Product Description

This text covers the "birth" of the personal computer. It includes more photographs than the previous editions, and comments and quotes from some of the key players from that time looking back on their parts in hindsight.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1539234 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 463 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Fire in the Valley is not a computer book but rather a history of the personal computer. Even if the computer isn't your thing, and maybe you don't remember arguing with Commodore 64, Apple II, and TRS-80 owners over whose computer was the best, you'll find the writing engaging and the subject matter more than entertaining. Who would have thought a bunch of misfit nerds could make history?

Fire in the Valley is an accurate, insightful, and often entertaining look at the many accidents and mistakes that eventually led to the computer you have on your desktop today. The history of the personal computer comprises a series of well-planned errors, with eccentric personalities floating from company to company, and geniuses so twisted they created for the sheer joy of it--never imagining the multi-billion dollar industry that would result.

This book is magnetic and the consistent and strong writing draws the reader in. The entire story of the personal computer, from the vacuum tube to the iMac, is told and told well.

Fire in the Valley is an old book, originally published back in 1984. This review refers to the current "collector's edition" and it's been updated to reflect some recent issues. The book is hardbound, hence the hefty cover price. (It also has a CD-ROM, but I don't do CDs in books.) The book is highly recommended--especially for anyone who's into high tech and wants to understand the value of not putting creativity into a bottle. --Dan Gookin

Review
The authors tell their tale with surprising human as well as technological insights. Freidberger and Swaine are blessed with a remarkable tale to tell. Fire in the Valley offers many nerd pleasures, not the least of which is a stroll down memory lane, back to a sunny time of youth and innocence and endlessly whirring floppy drives. All the highlights are covered. One of the strengths of this fine book is that it isn't tendentious about its subject matter. If Fire in the Valley has any thesis, it's that, like Englebart, the very earliest players weren't much motivated by money. Some were simply visionaries. Others just loved computers. Others still couldn't fit in anywhere else.

From the Back Cover
'A great adventure that gives the reader a sense of being close to a historical movement that is still playing itself out.'

'John Markoff (The New York Times) from the Foreword
In January 1975, Popular Electronics magazine published a cover story on the Altair, a screenless, keypadless, built-from-a-kit, odd metal box with common switches and blinking lights. It was an electronic curiosity that proved to be the progenitor of today's personal computer. The article ignited imaginations across the country but especially in California's Silicon Valley. 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.
Less than ten years later, the Altair was already ancient history, the modern PC was well on its way to changing our economy and culture forever, and companies with names like Apple and Microsoft were part of the business landscape.
Now this hardcover collector's edition of the Paul Frieberger and Michael Swaine classic tells 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. First released in 1984, Fire in the Valley uniquely captures the explosive, frenetic energy of those early days and the meteoric rise of the PC. In this special Collector's Edition the authors have expanded the first edition to include new stories and feature interviews with the major players, three new chapters, over 30 new photos, and updated information throughout that carries the PC from humble beginnings to the Internet era. The authors convey the exciting development of companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Netscape, Lotus, and Oracle.
Expanded and updated to give readers more than the first edition could hold, the Collector's Edition includes:
 CD ROM that is a masterpiece of sound, images, and technology'with original audio of Gates, Jobs, Wozniak, Roberts, Felsenstein, Ahl, Melen, Kottke, and Kildall from the early days
 An interactive, multimedia timeline
 Three new chapters with additional inside stories
 The Collector's Edition photographs in an interactive collage
Itself a milestone in the fascinating history of the personal computer, the Fire in the Valley Collector's Edition is this century's definitive account of how it all happened and why.
About the Authors
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 and currently works at the Interval Research Corporation in Palo Alto. He lives in San Mateo, California, with his wife and two sons.
Michael Swaine is editor-at-large for Dr. Dobb's Journal.He lives in Grants Pass, Oregon, with his partner Nancy Groth.
Stuart Sharpe is an internationally known artist of video, animation, and interactive media. His clients include Apple, Oracle, Sony, Hasbro, AT&T, Intel, and 7th Level.
Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer
Collector's Edition
First released in 1984, Fire in the Valley remains one of the most sought-after and widely revered testaments to the dynamic visionaries and explosive growth of the PC era. Nothing captures the monumental importance of the technological, economic, and social revolution of the past twenty-five years than this special hardcover Collector's Edition of Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer.
Updated and expanded, it contains more photos, new chapters, and includes a companion CD ROM with rare audio of Gates, Jobs, Wozniak, Roberts, and others along with a state-of-the-art interactive timeline and photo collage. The Fire in the Valley Collector's Edition is this century's definitive account of how the PC came to transform the world today and will shape the century ahead.
Praise for Fire in the Valley, First Edition
'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, the brilliance and blundering of some of the first start-up companies, the assortment of naiveté, noble purpose and greed that characterized various pioneers, and the inevitable transformation of all this into a major industry. Must reading.'

'Philip Lemmons, editor-in-chief, BYTE Magazine

Customer Reviews

Excellent history of early microcomputing
Freiberger and Swaine capture the early history of the microcomputer brilliantly - right from the development of the first microprocessor to the evolution of the first generation of IBM PCs and Macintoshes. Their view is very much an American one (so fans of the early British micros won't find much here), but this is very much a Silicon Valley story.

They cover not only the evolution of hardware (CPUs, buses, systems) but also of software (particularly at Microsoft, Digital Research and Apple) and of the industry that grew up around the machines - the culture (computer clubs and shows), the retail industry, the magazines. A very broad view is taken.

If the rest of the book was as good as the first 250 pages or so it'd get five stars, but the attempt to cover the software-led period from the mid-80s on feels rather rushed - it all gets rather rushed after the tale of how Philippe Kahn built up Borland, although there's some amusing stuff about Oracle in there too. Otherwise, rather difficult to fault this book. It is readable, occasionally amusing, full of interesting detail, and even has a small selection of well-chosen photographs.

Read and re-read !!!
This is the best chronicle of how the PC industry came into being from people that lived the events themselves in first person. It is also a classic example of "american dream" came true as well as how naive and amateurs were the initial PC pushers. In a way, it also shed lights on the fundamentals errors made by such an industry which are being paid for right now.
Definitively a book to read.

Excellent. A must read. One of the best in its genre
This is quite simply one of the most fascinating books on the industry. Plenty of revelations, fascinating tidbits, and some really good cheesey photos of Bill Gates and others to boot. Definately five stars