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∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°
∙ ∙
∙ FROM A WILDER SHORE ∙
∙ ∙
∙ STEN's book review page ∙
∙ ∙
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°
This is a new area in which we take a look at the best computer (and
other) books that we've encountered in the previous two months. STEN
readers and contributors all have their own and very individual tastes,
so this could develop into quite an interesting regular read. If you'd
like to recommend any books, or better still if you'd like to review them
yourself, then contact John Weller at the usual address.
In this issue we have reviews of:
"COMPUTERS AND CHAOS" by Conrad Bessant
"COMPUTER LIB" by Ted Nelson
"ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES: How the Boys of Silicon Valley
Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition,
and Still Can't Get a Date" by Robert X. Cringely
"REPLAY" by Ken Grimwood
~and~
"THE NEW WRITER: Techniques for Writing Well with a Computer"
by Joan P. Mitchell
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∙ ∙
∙ 'COMPUTERS AND CHAOS' by CONRAD BESSANT. ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Reviewed by Evelyn Mills ∙
∙ ∙
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Are you interested in fractals from a creative point of view ? Not
in theory but from a PRACTICAL aspect; this being the case then this is
the book for you. Conrad Bessant introduces the erstwhile programmer to
the subject in a way which must surely appeal to all programmers -
beginners or expert alike. All the features of the ST are brought forth
including sound and colour.
Example programs are given in GFA Basic V2.O) and are fully
annotated so that all steps in programming are well understood. The
reader will be pleasantly surprised at the shortness of many of the
listings required to produce 'instant fractals'. However additional
listings are given in GFA in Appendix A which will provide all the
relevant routines for screen dumps, loading and saving pictures and
handling Degas Pic files - plus some useful C language routines.
Well don't let all this preamble put you off - there is a lot of
pleasure here combined with theory which is soundly based on TRUE
fractals. If you are not mathematically inclined, just type in a short
list in GFA and run it - this should stimulate you no end. It should be
said that all the theory of fractal generation has been reduced to its
simplest terms by the author and should be well understood by most; good
diagrams are there and screen dumps galore to show you what to expect
from your efforts.
The book starts out with the creation of a SIERPINSKI triangle with
two iterations - i.e. a structured pattern of triangles based on a few
simple rules. Good hints are given here on how to alter the program to
create different ratio aspects. Indeed there is no harm in playing around
with most of the listings - a good many surprises can result from minor
changes. At this point, don't forget to enter the screen resolution and
Fplot lists given - they will be used continually - resolution is set
for LOW.
At this point, if you are anxious to get on to more familiar &
interesting ground, skip some 2O pages and plunge straight into the
Mandelbrot set -solid ground here with mathematics related to the GFA
listings - colour is now brought into the general theme. Well all
readers must surely be familiar with the Mandlebrot set and here you have
the full explanation and listings both to read and to use - it would be a
pity if you miss out on the explanations of fractal growth in this
setting as here is the whole concept of fractal creation explained in
detail in a readable form !!
The sister to Mandelbrot is, of course, Julia, and full listings are
given here as well for the variable sets. Note how similar the M and J
sets are - the simple variation between the two is discussed on Page 73.
A very complete Julia listing is given with 'bells and whistles' (7
pages). Here you will find out how to create a menu, to zoom, print-out,
enter necessary controls etc. Good illustrations are here to show you the
result of your labours.
Where do we go from here ?? Imitating nature is next with 'plants,
shrubs and trees' - then on to the original Koch SNOWFLAKE procedure. All
lists are present for interesting graphics. The most eye-catching
procedures of LANDSCAPE GENERATION follows this and there is an
impressive progression through to 3D fractals. The theory of this is
logical if you have studied the 2D M and J fractals - the third
dimensional Z POINT is introduced into the calculations and a listing is
given of the Mandelbrot plotter with the Z point introduced - more good
illustrations here and, at this point, you should be enjoying your
fractals to the full - the author is very logical in his explanations.
