Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer Paperback – 4 Oct. 2004

Like many of my age group, I grew up programming BASIC and playing games on my home computers - I started with a Commodore VIC 20, and moved on to a Commodore 64, thus entering into fierce 'competetion' with various Sinclair Spectrum-owning friends. The sense of tribal brand loyalty among owners of these incompatible computer systems now seems quite unfathomable. This book comments on this, and also presents an excelllent collection of photographs and information on these machines and many others. It collectively tells the story of how these systems evolved, and how they were ultimately doomed, giving way to the ubiquitous PC's and Apple Macs of today. It would be nice to see a follow-up book of the classic games and perhipherals that went with these computers, but this will do me for now - an excellent, nostalgic, informative resource for us nerds of the 80's. Highly recommended.

This book really is fantastic in so many ways.They way it is written, you do not need to be a techno-whizz to understand what is being said. It gives a historical background to the machines featured, as well as technical specifications, and a critique of the design of the hardware.The photos to accompany the text are very vibrant and illustrate the models well.Even though I am far to young to remember any of the machines first time around, I have speant many hours mulling over this book, and it has been instrumental in my passion for retrocomputing.

Perfect as a gift for someone who loves retro technology.Loads of information and good ratio of text and photos to make a great coffee table book.The design is so unique and the book feels and looks high quality.

A balanced look at the era which produced some well known industry figures. The machines reviewed and explained are presented in chronolgogical order along with the story of their creators. The hardware is well photographed as it should be with the authors expertise. No doubt it will prompt vigorous discussion in some circles but only with regard to those machines omitted. A fine work well researched and presented.

BrilliantHad everything from NeXT to the spectrum in between.

This is my first review in 10 years of buying from Amazon. This book is a real classic. Well presented, and with lovely photographs and content. A real coffee table book for the enthusiast. My only gripe is that some classic UK machines are missing. Where is the Memotech MTX 512, Sord CGL M5, Enterprise 128, and Sam Coupe. I know they have limited space but these should be in there as UK machines.Peter Jones

Great book. Fantastic photography and well written notes.A real blast down memory lane, I owned a lot of the hardware featured in this book - I only wish I hung onto it as many old computers now go for a fortune on ebay! This book is some small compensation.

The first thing that I noticed is that this book has a nice, glossy, quality feel about it. It does not go into huge architectural detail about each machine but has a good degree of the origins and other interesting info about them. The range of machines covered is very wide and overall I would recommend this book to all ages.