Old computer books

At 07:25 AM 6/25/98 PDT, Max Eskin wrote: Once upon a time when I was in the thick of it, I thought about writing a book about the history of the Amiga, where even from the early days it clear the machine had strengths beyond the more popular computers of the time, and that it was swimming against the current. The problem in my mind was that there was no guiding thread, no "hook", no core story, no moral or lesson - just fumbling computer companies, insane investors, inept marketroids, crazy genius types, etc. Is this interesting enough, or just interesting to Amiga-heads? I knew other people who thought about writing a book like this who had similar concern about lack of focus, about how to make the story interesting enough for someone who wasn't personally involved in some aspect of it. One clarifying thought was inspired by the drunken ramblings of an Amiga dealer during the last days at a NewTek party, who said "It's like we were from five years in the future, and we had television, and we were trying to explain it to people who'd only seen a radio. Radio with pictures? Who wants that?" There's another lesson to be told about the tendency of techies to believe that technical excellence should always Win, but it rarely does. Then again, maybe these sorts of Valley stories rarely have a point. :-) - John