electronics-industry

This book is an excellent read. I highly reccomend it to all people interested in the video game business. It is very engrossing. Like most people, I enjoy the Tetris section... However, the book is slightly biased. The author does show some distaste towards Nintendo (the previous title was "Game Over: How Nintendo zapped an American industry, captured your dollars and enslaved your children"). He also includes some odd statements about Japan conquering the world through this little NES. But other than that, a truly great book.

...I'd be worth almost as much as M. Arakawa. This book has been referenced many, many times in various articles. If some reporter needs a "secret" fact about Nintendo, they'll turn to this book. "Did you know the president of Nintendo of America has a tendency to fall asleep?" and so on. Of course, this book is worthy of all that referencing, as it is one interesting tale of a pretty interesting, if not secretive, company. If you're interested in knowing a little more about what *really* was the cause of some of the biggest video games in history, this is one source of knowledge. The best part about the book is, if you're a fan of Nintendo (or video games in general) , this book will grab your attention and not let go. For as much of the book is spent on Tetris, it's all that more interesting. Hearing about secret meetings in Communist-run facilities, with these guys from little video game companies running back and forth and deceiving these Russians who don't know what kind of hit they have on their hands... it's James Bond-level stuff! A great read!

While it is not entirely up to date, going only to just past the N64, this book is extremely informative as to the origins of the entire video game industry. It is not limited only to Nintendo, but stretches to every facet of what we know and love today. From the humble beginning of Nolan Bushnell to the era in which Nintendo was lord, ending with the fierce competition between Sony, Sega and Nintendo; it is all very well written without bias or lack of basis. A very worthwhile read for any true gamer.

This book, his first best-known to emerge from Kidder's credible and entertaining non-fiction oeuvre, chronicles the efforts of a group of computer enthusiasts to develop and then gain stake in the then-young (1980) industry. But this book is more than a mere study of technology and its seemingly pervasive sphere of influence. The books speaks to the inherent nature of equity and the just rewards when coupled with good intentions of individuals from where all ideas (great and otherwise) emerge. This book is a judicious and lasting gift to those who know and realize the more positive efforts arising from work in technological field. Highly recommend

I first read this book when I was in high school. I was captivated and enthralled by the story, and I can unabashedly state that it helped refine and accelerate my interest in computer science and engineering.

Tracy Kidder captures a technical world and gives a clear picture at the tremendous challenges of building a state of the art computer system, that must be backwards compatible with legacy architecture, all while doing it in an easy to read manner (and a brilliant original perspective).

It is a heroic, true life story. It was (and still is) one of my all-time favorite books.

I had just finished reading Kidder's "Hometown" about Northampton, MA (a former home of mine), when I decided to read "The Soul of a New Machine". While "Hometown" clearly shows Kidder's maturity as a writer, "The Soul of a New Machine", written roughly 15 years before, demonstrates Kidder's characteristic warmth and eye for detail. "The Soul of a New Machine" is a wonderful book and an archaeological gem for computer history enthusiasts.

I found this book to be riveting (I finished it in a day and a half), and though I am not qualified to comment on the accuracy of Kidder's use of ECE terminology, it most certainly passed my limited geek muster. Kidder presents complex technical information adroitly, creating analogies understandable to the lay person. At the end of the book, I emerged feeling as if I personally knew the characters, and I found myself rooting for the success of the Eclipse Group. Overall, I loved this book. A hacker classic.

I've owned this book for about 15 years, and have read it perhaps 30 or more times. The tale is familiar by now, but the storytelling is compelling, and the subject matter fascinating.

Hackers covers the computer revolution- from research lab to home- up to approximately 1984, right before the Commodore 64 took over as #1 home computer. Even though the book is a large one, Mr. Levy keeps the focus on a single winding narrative throughout. This makes the book interesting to read and relatively easy to follow, but unfortunately tends to leave out parts of the computer revolution that don't fit into his rigid outline.

