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

[John W. Linville]

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.