A celebration of the early years of the digital revolution, when computing power was deployed in a beige box on your desk.

Today, people carry powerful computers in our pockets and call them "phones." A generation ago, people were amazed that the processing power of a mainframe computer could be contained in a beige box on a desk. This book is a celebration of those early home computers, with specially commissioned new photographs of 100 vintage computers and a generous selection of print advertising, product packaging, and instruction manuals. Readers can recapture the glory days of fondly remembered (or happily forgotten) machines including the Commodore 64, TRS-80, Apple Lisa, and Mattel Aquarius--traces of the techno-utopianism of the not-so-distant past.

Home Computers showcases mass-market success stories, rarities, prototypes, one-offs, and never-before-seen specimens. The heart of the book is a series of artful photographs that capture idiosyncratic details of switches and plugs, early user-interface designs, logos, and labels. After a general scene-setting retrospective, the book proceeds computer by computer, with images of each device accompanied by a short history of the machine, its inventors, its innovations, and its influence. Readers who inhabit today's always-on, networked, inescapably connected world will be charmed by this visit to an era when the digital revolution could be powered down every evening.

Author: Alex Wiltshire
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 05/19/2020
Series: Mit Press
Pages: 256
Weight: 2.85lbs
Size: 9.90h x 8.50w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780262044011


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/03/2020

About the Author
Alex Wiltshire is a writer and consultant for video games, design, and technology. He is the author of Minecraft Blockopedia and has written for such publications as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer.

John Short is a photographer based in London. His work appears regularly in Wallpaper*.