When Computing Got Personal cover art

When Computing Got Personal

A History of the Desktop Computer

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

About this listen

This is the story of how a handful of geeks and mavericks dragged the computer out of corporate back rooms and laboratories and into our living rooms and offices. It is a tale not only of extraordinary innovation and vision but also of cunning business deals, boardroom tantrums and acrimonious lawsuits.

Here you will find some of the most intelligent and eccentric people you could hope to meet, including wide-eyed hippies, subversive students, computer nerds, entrepreneurs, hackers, crackers and financial backers. Some lost out and some became millionaires, but all played a part in transforming our world.

©2014 Matt Nicholson (P)2015 Matt Nicholson History History & Culture Technology Software Business Computer Security Programming Software Development Geeky Artificial Intelligence Innovation Hacking Management Computer Science Computer History

Critic reviews

"I have read numerous books on the history of personal computing and rate this one highly." (Tim Anderson, ITWriting)
"I enjoyed this book; it has obviously been extremely well researched, and is well written and takes a coherent route through the history." (Kay Ewbank, I Programmer)
"Matt Nicholson ... was in a position to observe all this first-hand." (Wendy M Grossman, ZDNet)
All stars
Most relevant
Really enjoyed this and learning more about where personal computers came from. For me it was an easy listen and I will likely listen to it again.

Loved it thank you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
it's always tough to get the facts right from audio books, so I'll have to lien to it a few more times. but i really enjoyed it. fit done things there was a bit of a walk down memory lane.

I really found the story interesting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and was in a position to use and play with a lot of PC and Mac hardware so this brings back lots of memories. Great book, great read and not at all dry which you might expect from the subject matter.

Such a great book, brings back memories.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator ruined this book. He ignores all punctuation and inserts unnecessary monotonous pauses in random places, the result of which is a torturous listening experience.

Opting to read the paper copy instead.

Terrible narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting information, well narrated. Better than the sample suggests. I would recommend purchasing this book.

Great Overview of PC History

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews