Revolution In The Valley

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now and figured it was time to get it out there given that I don’t have time to actually write anything new at the moment because of law school finals (in case there was ever any doubt, law school finals suck).

A couple of months ago I started to read Revolution in the Valley – The Insanely Great Story of How The Mac Was Made, and it’s just that, insanely great. I picked it up one very exciting Friday night when a friend and I were at the local Borders “studying.” I couldn’t stop reading it, but I was informed that I had to part with it because the store was closing and the guy was all like, “You can’t take that out of the store without paying for it.” I thanked him for the heads-up and put the book down.

Between the often personal stories (as told by a lot of different members of the initial Mac team), pictures, drawings, and diagrams, the book really sucks you into the mindset and environment of those so passionate about the Mac at its inception, and oddly, makes me somewhat proud to be a small part of that today.

I was informed by Richard (who has some similar anecdotes of his own) that I could essentially read the entire book online, but I opted instead to pick it up every now and again when I was in the library at school (you know, to put some small portion of my $30,000/year tuition to good use).

If you don’t get a chance to check it out in the flesh (highly recommended), you should at least read over a few of my favorite stories:

Reality Distortion Field

Bud defines Steve’s unique talent

Saving Lives

Steve wants us to make the Macintosh boot faster

I’ll Be Your Best Friend

Burrell Smith was creative in more than just engineering

Quick, Hide In This Closet!

Steve forbid us to work with Sony

And Then He Discovered Loops!

Bob has written many lines of code

I Invented Burrell

Burrell imitates Jef

What’s A Megaflop?

We visit my alma mater to try to sell them Macs

-2000 Lines Of Code

It’s hard to measure progress by lines of code

Shut Up!

The first time we demoed the Macintosh to Microsoft

Mea Culpa

Here are some of our worst mistakes