Home Computers

100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation

$49.99

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

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ISBN: 9780500022160 Category:

Alex Wiltshire

Description

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As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of machines, industrial design and techno-utopianism of an era in the not-so-distant past.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

Additional information

Weight 1252 g
Dimensions 25.4 x 21.8 cm
Publisher name Thames and Hudson Ltd
Publication date 16 April 2020
Number of pages 288
Format Hardback
Contributors Photographs by John Short
Dimensions 25.4 x 21.8 cm
Weight 1252 g
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.