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Fire in the Valley

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Fire in the Valley

The Making of the Personal Computer

McGraw-Hill,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The Valley, of course, is Silicon Valley — the California hotbed that gave birth to the personal computer industry. And how? Well, big things from little transistors grow.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Authors Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine offer the second edition of their extremely popular 1984 chronicle of the birth of the personal computer. They recount how the PC industry began, who fueled its growth and why things happened as they did. The central stories cover the emergence of MITS, IMSAI, Apple, Tandy and Microsoft. This second edition adds the development and maturation of the hardware and software industries. Apple and Microsoft’s sagas still dominate, but new stories emerge, including tales of Dell, Oracle, Netscape and the Internet. The second edition shows how the PC child has grown up. You’ll see how the nerds took a hobby and reformed the world using Boolean logic, integrated circuits, motherboards and chips. getabstract recommends this book to everyone with an interest in the computer industry and particularly to those who are hungry for the real stories behind the growth of the 20th century’s most pivotal industry.

Summary

Boolean Algebra, Vacuum Tubes and Steam

The question that launched the personal computer industry was, "Can a machine be programmed to think?" In 1833, British inventor Charles Babbage claimed that steam could be harnessed to run an analytical engine that could solve mathematical problems. Although Babbage never developed his concept, American logician Charles Sanders determined in 1888 that Boolean algebra could be used as a model for electrical switching circuits. Logic therefore, could be represented by electrical circuitry.

If logic could be applied to switching circuits, then electronic machines could be built to solve logical problems. In 1936, Benjamin Burack did just that; he built a logic machine. His machine could process statements made in the form of logical syllogisms. International Business Machines (IBM), which built non-thinking calculating machines, entered the fray at that time by giving $500,000 to Harvard professor Howard Aiken to develop a calculating device inspired by Babbage’s analytical engine. The Mark I was introduced in 1944 to high praise, though without acknowledgement of IBM’s support. But Aiken’s device suffered from a larger problem...

About the Authors

Paul Frieberger  is the co-author of Fuzzy Logic , winner of the 1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has written for the San Jose Mercury News , the San Francisco Examiner and National Public Radio and now works at the Interval Research Corporation in Palo Alto, California. Michael Swaine  is editor at large for Dr. Dobb’s Journal. He is also a popular columnist for print and electronic magazines in the United States, Italy and Germany and maintains Swaine’s World, a Web site that tracks computer industry news, at www.swaine.com.

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