Fire In the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer

Fire In the Valley is not about the computer or software industry in toto -- this book is about the evolution of the PC, including well before it was called the PC. Forget being able to pick up the phone and order a speedy machine with plenty of RAM (for overnight delivery, no less!) from any of several vendors, for less than a month of the minimum wage: this was a time when the very idea of a machine for casual or home use, or even have a full-featured computer on one's work desktop was radical, even laughable. A personal computer? There was no such animal, until the people in this book invented it. (Read more below.)

Fire In the Valley author Freiberger, Paul and Swaine, Michael pages 448 publisher McGraw-Hill rating 8.0 reviewer timothy ISBN 0071358951 summary A look into the the personal computer revoluition; lots of history straight from the mouths of the revolutionaries.

In that light, it's not as wide-ranging a book as Steven Levy's Hackers, but Fire does a good job of getting into the details of the sometimes bizarre culture of programmers and hardware gurus who decided that -- however impractical it seemed at the time -- eventually people were going to want computers to communicate, to track their bills, to play games. They knew there was money in that line of thought, even if a few of them though that the real benefit of personal computers would be in a new and lasting sense of community. And some of them wanted machines just to play with, too. In short, it illustrates the wildcat beginnings of the industry which brings you the screen in front of you.

Positive vibrations Many of the names in the pages of this book -- of people, machines and organizations -- are ones that computer history buffs will recognize, whether from a stack of dusty documents in the basement, from old copies of BYTE, or from the covers of Time and Newsweek. Some of them, in fact, are names that you would be hard pressed not to know as a modern computer user -- Gates, Jobs, Ellison. Others are obscure outside of computer-geek circles -- people like John Draper ("Cap'n Crunch"), Lee Felsenstein, David Bunnell (founder of PC Magazine and a host of other computer publications), and Steve Dompier.

After a whirlwind historical introduction to the context in which the personal computer became possible -- including appropriate obligatory mentions of Babbage, ENIAC, and the invention of the integrated circuit -- Freiberger and Swaine land us in a chapter called "Critical Mass" in early 1969. That's when a fateful piece of business landed at then-memory manufacturer Intel: a piece of contract work for a Japanese calculator manufacturer led to the development of 4004 microprocessor, then the 8008, which gave way in turn to ever more complex and capable microprocessors. While Intel did not remain alone in this field for long, the introduction of cheap integrated chips is what set the stage for everything else that happened in the years afterward.

But what did happen afterward? The authors concentrate on the first successful home or hobbiest computers, like the MITS Altair, the Osborne and the Apple I, as well as the generation of corporate fueled projects which emerged once it was clear that people would indeed pay to have a computer on their desk or on the fiddle-with workbench in the basement. They also get into quite a few of the ships that sank as fast as they were launched, and some of these spectacular failures make interesting reading even if you're not thinking about starting a business, but sobering if you are. (Radio Shack, TI, HP, and others probably all regretted not listening sooner to the scruffy hobbiests who swore that people would buy them.)

Unlike certain other techno-hagiographies, most of the action in Fire takes place west of the Missisppi (the Valley in the title is the one you'd think -- Silicon Valley), with only passing references to much of the East Coast action going on at the time at universities and at corporations like DEC. That bias is not accidental, and really doesn't constitute a sin of omission. The boards of big corporations like HP, DEC, and IBM saw little profit in putting many of their precious dollars or engineers on low-margin personal machines: they liked to make big iron (or at least medium iron) that they could sell in hefty chunks to tech-savvy companies to help do large corporate tasks. Selling to individuals, in a world where the necessity for a personal or household computer was not yet established, would have been an odd move. All of those companies later saw the error in their ways and did enter the field of PCs, of course -- ironically (and past the time frame this book primarily addresses) the once-giant DEC was eventually subsumed -- by personal-computer maker Compaq.

But out there in the heady Wild West, when computers were still mostly room-sized beasts which needed constant tending by a full-time staff, grew the makings of The Homebrew Computer Club, which drew people whose names would eventually adorn magazine covers and company letterheads. Right from its start in 1975, the Club started attracting cantankerous circuit designers, switch-flippers and other hackers who wanted to have their very own computer room.

With surprising ease, the story moves among Silicon Valley to Washington State (home of Bill Gates, and eventually, Microsoft -- a whole story in itself, well covered here) and Ed Roberts' operation MITS, creators of the Altair hobbiest computer.

