Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything by Steven Levy

Description

January 1994 marked the 10th anniversary of this personal computer breakthrough. A household word now, the Macintosh phenomenon marked a watershed point in techno-popular culture. The Macintosh pointed the way for all future machines – it raised the standard of what one could demand of a personal computer, raised the number of people who could master the use of a more capable, user-friendly one, and raised the stakes of what competing computer avatars (like Bill Gates of then-emerging Microsoft) could produce, sell and earn in the rapidly developing area of PC programming and research. It catapulated the computer industry into an uncharted territory, a mix of technics, economics and show biz. The Mac, columnist Steven Levy explores, became the nexus of all our futuristic dreams. Not unlike the Model T, or the first Apollo mission, it thrust America and US technology into a new millenium. Computinghas never been the same – neither have we.

Editorial Review

Back in the early 1980s, word spread about an inviting little personal computer that used something called a mouse and smiled at you when you turned it on. Steven Levy relates his first encounter with the pre-released Mac and goes on to chronicle the machine that Apple developers hoped would “make a dent in the universe.” A wonderful story told by a terrific writer (Levy was the longtime writer of the popular “Iconoclast” column in MacWorld; he's now a columnist with Newsweek, the birth and first ten years of the Macintosh is a great read.