Product: 0380815931

I picked up a copy of this book in a used book store because I love the title and really enjoy Stephenson. He describes the early days of Apple and the evolution of the graphic interface. I was dragged into personal computing almost 25 years ago by my then 15 year old son, and remember the command line days well. There was a real community of those who were willing to learn the system, and we thought we were pretty cool knowing DOS in the pre-Prodigy/AOL days. Then came the graphical interface, and we bemoaned the loss of our DOS world. This book brought me back to those heady days and reminded me of the almost forgotten history of the Browser Wars and the story of Unix/Linux. Sure, it leaves out the birth of this OS at ATT, but one can’t have everything. It’s still a great reminder of the early days and a nice tale for those who could not be there.

In spite of my son’s best efforts, I never became the techie that he is now, and this book gave me the opportunity to have some great conversations at family gatherings about this obscure history. I lost my son three years ago, and his laptops in his room were on a Linux Windows dual boot, and he had an Apple laptop beside his bed as well. I never really got it, but this book brought me back.

I can recommend this book to anyone whatever your level of competence with computer technology knowing you will enjoy Stephenson’s puckish sense of humor and his way of making you feel as if you are finally ‘getting it!’. Finally, you just gotta love the title!!
Rating: 4
0380815931
Count: 32