Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer [Paperback]

In the early 1970s, while Silicon Valley was designing the latest generation of digital wristwatches and pocket calculators, a ragtag group of college dropouts, hippies, and electronics hobbyists were busy creating the future in their garages. What they built was the personal computer, but what they were aiming for was something much more ambitious: a revolution. Fire in the Valley is the story of their efforts, and in particular, the contributions of an informal think tank called the Homebrew Computer Club. Its technically gifted community, comprising sci-fi aficionados and Berkeley counterculturists, believed computers could usher in an age of human empowerment, perhaps even a utopia.

The club's most famous member is Steve Jobs of Apple, whose story is told here, as is Bill Gates's, who was strongly influenced by Homebrew. What sets Fire in the Valley apart from the many other books about early days at Apple and Microsoft, though, is its focus on the brilliant engineers and coders who built the foundation that would eventually support those two companies. They included ex-Berkley Barb editor and hardware designer Lee Felsenstein, who was adamant about using computers for populist ends; Adam Osborne, who took PCs to the next level by making them portable; hacker legend John "Captain Crunch" Draper, who used telephony for his own mischievous purposes; and activist Ted Nelson, the Thom Paine of the computer revolution.

The cast of characters is sometimes tough to keep track of, and authors Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine have wisely included a graphic timeline in the first pages of the book that readers will find useful. It stretches from 1800 to 1999, encompassing events that have occurred since Fire in the Valley's original 1984 publication. This second edition includes new chapters and photographs to document the last 15 years, but they serve as more of an epilogue than a new act in this drama. The Homebrew Club's mark on personal computing history is cemented, and Fire in the Valley is an engaging account of it, one that should inspire readers everywhere. --Demian McLean

A book not to be missed, just plain good reading about the drama of the Kids next door turning their dreams into millions. -- The New York Times

Swain and Freiberger capture the communal spirit, the brilliance and blundering, the assortment of naivete, noble purpose and greed, and the inevitable transformation of all this into a major industry. Must Reading -- Byte

A book not to be missed, just plain good reading about the drama of the Kids next door turning their dreams into millions. --The New York Times Swaine and Freiberger capture the communal spirit of the early computer clubs, t he brilliance and blundering of some of the first start-up companies, the assort ment of naivete, noble purpose and greed that characterized various pioneers, an d the inevitable transformation of all this into a major industry. Must reading. --Philip Lemmons, editor-in-chief, BYTE Magazine

Fire in the Valley, Updated Edition, tells the colorful and sometimes hilarious stories of the personal computer pioneers. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Steve Wozniak, Ed Roberts, Ted Nelson are all there and more. The book also captures the medley of influences of the times-the wild risk-taking, the 60s consciousness, rebellion against bureaucracy, the kitchen-table engineering that were essential to the making of the personal computer.

Fire in the Valley, Updated Edition, explores these topics with the insights from today's vantage point. It put the events that shaped two short decades into an historical context. The book explains the technological advances that made the PC possible and reveals how software came to play a more central and profitable role. It explores the politics of inventors and innovation and shows how the race to create the PC lit a fire of excitement in Silicon Valley--a fire that ultimately changed our society forever.

"A great adventure that gives the reader a sense of being close to a historical movement that is still playing itself out."--From the foreword by John Markoff, The New York Times. In January 1975, Popular Electronics magazine published a cover story on the Altair, an odd metal box with switches and blinking lights that proved to be the progenitor of today's personal computer. Inspired by possibilities that the leaders of the electronics and mainframe computer industries couldn't see, unlikely entrepreneurs--hippies, dropouts, phone phreaks, and electronics hobbyists--seized the opportunity. How those personal computer pioneers went from side street garages to Wall Street's graces, and how their brilliance, enthusiasm, camaraderie, and competition changed the world is all here in Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's classic, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer. First released in 1984, it uniquely captures the explosive, frenetic energy of those early days. This updated edition features interviews with the major players, new chapters, dozens of new photos, and updates throughout that carry the story forward into the Internet era. The authors convey the exciting development of companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Netscape, Lotus, and Oracle. Itself a milestone in the fascinating history of the personal computer, Fire in the Valley is the definitive account of how it all happened and why.

Paul Freiberger is the coauthor of Fuzzy Logic, winner of the 1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and has written for the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Examiner, and National Public Radio. He currently works at the Interval Research Corporation in Palo Alto.

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.