Product: 0380815931

Romance and image are important to technology, as is interface. From the command line grew a number of applications. This book is an essay on the early history and sociology of the personal computer. The author considers Apple, Microsoft, Linux, and Be, Inc. and makes analogies.
HTML files are just telegrams. The introduction of the Mac started a sort of holy war in the computer world. Even after the introduction of Windows, the underlying differences remained. Microsoft’s disregard of aesthetics was discussed at length by Mac users.
Some people think Microsoft is too powerful, others that it is too tacky. Bill Gates did not make Microsoft work by selling the best software or by selling it at the cheapest price. Apple is wedded to harware, Microsoft to its OS, operating system. Perhaps both should jetison these areas. Microsoft is more successful in software applications. The operating systems market is a death trap.
Americans have a preference for mediated experience. Contemporary culture is a two-tiered system. A minority of people run the show. The minority understands how everything works. The OS has become an intellectual labor-saving device. One should, however, be wary. The GUIs, graphic user interfaces, use bad metaphors. For instance, the document is lost forever when the computer crashes. The GUI has become a sort of meta interface for household items and everyday thinking.
Apple created a machine that discouraged hacking. The price had fallen drastically for IBM compatible PCs by the mid nineties, and they could be hacked. Stephenson found that Unix was hard to learn. A sort of acculturation takes place. After the crash of his powerbook and the loss of a large and important file, he sought to use Linux. He notes that Linus Torvalds deserves a lot of credit, but he could not have created Linux without the help of other people. Linux is open source software. Editor, compiler, and linker form the core of a software development system. Linux deals with errors better than the commercial systems the author used in the past.
This book is a wonderful compilation of PC history and practice for the general technically-challenged reader. An overview of the industry in terms of business and marketing issues is presented. Bravo!
Rating: 5
0380815931
Count: 32