Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation

ISBN-13: 9780500022160 / Angielski

Wiltshire Alex;Short John

Opis

Home Computers showcases the quirky and characterful beginnings of a commercial product that would come to unite the globe: the personal computer. As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of machines, industrial design and techno-utopianism of an era in the not-so-distant past. Conceived as a visual sourcebook of the most popular, most powerful and most idiosyncratic computers to grace our workspaces, this timely publication offers a reflection on how far we've come and a nostalgic look at a time when digital worlds could be contained in a box and turned off, rather than ever-present in our lives. Home Computers opens with a scene-setting retrospective by computer and gaming writer Alex Wiltshire. The book's heart is a series of specially commissioned photographs that capture details of switches and early user-interface design, letterforms and logos, and the quirks that set one computer off from another. Images are complemented by a potted history of each device, the inventors or personalities behind it, and its innovations and influences.

Recenzje

'A world away from the devices used today, the computers in the book illustrate the rapid march of technology' - Observer

O autorze

Alex Wiltshire is author of several books, including Home Computers: 100 Icons That Defined a Digital Generation, Minecraft Blockopedia, and two oral histories of early game industries: Britsoft and Japansoft. He also writes about videogames, design and technology for various magazines and websites. A former editor of Edge magazine, he is publishing editor at videogame developer Mojang, where he creatively manages licensed books about Minecraft. He lives in Bath, UK. John Short is best known for his still life, interiors and landscapes. His work is regularly published in Wallpaper*.