What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry

What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry / John Markoff

Just got finished reading "What the Dormouse Said", not a phenomenal read due to the density of characters but definitely worth it for the exploration of early thought on computers. I had never read extensively about the work of Englebart and the Augment project and it was fascinating to see things we take for granted about human computer interaction slowly form amongst a community. I feel like I had lost touch with the idea of computers as extensions of human brains. It's a small shift in thinking, but not thinking of a computer as a separate thing opens up completely novel thought patterns. On a lighter note I was expecting a lot more drugs than politics in this book. Oh well, we should appreciate things for what they are and what we want them to be.

I really enjoyed "What the Dormouse Said" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said it was about how the 60s counter culture interacted with the personal computer industry being formed, so a lot of computer science interwoven with politics.

I also think it's a great book, but partly because it is technical. Charles is great at explaining how computers actually work with circuit diagrams from the ground up in a way that's articulate, clear, and engaging. I think I learned more from this book than I did in my CS architecture class. The historical context he puts it in helps with clarity since it's easier to understand when you know how each successive step built on the previous one. In addition to the Dream Machine, I'd also mention Steven Levy's Hackers as an obvious one to read. Some others I've read: - What the dormouse said (this one was just okay, but interesting to see some of the cultural context at the time). - Crypto (about the history of cryptography). I really liked this one, but people I've recommended it to found it dry. - In the Plex (history of Google) - Masters of Doom (John Carmack, John Romero and Id Software) Related Fiction: - Microserfs - The Soul of a New Machine - The Phoenix Project (fiction paired with the Dev Ops Handbook)

I'm still reading "What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer", but I'm finding it quite good. Though I guess it's more about tech (counter)culture than tech itself.

Not fiction, but I'm enjoying "What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer"