Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer (Second Edition) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Michael Swaine (Author) "THE PERSONAL COMPUTER SPRANG TO LIFE IN THE MID-1970s, BUT ITS historical roots reach back to the giant electronic "brains" of the 1950s and well..." (more)
Key Phrases: Bill Gates, Proc Tech, Silicon Valley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the early 1970s, while Silicon Valley was designing the latest generation of digital wristwatches and pocket calculators, a ragtag group of college dropouts, hippies, and electronics hobbyists were busy creating the future in their garages. What they built was the personal computer, but what they were aiming for was something much more ambitious: a revolution. Fire in the Valley is the story of their efforts, and in particular, the contributions of an informal think tank called the Homebrew Computer Club. Its technically gifted community, comprising sci-fi aficionados and Berkeley counterculturists, believed computers could usher in an age of human empowerment, perhaps even a utopia.

The club's most famous member is Steve Jobs of Apple, whose story is told here, as is Bill Gates's, who was strongly influenced by Homebrew. What sets Fire in the Valley apart from the many other books about early days at Apple and Microsoft, though, is its focus on the brilliant engineers and coders who built the foundation that would eventually support those two companies. They included ex-Berkley Barb editor and hardware designer Lee Felsenstein, who was adamant about using computers for populist ends; Adam Osborne, who took PCs to the next level by making them portable; hacker legend John "Captain Crunch" Draper, who used telephony for his own mischievous purposes; and activist Ted Nelson, the Thom Paine of the computer revolution.

The cast of characters is sometimes tough to keep track of, and authors Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine have wisely included a graphic timeline in the first pages of the book that readers will find useful. It stretches from 1800 to 1999, encompassing events that have occurred since Fire in the Valley's original 1984 publication. This second edition includes new chapters and photographs to document the last 15 years, but they serve as more of an epilogue than a new act in this drama. The Homebrew Club's mark on personal computing history is cemented, and Fire in the Valley is an engaging account of it, one that should inspire readers everywhere. --Demian McLean

Review

A book not to be missed, just plain good reading about the drama of the Kids next door turning their dreams into millions. -- The New York Times

Swain and Freiberger capture the communal spirit, the brilliance and blundering, the assortment of naivete, noble purpose and greed, and the inevitable transformation of all this into a major industry. Must Reading -- Byte

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Product Details

• Paperback: 463 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2nd edition (November 29, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071358927
• ISBN-13: 978-0071358927
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #233,775 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best antidote for recent Orwellian history rewrites, July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer (Paperback)

Nobody who has read Paul Freiberger's matchless "Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer" will be fooled by spinmeisters like the author of the last sentence in the following paragraph, which just landed on my keyboard with "spin city!" scrawled in the margin:

"..However, even the industry's most innovative pioneers didn't foresee how prevalent computers would become. In fact, in 1943, IBM Chairman Thomas Watson remarked, 'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.' Despite Watson's outlook, other computer-related companies slowly began to emerge, including Hewlett Packard in 1938, Digital Equipment Corp. in 1957, Microsoft in 1975, and Apple a year later. Then, in 1981, trailblazer IBM revolutionized the industry with the first personal computer."

Gag me with a spoon, Harold! If the author of this puff piece had ever read "Fire in the Valley", he/she would never dare to call IBM a trailblazer in personal computers!

To read about the REAL trailblazers (which admittedly do include Bill Gates and Paul Allen, as well as the Woz and Steve Jobs), you need this book. Read about Traf-O-Data, the Altair, paper tape readers, DiskBasic, the famous Letter to Users, IMSAI, the first Apple logo, CP/M, KayPro and all the rest. It's in there!

I can't believe I ever let my original copy of it get away.

.-)

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think it should be REQUIRED to be read by today's youth!, December 14, 1999

By	Keith G Schlotthauer "schlottdog" (San Francisco area) - See all my reviews

I saw the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" I read the original version of Fire in the Valley. All I can say is that YOU NEED this book.

The Movie starts almost where the original book ends. The history of the computers the author relate is amazing. As I was reading I was constantly saying to myself...."I remember that year".

I live in Silicon Valley and worked in Palo Alto. The the authors mentioned different cities around the bay area...I thought...WOW, I live here. In fact I worked about 1/8 mile from where the first commercial transistor was developed (they have a momumment out there).

After reading the original book, I sat back and just thought "these early pioneers of the PC's where amazing", the time and effort they put into programming a computer less powerful than a calculator and what they did with it.

This book should be rated 10 stars!

GET THIS BOOK!...BTW....it is about 3 times thicker than the original print!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolution!, February 24, 2000

By	Paul Laska (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, Collector's Edition (Hardcover)

This book speaks of a silent and bloodless revolution that made enthusiastic hobbyists into legends that created the PC market. It talks about the journey of computer technology, taken from the clutches of the guarded computer "priesthood", to the masses. This is current history, and it's exciting. It's relevant to today, and it even makes those of us old enough to remember some of it reminisce. School teaches children to learn from the past with the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Bolshevik Revolution. This is THE book to tell everyone about the Personal Computer Revolution. Fire in the Valley recounts the sparks with "The Mother of All Demos" to the storming of the gates with the GUI wars. And as a small plus, the authors have thrown in a CD with some short audio interviews, copies of pictures found in the book, and a nice timeline that's useful for reference. Anybody who has watched Pirates of Silicon Valley, and thought, "WOW", needs to find out just how amazing it really was. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 25 years, and then maybe reminisce with a 3rd edition of this book.