It's a rush to read, and for most of the ride you may forget to stop reading.

A few sour notes For most of the ride, I said. The story telling is crisp and enjoyable for the most part, but in book this size there are bound to be a few dips. I could have done with a lot less information, for instance, about the role of est at once-promising computer maker IMSAI. While it's certainly an interesting influence (hey, this was California in the 70s, what do you expect? Puritanism?), it didn't turn me on for as many pages as it seemed to have the authors. Perhaps in an effort to make each one readable as an independent section, certain of the chapters read almost as if written for separate publication; how many times do we need to be reminded how Bill Gates and Paul Allen started working together, and that both went to Harvard?

Perhaps because as someone who grew up mostly in the 80s and has spent most of the 90s with at least one personal computer at all times, the story of Jobs split from Apple, the development of Windows, and many of the other later developments covered in the last third of the book were all much less enjoyable to me than the "ancient history" portion. While it's interesting to see these things put in the context of the personal computer revolution as a whole, it was much less informative simply because the history is so close.

Likewise, the brief treatment of the World Wide Web, and in particular the conflicts (still ongoing) outlined in the chapter called "The Browser Wars," I could have skipped and enjoyed the book just as much. It's in this chapter that the most mention of Open Source and Free Software is made, and it may be a decent introduction to the topic to someone unfamiliar with it, but I suspect most Slashdot readers will find themselves skimming for information they didn't already know in this portion.

What it's not If you're looking for hard-core information on early circuit designs, or code snippets from the programs which launched the rise of the PC, this is probably the wrong book -- though there is a satisfyingly large reproduction of the circuit board of the Apple I. The infectuous spirit of invention and a strange ort of aggressive computer-based fun comes through clearly, because Freiberger and Swaine concentrate on the personalities and business realities of the early days of the PC more than they do the technological advances which made it possible. Whether you find this more engaging or annoying is of course up to you; I found the stories and interactions of the early PC pioneers fascinating, less so the business machinations of the 80s and 90s.

Bonus Play My favorite aspect of the book is probably all the history of the Altair, the West Coast Computer Faire; I consider these a bonus even though they're a normal part of the book.

This book is labelled a "collectors edition," though (the book was first published in 1984; all the information about the late 80s and 90s is obviously added since then), and it does come with a few nice extras to justify that: For one thing, it's a nice, heftily large book (nearly 450 pages, not counting the massive index); there's a great selection of photos in the middle of the book, too, with some shots that will make you either smile or cringe to see how young these people really were.

A timeline at the beginning of the book is great reading all by itself, and an included CD-ROM contains more audio clips, pictures and history as well.It's well suited to your coffee table or mantle for pleasant evening reading.

You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.

Comments

West Coast Bias - Rewite History why don't you?

[tekrat]

I'm so *freaking* tired of books that rewrite history to say that the entire PC revolution happened on the West Coast.

Does anybody remember Commodore? The CBM PET was the first home machine with an integrated screen and keyboard, AND could save your programs on a cassette. All in one machine.

During the height of the Commodore 64, CBM owned over 33% of the home computer market, a percentage that to this day, no other single box-maker has ever had.

And then there's the Amiga, a machine so far ahead of it's time that a decade later, some of the features it had still aren't available on modern equipment.

There was a point where Commodore was kicking Apple's butt, but everyone forgets that and just talks about the Two Steves and Bill, like they alone invented personal computing. Don't get me wrong, I think WOZ is a god, but sheesh!, can't someone write a book that has facts in it, and tells the history truthfully, without cutting out huge chunks of history for the sake of drama?

How many 'Origin of the Species' books do we need?

[Bonker]

While I cannot personally comment on this book's contents as I have not read it, it seems that the market is being glutted with various biographies, histories, and 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' type stories.

Think about it folks, the 1970's, when most of the initial development of the PC took place was 30 years ago! These events are becoming a lot less relevant to modern PC design and more like... well... History.

The real danger here is inspiring new, talented creators and inventors to continue to think like the people who originally developed the first PC's. These people were innovative, but the technology is aging... badly... and we need new innovation and new, original ideas to speed up and destabilize the computer industry.

The Computer Revolution was over in the mid 90's. We're more in sort of the Computer Middle Age now. Let's just hope we can avoid a 'Dark Age' by not making religous text out of historical fact.