Book Review: On the Edge by Brian Bagnall - a podcast by ApocD
from 2008-02-09T20:27:09
On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodorefollows Commodore from its humble beginnings as a typewriter manufacturing company to being one of the biggest players in the proliferation of the personal computer.
The Good:The story's engaging and the people involved really come to life through the quotes and descriptions. An underlying theme throughout the book is that on several occasions, if things had been handled a little differently, we'd all be using Commodores now instead of PC clones and Apples. These missteps are usually, if not always, by management, who seem to have no understanding of computers or the computer market.
I had a Commodore 64 when I was a kid. It was great reading about the time constraints the engineering team was under to deliver the C64; it was so rushed there were a lot of quality control problems with the machines. My C64 was fine, but I remember a C64 at school that had a Y key on the keyboard where the T should have been. It was also cool to read about the Peek and Poke commands to make graphics, something I hadn't thought of in about 20 years.
I also like that his book counters a lot of Apple revisionist history. Now, if I could just find an Amiga to replace my current Mac.
Overall:It's an engaging read and highly recommended, despite the lack of proofreading, for anyone involved with computers in the 70's/80's.
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