Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/3565-4.665/dmg-3609/news.txt/books.asc

Text File | 1985-11-19 | 24KB | 426 lines

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                      ∙     FROM A WILDER SHORE    ∙
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                      ∙   STEN's book review page  ∙
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     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.




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            ∙                                               ∙
            ∙  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.



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