Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer

by Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger

Book Overview

Chronicles History of Computer Pioneers & the Industry They Founded

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881341215
• ISBN13: 9780881341218
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Osborne Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Take a thrill ride through Silicon Valley!

What a thoroughly enjoyable book! This is a stunning picture of the development of the personal computer and companies it spawned. It tries to cover an enormous amount of ground, which is why I forgive it for being somewhat shallow at times. Its coverage of the early days, such as the 1975 Altair, is in some ways better and more detailed than later years. I wanted a few more technical details and a few less horror stories about companies folding from competition with Microsoft. But overall, it is still a great read, very fast. The chapters are small, which helps!

Revolution!

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.

A classic of computer history back in print

"Fire in the Valley" chronicles the history of the personal computer from the Altair to the iMac and all that happened between those two events. The authors chronicle the importance of the magazines, the clubs, and the conventions and how computers went from being for hobbists to everybody else. This is one book that should be a required reading for all.

I think it should be REQUIRED to be read by today's youth!

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!

The best antidote for recent Orwellian history rewrites

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..-)