Somewhat Longer Review

Contents

• The Title and Subtitle
• About the Reviewer
• What You Get
• What I Liked
• Gripes
• Who's the Book for?
• Final Thoughts

Notes:

• Published by O'Reilly.
• Click on any of the cover images to go to the catalog entry for the book.

The Title and Subtitle

There are two key words in the title: Valley and Revolution.

Valley: The Valley referred to is Silicon Valley below San Francisco where Apple Computer got its start and is still headquartered.

Revolution: I understand "Revolution" here to mean "fundamental and important change".

As the subtitle makes clear, the revolution referred to is the creation of the Mac. The author points out in the introduction that the kind of interface developed for the original Mac is now ubiquitous.

The Subtitle: The subtitle of the book is "The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made".

How well do the title and subtitle fit the book?: I'd say quite well.

The GUI interface that Apple perfected and popularized is indeed ubiquitous now, and that has certainly changed the way that we use computers in a revolutionary way. I could play devil's advocate and emphasize Xerox PARC's role in the revolution but I won't since I think Apple's contributions were key. For a view on this by someone who was on the team that developed the original Mac, see On Xerox, Apple and Progress on the website from which the book came.

The action is certainly centered in "The Valley" or more specifically in Cupertino which is in Silicon Valley.

Is the story insanely great? I suppose it depends on your point of view. It is to Mac lovers. I thought the short pieces were really good and together they told a bigger story which had the ring of truth to me.

Do we learn how the Mac was created? From a people point of view, I'd say we certainly do. From a technical point of view, there's a surprising amount of information here; but personally I viewed it as context for the people story, so I won't attempt to answer the question from a technical point of view.

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About the Reviewer

Relevant Job Experiences: I lived and worked in the computer industry in the Valley for a number of years. Most relevant is that I worked for Tymshare in Cupertino from 1974-1978. During that period I was very close to the scene of the action in the book and I was there just before the period the book focuses on. One of the restaurants I favored then was the Good Earth which had a small part in the story.

At Tymshare I knew one of the people in the book's cast of characters, but not very well, and I had no idea she had gone to work for Apple until I read the book.

Apple was no longer a start-up when the Mac was being developed but the culture of the Mac development team seems to have been in many ways a start-up culture. A few years before I worked in the Valley, I worked for Computer Operations, a start-up in another part of California.

Some relevant things that I experienced at one or both of these jobs were

• having a charismatic leader
• being on a mission
• unusual ways of thinking that worked
• playing as an important aspect of work

Relation to Mac: I came to the Mac well after the period the book covers, but when I did, I fell in love with the Mac and Mac culture.

Relation to Publisher: I have many O'Reilly books and they've served me well. I have written many reviews of O'Reilly books. I have a very high opinion of O'Reilly and their books.

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What You Get

The heart of the book is the short pieces in the body of the book, but there's much more.

Front Matter: The front matter includes

• a foreword by Steve Wozniak (less than a page, but worth reading)
• an introduction by the author
• the cast of characters: pictures and one paragraph bios of 18 of the players

Body: The body of the book contains about 90 short pieces (mostly anecdotes) in roughly chronological order. The short pieces are mostly 1 to 5 pages long (including text, pictures and other accompanying graphics); the longest piece is 10 pages long. Most, but not all, of the short pieces were written by Andy Hertzfeld, the author.

There are pictures accompanying many of the short pieces.

Back Matter: The back matter includes

• acknowledgments
• photo credits
• an index

I found the index quite useful when I was writing this review.

Other: Oh, I didn't mention the many copies of Mac development notes scattered throughout all parts of the book. I enjoyed them but didn't dwell on them.

The Website as an Alternative: By the way, if it's not practical for you to acquire the book, I suggest you just visit the folklore.org site where you'll find the same anecdotes and more.

If you visit the site but don't get the book, some of what you'll miss will be:

• the foreword by Steve Wozniak
• the graphics and the book layout
• the copies of notes I referred to earlier
• being able to curl up with a good book

And, of course, you won't have this cool book on your coffee table to share with others.

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What I Liked

I especially liked the many short pieces (mostly anecdotes) and the pictures that accompany them.

I also liked that the short pieces were in roughly chronological order to give you a sense of the flow of events. Even though I knew where the story was going, I found the story line compelling.

Also, the short pieces together give a sense of Mac culture at that time.

I liked that there is a website with still more short pieces on how the Mac was created. The index at the back of the book is good, but the search capabilities on the site are, not surprisingly, even better.

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Gripes

Well, if someone reads the book who has little awareness of the history, they likely will not realize that the Mac culture described was not a complete break from some of the cultures that preceded it. I would have enjoyed an exploration of that, but that probably belongs in a different book.

The anecdotal approach makes it possible to have many authors and many points of view. I wish that more of the short pieces had been by other authors.

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Who's the Book for?

The book is likely a good choice for

• Mac lovers
• people who wish to get a feel for the early Mac culture
• people who are interested in computer history and care about the people side
• people who are fascinated by creative groups

The book is likely not a good choice for

• people who think Macs are best used as boat anchors
• people who are bored by anecdotes
• people who are bored by anything related to computers

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Final Thoughts

This is a wonderful story of the creation of the Mac with the people who did it on center stage.

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