Appendix A provides a series of useful routines for those not
conversant with GFA programming; Appendix B is there to provide the
reader with some necessary mathematic equations as required by this
language. These are most useful in the sense that it is important to know
how to organise bracketing of equations etc. The maths itself is
elementary enough - percentages, indices and sin/cos/tan evaluations. The
basic conversion equations for radians to degrees and vice versa should
prove helpful in the event that any program you may care to use does not
have the required 'inverse' sin/cos/tan inputs. Also brought to the fore
is the fact that all non-integer variables must be suffixed by a #
character.
Should you prefer to have all the listings on a support disk, this
is available for loading into GFA BASIC (NOTE: higher than 2) at a cost
of £8.99 from Conrad Bessant, Appletrees, 8 The Marsh, Carlton,
Bedfordshire MK43 7JU.
This is a well written, lavishly illustrated, good value for money
book at a cost of £14.95. Available from Sigma Press, 1 South Oak Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 6AR.
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∙ ∙
∙ "ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES: How the Boys of Silicon Valley ∙
∙ Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, ∙
∙ and Still Can't Get a Date" by Robert X. Cringely ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Viking, 1992, 324pp hbk, ISBN 0-670-84561-2, £14.95 ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Reviewed by John Weller ∙
∙ ∙
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This is the funniest book, of any type, that I have read in the last
two years. Cringely writes a regular column for the InfoWorld trade
magazine, and has produced a book that not only sets out the why and how
of how the personal computer revolution happened, but also how much of it
happened by pure chance.
Cringely's main thesis is:
"1. It all happened more or less by accident.
2. The people who made it happen were amateurs.
3. And for the most part they still are."
To prove this he first considers the individuals who started the
microcomputer industry - what were they like, what were they trying to
prove, and who to. His conclusions aren't very flattering:
"The founders of the microcomputer industry were groups of
boys who banded together to give themselves power. They weren't
rebels; they resented their parents and society very little. Their
only alienation was the usual hassle of the adolescent - a feeling
of being prodded into adulthood on somebody else's terms. So they
split off and started their own culture, based on the completely
artificial but totally understandable rules of computer
architecture. They defined, built, and controlled (and still
control) an entire universe in a box - an electronic universe of
ideas rather than people - where they made the rules and could at
last be comfortable.
And turning this culture into a business? That was just a
happy accident that allowed these boys to put off forever the
horror age - that dividing line to adulthood that they would
otherwise have been forced to cross after college."
In short, they were nerds like you or me, with a nerdish obsession
that for once hit the jackpot. Once Cringely has shaken his head over
the type of person who founded and still runs the microcomputer empires
(Bill Gates, Gary Kildall, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs), he goes on to
consider the nature of programmers:
"The two programmer sub-species that *are* worthy of notice are
the hippies and the nerds. Nearly all great programmers are one
type or the other. Hippie programmers have long hair and
typically, even pridefully, ignore the seasons in their choice of
clothing. They wear shorts and sandals in the winter and T-shirts
all the time. Nerds are neat little anal-retentive men with
a penchant for short-sleeved shirts and pocket protectors. Nerds
carry calculators; hippies borrow calculators. Nerds use
decongestant sprays; hippies use cocaine. Nerds typically know
forty-six different ways to make love but don't know any women.
Hippies know women."
Once you've stopped laughing, you're ready to consider Cringely's
next two chapters on the way that intelligence is distributed through the
population, and the hardware culture that our heroes grew up in.
Most of them had fathers or relatives who worked at the major semi-
conductor factories in and around Silicon Valley, and had access to the
expertise (and scrapped parts) needed to fuel their obsession. But, and
most importantly, they also absorbed the 'start-up' ethos that was all
around them. Your boss wouldn't let you develop your pet project? Hell,
you just left and started your own company! Add to this a pinch of the
'60's counter-culture, and you had a potent entrepreneureal mix.
