640 Kilobyte ought to be enough for anybody
… was a quote from Bill Gates from 1981 according to the book Computers - An Illustrated History from Christian Wurster which I had a sneak look into some days ago in a well sorted book shop and which her majesty now surprisingly presented me as a birthday gift.
This book covers the whole history of computers from the very beginning when they filled a whole hall and were based on relay’s to current computer high tech while leading though the chapters for scientific and military computers, mainframe computers, minicomputers, then microcomputers and to desktop computers.
It features a great amount of photo material and quotes from people who used the computers in their popular times.
I already love this book and think it should belong into the collection of everyone who dig old computer nostalgia.
Some readers on Amazon gave it a negative review and mentioned that there are incorrect facts in the book and that the pictures are of bad quality and showing jpg artefacts. Hell yea that might be true to some degree, I’ve found one flaw that says to a photo that the machine is a Atari 800 XL but actually it is a Atari 800 (I have to know! The Atari 600 XL was my first computer). And most of the photo material can’t be complained about.
This is truly decent computer porn for geeks and I’m sure the next big ‘electronic era’ that comes will be the era of the robots!
2 Responses to “640 Kilobyte ought to be enough for anybody”
By datastar
on May 14, 2006 | Reply
and there is another one for the nerds:
gameplan - spielkonsolen (http://www.amazon.de/exec/o…).
as the title says it deals with personal computers and paddles. 256 pieces from 1972 - 2002 on 144 pages. from apple II and atari vsc to x-box and gamecube.
… and by the way: happy birthday dr. collossus!
By drcolossus
on May 14, 2006 | Reply
thanks datastar! I know that gamePlan book too but doesn’t have it yet! But it’s a great book more about the videogame side of computers and written by Winnie Foster (ex-Power Play editor…. http://www.kultpower.de/about_powerplay.php3