Product Description

An anecdotal history of the computer industry, this book focuses on odd personalities - Steve Jobes, Steve Wozniak, Mitch Kapor and Bill Gates - as well as on the hacker culture they spawned. The manias and foibles of these men are revealed, and their neuroses have shaped the computer business.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #543328 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Robert X. Cringely manages to capture the contradictions and everyday insanity of computer industry empire building, while at the same time chipping away sardonically at the PR campaigns that have built up some very common business people into the household gods of geekdom. Despite some chuckles at the expense of all things nerdy, white and male in the computer industry, Cringely somehow manages to balance the humour with a genuine appreciation of both the technical and strategic accomplishments of these industry luminaries. Whether you're a hard-boiled Silicon Valley marketing exec fishing for an IPO or just a plain old reader with an interest in business history and anecdotal storytelling, there's something to enjoy here.

In his new conclusion, Cringely looks at the likely near-future of the PC industry, arguing that most of the major companies are facing a need to dramatically reformulate their mission in the light of engineering developments already in the works. He offers a new paradigm for the development of the industry as it moves from its early "start up" phase into a more mature, more competitive era. --Jake Bond

Customer Reviews

Compulsory (for Open University T171), but a good read
This book is a set text for OU T171, so I had to get it. But I really enjoyed it... the style was easy to read (particularly compared to the second set text)... you can tell it is written by a journalist, but at least they are supposed to be able to write. I read this one like a novel from cover to cover in one weekend. The author is easier on Bill Gates than other books I know, but overall it seemed quite a well researched history of PCs (as compared to most books which cover the history of computers). I'd recommend it - and fellow students can breathe a sigh of relief!

Cringley1 - Gates0 (but to be continued i'm sure)
Accidental Empires gives a fairly broad outline of the development of the personal computer from the days when it was first created and no-one realy knew what it was going to be used for, up to around 1996 when Bill Gates was already up to his umpteenth million. Though the author does have an in depth knowledge of all the key characters in the world of the computer such as Steve Jobs of Apple or the nerdy Mr Gates, I do feel at times that he has a personal axe to grind with some of them. Despite this, I found the book a compelling read (the fact that I have finished the book is to some degree testiment to this) and though I have only read this book in connection with Open University course T171 I feel that it has given me a taster of a subject about which I knew little and certainly leaves the me wanting to study the subject more deeply. The author has a witty and easy to read writing style, with which he pokes a sometimes cynical and often humourous stick at a world which seems to the layperson to take itself too seriously at times.

Mad geek on mad geeks
'Accidental Empires' is a set book on the T171 Open University course, for reasons which will only become apparent once you've got past the first 31 pages of 'I God-Cringely'. The history of the empires of Apple, Microsoft and other global players is here, interspersed with Cringely's rather insistent 'style' which he got from being a scribbler on geek-rag Info-World, and living downwind of the strange herbal fumes coming out of Silicon Valley. Your reviewer read 'Accidental Empires' as a first edition back in year diddly-dot, and re-reading it for my own futile assault on T171 has rekindled the feelings of unbelief at the antics of the pioneers of personal computing, and horror at Cringely's obvious psychosis. But as a history of mass-market personal computing, say from the Apple II onwards, the book is compulsive, and informative, and needs an update, and makes you cringe, and may well get you through a third of the way thru T171. So maybe we should call it 'seminal', read the book, pass the course and go out and get a life. Advice which Mr Cringely might also benefit from.