The remaining chapters show in amusing detail how many of the
decisions that formed the business computer world were arrived at purely
by chance. Let's take a couple of examples:
IBM originally chose Gary Kildall's CP/M as the operating system for
the PC, but failed to sign a contract as he'd decided to go flying that
day. Bill Gate's Microsoft was the next company to be approached, and
Honest Bill talked them into using a 16 bit processor and operating
system. Microsoft had no experience of operating systems - their
expertise was solely in microcomputer languages - but it just so happened
that Seattle Computer Products had developed a 16 bit O/S called QDOS
(Quick and Dirty Operating System) that used CP/M commands - not
surprisingly, as most of the code had been 'borrowed' from CP/M. Gates
bought QDOS from Phoenix, licenced it to IBM as PC-DOS, and sat back to
rake in the dollars.
VisiCalc, the very first spreadsheet programme, was the 'compelling
application' that sold the Apple ][ into the business world. And why had
it been developed for the Apple ][ alone, and not for the Commodore Pet
or the Radio Shack TRS-80? Quite simply because Don Bricklin, the
originator of the spreadsheet idea, was broke, had no previous experience
of microcomputers and was loaned an Apple by his publisher. "No
technical merit was involved in the decision". VisiCalc sold direct to
the business community, and Apple established themselves on its back.
The problem with reviewing this book is that it's so good that I'd
like to quote from every page of it. It's beautifully written, genuinely
funny, and an essential primer for anyone who wants to know the true
history of the microcomputer industry. Cringely covers every major
development from the early micros, through operating systems and
languages to the current day, and finishes with his view of the future of
the industry.
If you want to find out why mainframe computing will die on the
stroke of midnight, December 31, 1999, or why Amerika should concentrate
on software and let the Japanese keep the hardware market, then you'll
just have to read this superb book.
∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙
∙ ∙
∙ COMPUTER LIB & DREAM MACHINES by Ted Nelson ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Tempus Books (Microsoft Press) ∙
∙ Distributed in the UK by Penguin ∙
∙ ISBN 0-914845-49-7, 1987, 328pp pbk, £9.95 ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Reviewed by John Weller ∙
∙ ∙
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The best way to introduce this cult book, regarded by many as the
first and finest about personal computing, is to quote from Stewart
Brand's introduction. Old hippies out there (hi!) will recognise Brand
as the originator of The Whole Earth Catalogue; a Amerikan magazine of
the sixties and early seventies that was at the forefront of the
alternative technology and counter-culture movements.
"'Revolution' is an over-used word these days, especially around new
technology, most especially around computer technology. For the coming of
personal computers, however, it's the right word because the people who
made the event happen saw themselves as revolutionaries and acted
accordingly. In motivation, style, and global effect, they fought and won
a second American Revolution. It was all quite ironic. At the very time
in the late '60s through the mid '70s that the New Left was noisily
advocating populist political revolution and conspicuously failing, a
tiny sub-subculture of the Counter-Culture was quietly, invisibly
fomenting a populist computer revolution, and the shock of *their*
success was heard around the world."
This 10" x 9" book is in fact composed of two books: 'Computer Lib'
runs to page 177, and you then turn the book upside down to read the 153
pages of 'Dream Machines'. This should give you some clue to the unusual
nature of it.... Both books are designed to be dipped into at random and
consist of text, drawings, clip art, slogans, charts, pictures - anything
that helps to explain a particular point or idea. The effect is of a
scrapbook of thoughts, quotations and articles explaining why the
personal computer revolution had to come, and how it freed hackers from
the tyranny of the mainframe world.
Nelson takes his readers on a guided tour of mainframes, mini-
computers, personal computers, languages, the importance of software,
'Cybercrud' (self-important jargon), 'some great computers' (LINC, PDP 8,
Burroughs 5000 and 5500, Cray 1 and 2, the VAX series), computer people,
computer pranks, biographies of DEC, Apple, Commodore, Atari, Xerox,
AT&T, Datapoint, and IBM, interleaved with a stream of snippets,
thoughts, jokes and ideas.
'Dream Machines' continues Nelson's obsessions, but is more concerned
with the interactive nature of computing, and how this can be used in a
libertarian way. He covers graphics, computer art and artists,
'alternative TV', audio and computers, but the main emphasis is on his
own Hypertext theories. Hypertext is a system that Nelson has developed
since the late '60's in which the links between texts stored on a network
are as important as the texts themselves. He envisages future systems in
which all information can be accessed, added to, and have connections
made between items. The ideas are presented in his own inimitable way,
although the overall tone is more serious than 'Computer Lib'.
