[Coco] Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution

[Juan Castro]

Unwishlisted.

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 10:38 AM, John W. Linville <linville at tuxdriver.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 10:49:41PM -0700, Tony Cappellini wrote:
> >
> http://www.retrothing.com/2009/05/how-trs80-enthusiasts-helped-spark-the-pc-revolution.html
>
> I happen to be in the middle of reading this book right now.  Parts of
> it are interesting, parts of it are...less interesting.  There is
> some cool Tandy history, albeit mostly for the Model I/III/IV line.
> And there is some interesting insight as to what it was like to be part
> of the nascent computer industry in the 70's and 80's.  There are also
> a few bits that I'm fairly certain are factually wrong (and provably
> so) -- probably any significant work has a few of those too.
>
> What really brings down the value of this book is that are three
> l-o-n-g chapters in the middle of the book that comprise the authors'
> (husband and wife team) life stories.  I don't mean their stories
> as TRS-80 software developers, I mean the stories of going to
> elementary school, of going to high school and college, of falling
> in love, getting married, and starting a family, of taking vacations,
> etc. with just a bit of TRS-80 stuff in their to keep it relevant(?).
> These parts read like a memoir -- a memoir of someone you aren't
> surprised that you didn't know existed.  I had to resort to skimming
> these parts, which consume nearly half the book.
>
> So anyway, I don't mean to discourage anyone from reading the book to
> gain some insight into Tandy's early years in the computer industry.
> I just want to warn you to prepare yourself -- the reminiscing is so
> thick that it puts even a CoCoFEST! to shame... :-)
>
> John
> --
> John W. Linville                Someday the world will need a hero, and you
> linville at tuxdriver.com                  might be all we have.  Be ready.
>
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