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Home Computers

100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation

Alex Wiltshire, John Short

£24.95

Showcases the quirky and characterful beginnings of a commercial product that would come to unite the globe: the personal computer

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Overview

As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of machines, industrial design and techno-utopianism of an era in the not-so-distant past.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.

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Reviews

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

'A definite page-turner'
Custom PC

Product Information

Book Details

Format: PLC

Size: 24.6 x 21.0 cm

Extent: 256 pp

Illustrations: 401

Publication date: 16 April 2020

ISBN: 9780500022160

About the Author

Alex Wiltshire is a writer and consultant for videogames, design and technology. He is the author of the bestselling book Minecraft Blockopedia, and the editor of Britsoft: An Oral History. Previously editor of Edge, he has also written for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, PC Gamer and Eurogamer.