The outline is as follows: hacking begins at MIT and spreads to Stanford, and we see the genesis of video games in Spacewar. A new movement sprouts in post-hippie California with the release of Intel's first 8-bit chips, and this movement- dedicated to homebrew and user-built systems- is the font from which the Altair and the Apple II spring. Finally, the narrative ends on the rise of game software companies- especially Sierra- on the strength of the Apple II's market share. There's also an epilogue on Richard Stallman. While other stories are recounted in short fashion along the way- John Harris' Sierra/Frogger/Atari story in particular- little is done to acknowledge the larger picture of the industry, whether it's universities outside of MIT and Stanford or Atari's massive rise to and fall from power.

Steven Levy writes much like Tom Wolfe circa-"Right Stuff", and the overall theme and feel of the book is the same as much of Tom Wolfe's books- an expose of a (then) little understood sub-culture, written in an engaging fashion. Even Mr. Levy's use of coined words, phrases, and lingo is much like Tom Wolfe. Technical jargon will be introduced with a simple definition, and then used through the next few chapters either in an ironic fashion, or to let readers feel "in" with the scenario being written about. Bizarre wording and odd phrases also pop up- sometimes apparently for show- and are then repeated over and over. "Croseus Mode" is used over and over to refer to wealth- phrasing like this seems gratuitous and I find it jarring to read, but that's just a personal preference.

Much of the Apple portion of the book will be familiar for those who watched Pirates of Silicon Valley. Just like that TV movie, the book transcends the culture from which it arose, and is great reading for anyone interested in pop culture, sociology, business, or computers.

Hackers, by Steven Levy, should be required reading for anyone who programs computers for a living. Starting from the late 1950s, when the first hackers wrote code for the TX-0 and every instruction counted, to the early 1980s, when computers fully entered the consumer mainstream, and it was marketing rather than hacking which mattered. Levy divides this time into three eras: that of the 'True Hackers,' who lived in the AI lab at MIT and spent most of their time on the PDP series, the 'Hardware Hackers,' mostly situated in Silicon Valley and responsible for enhancing the Altair and creating the Apple, and the 'Game Hackers,' who were also centered in California; expert at getting the most out of computer hardware, they were also the first to make gobs and gobs of money hacking.

The reason everyone who codes should read this book is to gain a sense of history. Because the field changes so quickly, it's easy to forget that there is a history, and, as Santayana said, "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it." It's also very humbling, at least for me, to see what kind of shenanigans were undertaken to get the last bit of performance from a piece of hardware that was amazing for its time, but now would be junked without a thought. And a third takeaway was the transformation that the game industry went through in the early 80s: first you needed technical brilliance, because the hardware was slow and new techniques needed to be discovered. However, at some point, the hard work was all done, and the business types took over. To me, this corresponds to the 1997-2001 time period, with the web rather than games being the focus.

That's one of my beefs--the version I read was written in 1983, and republished, with a new afterword in 1993. So, there's no mention of the new '4th generation' of hackers, who didn't have the close knit communities of the Homebrew Computer Club or the AI lab, but did have a far flung, global fellowship via email and newsgroups. It would be a fascinating read.

Beyond the dated nature of the book, Levy omits several developments that I think were fundamental to the development of the hacker mindset. There's only one mention of Unix in the entire book, and no mention of C. In fact, the only languages he mentions are lisp, basic and assembly. No smalltalk, and no C. I also feel that he overemphasizes 'hacking' as a way that folks viewed and interacted with the world, without defining it. For instance, he talks about Ken Williams, founder of Sierra Online, 'hacking' the company, when it looked to me like it was simple mismanagement.

For all that, it was a fantastic read. The more you identify with the geeky, single males who were in tune with the computer, the easier and more fun a read it will be, but I still think that everyone who uses a computer could benefit from reading Hackers, because of the increased understanding of the folks that we all depend on to create great software.

This book can be read in several ways.

Taking it head-on, it is a true story of some real heroes of the Computer Revolution. People who got into the guts of the machine to truly understand (or "grok") how it works and why. From the Tech Model Railroad Club to Apple, these are the people who we can thank for the Internet, for personal computers and for just about any automated system we take for granted today.

Taken another way, this book demonstrates an often-overlooked way of teaching and learning. The Hackers have one thing in common: An innate desire to learn. Sometimes all it takes is putting a person in a room with something interesting, and letting them explore. That person will learn more than any book or lecture could have taught.

