), he is also quick to point out that their creation was no mere heist, but a thoughtful and sometimes brilliant reworking and utilization of a pre-existing paradigm.

3) One of my few problems with "Insanely Great" is that it falls into the same rhetorical trap as many other writings about Apple and Mac: namely, that the Mac's loyal following is based on an affinity to the company's culture and philosophy rather than its technology; the terms "cult" and "religion" are bandied about liberally. This is a misconception. Loyalty to the Mac results from its ease of use: its intuitive interface is far superior to anything that has been made available in the consumer marketplace in the history of personal computing. I would be a Mac loyalist even if their corporate culture was one of xenophobia and conservatism: a good product is a good product, period.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Reminiscing September 4, 2002

By Glen Engel Cox VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I bought my first computer, a Macintosh, in 1984. I had wanted a computer for years, watching friends with envy at their Commodore 64s, Radio Shack Color Computers, and wonderful Apple IIs. When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, I had to have it. It was the computer built "for the rest of us." Never mind that I could have had everything I needed in a computer--word processing program, a few games--for $$$, as soon as I sat down in front of the Macintosh, my life changed. The Macintosh, and the entire graphical user interface concept, was truly "insanely great," as Steven Levy quotes Steve Jobs, former chairman of Apple Computers. In his new book, Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything, Levy reveals how and why the Macintosh had such an impact on the world.

Although the Macintosh debuted in 1984, the seeds of its design had been planted as early as 1945. In a post-war statement, Vannevar Bush, then the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, wrote an essay in which he contended that the next step of technology should be the way we collect and process information. Having seen the early use of computers in the war, Bush realized the awesome potential of high-speed information management, but also knew that progress would have to be made in the interface if ever information management could be useful. Levy follows the chain that links Bush to Alan Kay, who proposed the Dynabook, a forerunner of today's PDA technology, to the developers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center who developed the first graphical user interface (GUI). Nearby, a small team of dedicated programmers were working on the low-cost hardware that became teamed with the new GUI concept that became the Macintosh.

Much has been written about the originality of the GUI concept, and more than one lawsuit has been fought over it. Levy attempts to go beyond the simple desktop metaphor and explain why it was the particular Macintosh implementation of the concept that changed the way people viewed computers. Xerox's researchers were quite happy just to discover "how" to do things; it was Jef Raskin, Steve Jobs, Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfield, and the rest of the Macintosh team that were driven to give GUI to the people. The concept alone didn't change the world of computing--it was the concept, in a reasonably priced computer, with a "killer application" that showed just how intuitive the concept could be that made things happen. Early Macintosh adoptees like myself thought it was the "What You See is What You Get" word processing and graphic programs that would make everyone see the light. It took Aldus' PageMaker to break the publishing barrier for the "rest of us" to wake up to the possibilities.

The Macintosh implementation had (and has) its problems, which Levy does not gloss over. The initial Macintosh, that computer that I bought in 1984, was released underpowered (128k RAM), without enough storage space (it only had a single floppy drive capable of holding 400k), and crippled in expandability (it was a "closed" system without expansion slots). Apple knew this upon its release, but "real programmers ship," as Jobs is quoted saying, and the Macintosh had to be out the door in 1984. Apple quickly followed the 128k Macintosh with an upgrade to 512k and a 800k disk drive, then with new models including a Macintosh with slots.

The author, Steven Levy, is perhaps best known in the field for his first book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Levy's position as an industry journalist kept him in the midst of the impact of the Macintosh, with access to Jobs, John Sculley, Jean Louis Gasse, Bill Gates, Aldus' president Paul Brainerd, and almost every member of the Macintosh development team. This chronicle of the development of the Macintosh is part history, part evaluation of the hits and misses, the politics and relationships, of all these people. Every implementation of the GUI interface as seen in the Macintosh was deeply argued, as was its cost, hardware, and "look." Levy shows you that a product such as Macintosh, which is usually attributed to a few people, is actually the culmination of the development team, and also their forerunners, including the Xerox team, and their competitors, most notably Microsoft and IBM.

Today, the GUI concept is ever present. My original Macintosh (which I fondly call the MacAntique), after being upgraded once, has been passed to my niece and nephew (who, to be entirely truthful, play more with their father's Mac II than with the antique), and I replaced it four years ago with an IBM-PC clone that runs today's most popular GUI, Microsoft Windows (the defection was a result of economics--I couldn't afford a new Macintosh). The last command-line holdout, UNIX, is battering down the hatches in defense against the migration of the GUI in the form of the WWW, Java, and its ilk. The Macintosh revolution is twelve, and shows no signs of dying anytime soon. For those who want to understand the early shots--computerdom's equivalent's of the Boston Tea Party and the shot that was heard round the world--Levy's book is a good primer.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I for "Internet" July 5, 2003

By ferlop

Format:Paperback

Once upon a time, a guy named Steve had a vision: to take IBM's place in the computer industry. Not by copying IBM's ideas as Michael Dell did. No. By innovating...
Steve Jobs, a charismatic and driven individual, who wears the same outfit so he doesn't have to waste his time deciding what to wear, and who once was exiled from his own company, came back. Although many critics always thought of Jobs as an opportunistic individual, more than creative and visionary, and labeled him as a "One Hit Wonder" was able to make a "Come Back." This book tells the story of the first Mac, the one that only a few people knew about, and then, it takes you through a journey of one of the greatest companies ever founded: Apple, Inc. The story that almost wasn't told. After years of mismanagements and senior executives not understanding what Apple Computers was all about, Steve Jobs returned not just to save the company, but also to redirect where the company was headed. As many people said, "Apple was off track," and it was, it really was. However, Jobs' return not only brought blood back to Apple, but also put them on the black ink once again.
Before picking up this book, ensure that you have enough time to read it all at once. You won't be able o put it down. If you are a Mac fan, or if you are just interested in knowing a bit more of what Apple has gone through, this book is for you.
Enjoy it!