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I find reading books about how people did hard things to be very motivating and therapeutic, especially when facing a difficult task myself! I’ve enjoyed all of
by afandian 2y ago
I find reading books about how people did hard things to be very motivating and therapeutic, especially when facing a difficult task myself! I’ve enjoyed all of these; they were all recommendations from HN.
Showstopper - Windows NT
Losing the Signal - BlackBerry
Made in Japan - Sony
Piloting Palm - Palm
Sweating Bullets - PowerPoint
Folklore.org - Early Apple.
The “Mac Folklore Radio Podcast” [0]. Has a few interesting stories of people innovating and solving challenges.
[0] https://macfolkloreradio.com/ https://macfolkloreradio.com/
- markus_zhang 2y agoShowstopper is a must read for anyone who is interested in living a pure engineering life. David Cutler is one of my heroes and I'll quote: "What I really wanted to do was work on computers, not apply them to problems" I'd also recommend listening to his interviews on YouTube. There are two long interviews, one by David's Garage and the other by CHM. Both very long and inspiring so I keep going back to them when I'm driving.
- ghaff 2y agoIf we're recommending Showstopper (which I do), I'd add Soul of a New Machine about Data General, where I worked for many years--but a bit later.
- markus_zhang 2y agoI have read that too, twice. I love the part that they talked about the microcode, and all others too. Maybe you should write a post about your experience too :) I'm sure it's going to be a blast to read.
- ghaff 2y agoAs I say, I was a bit later--mid-eighties--but I knew Jim Guyer who was one of the microkids as I recall. Helped setup an interview for Command Line Heroes podcast. Do need to get back into writing. Next week. Really.
- markus_zhang 2y agoPlease do! Do you plan to write a book or blogs? Please let us know. I'll look for the podcast at least.
- ghaff 2y agohttps://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minicomputers https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minic... Another interesting pub from around the same period you may be interested in: https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev https://archive.org/details/year-in-dev
- markus_zhang 2y agoThanks! I found it and just listened the podcast. It's pretty interesting albeit a bit short. I'll read the second link too tonight. Thanks again for sharing.
- ghaff 2y agoThey kept the podcasts fairly punchy. Actually both myself and Tom West's daughter were interviewed for it and we were both trimmed in the interests of length in favor of people they they were able to get who had first-hand involvement.
- markus_zhang 2y agoAh that's unfortunate. I wish they kept everything in record at least.
- ghaff 2y agoProductions of things in any format, whether text, audio, or video, don't tend to preserve the cutting floor stuff--especially for public consumption. It's unedited. It's unvetted. It's not the material you're putting out for the public.