Right now am pretty much obsessed with books about rise and fall of tech companies.
These are the most memorable books I’ve read this past year:
“Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution”
“Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything”
“Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age”
“Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows Nt and the Next Generation at Microsoft”
“The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporation: God Doesn’t Think He’s Larry Ellison”
“High Stakes, No Prisoners : A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars”
“The Soul of a New Machine”
“The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer”
Awesome, awesome stuff. I should find time to write some reviews.
I purchased all of these books used (except “Soul of a New Machine” which I just _had_ to have at the time). Some were cheap, others surprisingly expensive. For instance my copy of “Hackers” set me back $30 or $40 because it was out of print at the time. A new edition came out very soon thereafter. Interestingly enough the same thing happened with “Alan Turing: The Enigma“. “The Supermen” was the most expensive at $50. I am still hunting for acceptably priced “The Legend of Amdahl“.
I just finished reading “Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton“. It was very good.
Right now I am reading “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed“, which is orgasmically [spellchecker suggested “orgasmic ally” heh heh] good.
I really want to buy one of those highlighter scanners made by C-Pen so that I can keep notes for my livejournal as I read.
C-Pen’s slogan is “Stroke of Genius”. Beavis and Butthead would have a field day with them :)