Customer Reviews

Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The TV movie based on this book was rather lame, but this is a great read on how the PC revolution got started.

This breezy read lightly covers the evolution of the personal computer mostly from the introduction of Altair until Steve Jobs' departure from Apple Computer. Covering as many people, machines and companies as possible the authors don't have time for a in-depth look at anything. The result seems like a 400 plus page newspaper or magazine article. The "Collector's Edition" has several additional chapters covering industry events up to 2000 and also contains a CD-ROM with more materials. I have not reviewed the CD-ROM.

One those books that gives a real pleasure to read. If you are interested on how computers took over control of our lives and how a few advanced thinkers created what computers are today, you'll enjoy this book. It starts from the very beginning. No screens, no keyborads, just switchs!!!!! Have you ever wondered how computers evolved and who made it possible? Here is. Besides, there are some fantastic pictures from all those that started it all. Accurate book and full of interesting information. If you want to know all that happened, buy it. Strongly recommended.

The TV documentary (The Pirates of Silicon Valley) is interesting to almost everyone who watched it. It focuses, however, on two personalities (Gates and Jobs). The making of the personal computer, however, was much more than a war between two egos. What about all those companies that are no longer around anymore? If you liked the TV documentary you will love Fire in the Valley. Buy it!

Originally written in 1984, Fire in the Valley is an excellent synopsis of the beginnings of the computer industry, the devices, the people, and the egos that drive Silicon Valley in it's early days. The book is filled with details about the early computers, the hobbyists, and the fledging corporations (often three guys in a basement) that were building a mega-industry seemingly overnight. While filled with details, the book flows well and reads quickly thanks to generally lucid prose. The authors do a good job of conveying the enthusiasm and idealism of those times and interviewed many of the key participants including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for their perspective on those days.

This version of the book brings the story essentially up to date, documenting the rise of the World Wide Web and the various wars over browsers that eventually got Microsoft into trouble.

If you like computers pick this up. If you like historical books about great periods of history (and don't kid yourself, the rise of the personal computer and the world wide web qualify) pick this up. If you want to know why the machine you currently have is designed the way it is pick this up, it's an enjoyable read.

The book is an excellent documentary of what is suggested by the title. However, the authors seem to be much better researchers than writers, things like grammatical errors were distracting and tiring for the reader. I would have rated the book much more highly if the authors "had had" a greater command of the English language. I bought the book hoping to get more detail of the movie story 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' (recommended). The movie was supposedly based upon the book. However, I was a little disappointed in that regard. The movie seems to be based, primarily, on the last few chapters. The book kind of picks up where the book 'hackers' by Steven Levy (recommended) stops, which was very interesting, since I had just finished that title. A good follow up to 'Fire in the Valley' (besides the aforementioned movie) would be the book 'Barbarians Led by Bill Gates'.

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. We [...] recommend 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.

I wasn't in the valley personally, but as a child of the 70's and early 80's I recall a world of computers long before the IBM "Personal Computer" came out. There were Apples, Tandys, IMSAIs, Osborns, Altairs, and a plethora of digital devices that tried to make it into the home or office, way before IBM even considered entering the consumer market.

Everyone who was *there* remembers that not only was the IBM PC a late-comer, it was based on the technologies already pioneered by those others -- and in many cases its features were less impressive, sometimes even "lower-tech" than its predecessors. This book not only tells the story of subvertive geeks hacking away in their garages armed with soldering irons and wire-cutters, it paints the pictures so vividly, with such candor, that it transports you back in time so you can experience first hand the PC revolution.

You'll live through the various events, some technological, others political, but most of them social, which inspired many people to drop whatever they were doing to join the revolution, for better or for worst. The authors make you realize that the PC revolution was not started with a single product, was not a linear chain of events, and cannot be plotted with a mere timetable of discoveries and inventions (though the book includes such a table, for reference). They show that the PC revolution was an ongoing battle that started with fantastic dreams more than a century ago, was kindled by amazing invetions and discoveries, but was actually fueld by the very human nature to communicate freely and the desire to do so efficiently through machines -- and the passion of creating those machines and breathing life into them with your own hands.

Wonderful book, a must read for anybody who was *there*, it will bring back so many nostalgic memories. I also recommend it to anybody who was not there that wonders how it all started and if IBM and Microsoft have really offered us "innovations".

-dZ.

This book is great for anyone new to the history of the personal computer industry, and is also a very good account for anyone who knows about it. I found it very interesting to read since I was very young or not even born yet when most of this happened. The authors are able to express very well the feeling of discovery and new ideas that the people in this industry felt then. I also found that they had a lot of information on the companies that created a lot of the ideas and technologies we have today, beside Microsoft, and Apple.

If you're looking for a perfect book to learn about the computer industry, Fire in the Valley is definitly it. I rented the movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, and it was a great movie. However, Hollywood took out so many important parts, that it only gives you an idea of what went on in the early 70's and 80's as the personal computer developed.

Being born in 1983, I grew up with the Texas Instruments computer, C-64, Apple II, Macintosh, and the mainstream desktop PCs that we use today. I was always interested in the history of computing and searched to find a book to fill in the gaps that Pirates of Silicon Valley left out.

Fire in the Valley, while not entirely definitive, still does an excellent job giving the reader all the history that he/she could want. As described in previous reviews, it does leave out the Commodore C-64, except for a few references. But this still is the best computer industry history book out on bookshelves.

I highly recommend that if you want to know more about the beginnings of Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Balmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ed Roberts and all the others who engineered the personal computer, take a look at this book.