Timothy beat me to it!
on
Digital Retro
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I reviewed (http://dpnow.com/1299.html) this book on my site a couple of days ago and submitted a summary here but had no idea Timothy was on the case already.
Gordon Laing, the author, and I meet up quite frequently and I was able to gain some fascinating insights into his research. One thing that rather depressed me was that some of the icons he spoke to, like Chuck Peddle and Sir Clive Sinclair are now, apparently, getting on a bit and are rather forgetful of the times they made into the golden age of personal computing.
The book is, as Timothy says, a marvelous piece of work. It's meticulously researched and extremely well written. Timothy mentions the pictures - it's rather like having a book of old brochures, but much better, though I observed in my review that there are no pictures or direct quotes from the personalities of the period (1974-1988). I've been using and writing about micros since the late 70s and I still learned a whole bunch of interesting and fascinating anecdotes. One of the nice touches Gordon lends to the end of the book is the reminder that while the hardware might eventually die, the souls of some of these computers live on in the form of software emulators that run on contemporary hardware.
Gordon deserves all the success this book appears to be enjoying. Anyway, I'm off to find my BBC Micro emulator for a spot of Elite - Right on Commander!
Ian
...but it's not a simple task, so you probably got value for money if you did buy the commercial version.
I've documented the project to use the Westin drawing to create a working replica ISO resolution test target here:
URL:http://dpnow.com/.dpnow.com/1263.html
Did it work? - well, yes - sort of!
Ian
Slashdot Mirror
I reviewed (http://dpnow.com/1299.html) this book on my site a couple of days ago and submitted a summary here but had no idea Timothy was on the case already. Gordon Laing, the author, and I meet up quite frequently and I was able to gain some fascinating insights into his research. One thing that rather depressed me was that some of the icons he spoke to, like Chuck Peddle and Sir Clive Sinclair are now, apparently, getting on a bit and are rather forgetful of the times they made into the golden age of personal computing. The book is, as Timothy says, a marvelous piece of work. It's meticulously researched and extremely well written. Timothy mentions the pictures - it's rather like having a book of old brochures, but much better, though I observed in my review that there are no pictures or direct quotes from the personalities of the period (1974-1988). I've been using and writing about micros since the late 70s and I still learned a whole bunch of interesting and fascinating anecdotes. One of the nice touches Gordon lends to the end of the book is the reminder that while the hardware might eventually die, the souls of some of these computers live on in the form of software emulators that run on contemporary hardware. Gordon deserves all the success this book appears to be enjoying. Anyway, I'm off to find my BBC Micro emulator for a spot of Elite - Right on Commander! Ian
Sorry - that should have been http://dpnow.com/1263.html Ian
...but it's not a simple task, so you probably got value for money if you did buy the commercial version. I've documented the project to use the Westin drawing to create a working replica ISO resolution test target here: URL:http://dpnow.com/.dpnow.com/1263.html Did it work? - well, yes - sort of! Ian