I'd recommend this book particularly to anyone who's interested in
the creative and liberating possibilities of computers, or to anyone who
wants to see what was lost when the Golden Age of computing fossilised
into the Business Age. Ted Nelson's style can be a little whimsical at
times, but his enthusiasm and involvement shine through on every page.
Computer Lib - right on!
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∙ ∙
∙ THE NEW WRITER: Techniques for Writing Well with a Computer ∙
∙ ∙
∙ by Joan P. Mitchell ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Microsoft Press, 1987, 245 pp large format pbk ∙
∙ ISBN 1-55615-0296, £6,95 ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Reviewed by John Weller ∙
∙ ∙
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Joan Mitchell is a lecturer in English at the University of
California, and intends her book not only to be used as a guide to the
craft of writing with a computer, but as a way of using a computer to
focus on ideas and improve your writing. The screenshots used are of a
Macintosh running Word, but these are purely illustrations, and any
machine can be used for the excercises and techniques themselves.
This beautifully designed book covers every aspect of writing, from
the initial brainstorming and note-taking, through to planning your work,
creating a rough draft, paragraph construction, editing, considering the
layout of your work on the page, and formatting different types of work
for publication.
Most books that pretend to teach you 'the tricks of the writing
trade' are, in fact, useless. The old adage that "those who can, do,
those who can't, teach", applies with a vengeance to writing, and this is
one of the few books that tells the truth; the way to learn to write is
through writing, editing, and considering. There are no short cuts or
tricks of the trade.
Mitchell uses practical examples throughout the book and concludes
each chapter with one or two problem-solving exercises. If you take your
writing seriously and would like to improve on it, then this is the ideal
companion for you.
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∙ 'Replay' by Ken Grimwood ∙
∙ ∙
∙ Reviewed by Jane Henniker ∙
∙ ∙
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This is a book which not only provides escape while reading it, but
also material for much enjoyable speculation. I read this book for the
third time a few weeks ago.
Replay is the story of Jeff Winston, an undistinguished radio
newsman who at the age of 42, concerned for his failing marriage and
disillusioned with life, suffers a heart attack and dies at his desk
while on the phone to his wife. He regains consciousness in his room at
college. It is 1963, he is eighteen years old and ahead of him are 25 of
the most violent years in world history. With a journalist's knowledge of
world events over the next quarter century he sets out to have another go
at life and on the same day in 1988 he dies again, only to find himself
awake once more in 1963.
Jeff Winston is a likeable character, very human and easy to relate
to, emotionally as ill-equipped as anyone to deal with his peculiar,
often hopeless situation. After one spectacular attempt to alter the
course of history he realises that despite his easily acquired wealth and
his foreknowledge, he really is a small fish and powerless to change the
world by himself. Even with the accumulated wisdom of several lifetimes
he still makes mistakes and wrong assumptions. These repeated awakenings
become almost unbearable but there is no choice other than to go through
it all again along with poor Jeff.
This is one of several books I have which really can withstand
repeated reading and which compels me to lay it aside often to think at
length about what I have read and ask myself questions. How would I feel,
how would I cope, which parts of history and my own life would I try to
change and what might happen as a result. No doubt everyone has had
similar thoughts. This book is powerful enough almost to make it seem
possible and afterwards I was surprised to feel just a little bit annoyed
that this is only fantasy.
In Ken Grimwood's writing I found everything I look for in a good
piece of fiction. He is perceptive, literate, with a real understanding
of people, their relationships and problems. His writing seems natural
and effortless and there was nothing intrusive enough to remind me that
I was reading. Himself a newsman in California, he shows a deep understan-
ding and knowledge of these 25 years and this book was a thought
provoking lesson in recent history as well as a fast moving adventure
story. Much careful thought and observation has clearly gone into it and
even after the third reading I emerged with more new thoughts on how our
society, and America in particular, came to be what it is today and what
might have happened instead.
~~~~~eof~~~~~