Customer Reviews

Wizards and Their Wonders: Portraits in Computing

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having one photographer take all of the pictures with the subjects free to pose any way they wanted, wearing whatever they wanted, lets this book bring you some of the personality behind the people: Gordon Bell (DEC) in a cowboy hat, Scott Cook (Intuit) in a button-down shirt and swimsuit, Alan Kay (Xerox PARC) in front of the pipe organ in his home, Thomas Kurtz (Basic) standing in front of a painting of himself and John Kemeny (co-creator of Basic), me in flannel shirt and jeans, etc.

This is a must for every computer history library since you'll find nothing like it that covers such a wide cross section of the history of computing in such a human way.

This "Who is Who in Computer Industry" is a perfect coffee-table book for computer enthusiasts: large format, lavishly illustrated and right on the topic. Almost 200 people are presented, each with a full-page colour photograph and some 100-words abstract.

The wizards are divided into five categories: the Forerunners, the Inventors, the Enterpreneurs, the Communicators and the Venture Capitalists. As Dan Bricklin (featured on page 56 in the book) already observed, its wide scope is the strength of this book. Myself, however, I would gladly sacrifice the latter three categories - and perhaps also the first, since there seems to be no shortage of literature on the beginnings of computing - for a decent article on each of the inventors. Something along similar lines was attempted by Shasha and Lazere, but I am not entirely satisfied with their work either.

A plus side of the book is its list of sources on the presented personae, many of them from the World Wide Web. And, surprisingly, many of them still working...