Ask HN: What are some great posts or articles about history of computing?

We interviewed the inventor of PowerPoint for our blog, and he gave a fascinating inside story of how he almost sold to Apple before eventually sealing a deal with Microsoft:

https://blog.zamzar.com/2016/06/10/deal-of-the-century-how-m...

We also recently interviewed the creator of Microsoft Word who talked about working with Bill Gates in the 1980s:

https://blog.zamzar.com/2020/03/20/an-interview-with-richard...

For books I’d massively recommend:

- The Cuckoo’s Egg, a first-person account of the hunt for a computer hacker who broke into a computer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory[1]

- Founders at Work, for early Silicon Valley startup stories[2]

- The Nudist on the Late Shift by Po Bronson, for similarly wacky late ‘90s/early 2000’s startup stories[3]

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98233.Founders_at_Work

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119751.The_Nudist_on_the...

For Xerox, Hiltzik's Dealers of Lightning is a good source.

(The opportunities that Xerox lost because of short-sightedness, political shenanigans and just plain incompetence will probably make you mad. It's a good cautionary tale).

If you want to read more about ARPANET, check out _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_... covers the whole development... great read!

Just finished The Computer Boys Take Over, by Nathan Ensmenger: fascinating read about the deep roots of computing culture. Many of the debates we have today were already raging in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, including:

* professionalism vs individual creativity * the value of credentials * terrible interview practices * gender roles / biases * theory/academia vs pragmatism/industry

Recommend the book for getting some historical perspective on these topics.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/computer-boys-take-over