Finally, this book is can be a great gift for a student of computers. Just the thing to inspire someone to greater things.

Now that the dust has settled, the volatility of the stock market during the dot-com boom is a memory that is already disappearing in the rear-view mirror of our collective conscious. It is time for the stories and histories to be told - the recent film Startup.com chronicled the rise and fall of, as you might have guessed, a dot-com startup; this book from Stephan Paternot, cofounder of theglobe.com, is ostensibly in the same vein.
After a prologue talking about the euphoria of IPO day (on which theglobe.com's share price jumped by 1000% before closing up 700% for the first day), Paternot (with a little help from a ghost-writer) talks the reader through his early life, up until his entry into college at Cornell, and the founding of his company. I say, "talks through his life" - that is precisely the tone of the book. It comes across as more than a little rushed, though the story is consistently gripping enough that it scarcely matters that the author's writing style would not be out of place in a Dick and Jane story. There is no doubt that Paternot and his friend and business partner, Todd Krizelman, were in the game right from the very beginning, and created what was probably a terrific Web site that became the Apple Macintosh's number one online community destination. For a pair of 20-somethings, this was a wonderful achievement, and Paternot is rightly proud of his company and its achievements. Some might say a little too proud, and the hubris in the book is sometimes breathtaking; for example, it might surprise aficionados of the internal combustion engine to hear that apparently the Internet is the most important human invention since movable type... though there is little doubt in my mind that the author's enthusiastic knack for hyperbole was probably what allowed him to convince a number of business big-shots to buy into his vision (most notably the ex-Chairman of Alamo Rent-A-Car, Michael Egan).
The book continues on, talking a great deal about stock price movement, and betraying the author's bitterness that theglobe.com was never quite so over-priced as so many other dot-coms (theglobe.com was one of the first companies whose value slid dramatically). Dust-jacket hints about salacious stories of an unconventional rebel wild-child flying in the face of the business establishment are few and far between, unfortunately - I was hoping for a few more tales of bacchanalian debauchery, but Paternot's life doesn't sound too different to that of most young, professional Manhattanites.
Nonetheless, it's certainly an interesting read by a talented person - that talent may not be in the literary field, but then you would hardly read the autobiography of Richard Branson and grumble about lack of literary merit. Ultimately, though, the book fizzles out in a rather unsatisfying way, and I was left with the overwhelming sensation that it was as if the company had never really existed... Perhaps it is fitting, then, that despite Paternot's pride in the fact that his company was still operating at the time of publication, all that is left of theglobe.com today is a message on the Web site: "In 1995, theglobe.com confirmed the Internet's power to connect people worlds apart. Unfortunately, after six amazing years, theglobe.com closed its doors on August 15, 2001... Thank you for your patronage and for the incredible support over the years. Sincerely,
theglobe.com"

I really enjoyed this story. Having grown up in the same time I could relate with the description of reality as the writer describes. He is clearly not a writer by profession, which makes the book seem even more genuine and accurate. This book is a keeper!

I just finished reading this book and I just wanted to say that I think this story is very fascinating. It was akin to reading a private diary. ( I wish I could write like that too.) To be so young and hit it big is the sort of thing that people dream of, myself included. I am 30 years old and so I can relate to some of the things he went through. As was pointed out, on the one hand, Steph and Todd had to conduct themselves as mature businessmen running a company. And on the other hand, he wanted to act the way other 23-year olds act, fun-loving and party-going, with boundless energy.

The last chapter, The Second Coming, was my favorite, as he poses self-searching questions about what new direction to take with his life. I find myself in the same position at this very moment. Good for him that he found his calling--- writing and acting. Hope to see the movie when it comes out.

This book doesn't tell the story of the company SONY, but the career of the people who created and ran it: the Morita's, Ibuka, Ohga, Idei and some US officers - Schulhof, Yetnikoff.

The portraits are very favourable, nearly and sometimes really hagiographies (e.g. 'Yoshiko's genius as a hostess' p. 80)
For a more critical portrait of Akio Morita, see Ian Buruma's 'The Missionary and the Libertine'.

Sony is evidently a big success story, but it is also a tale of egos, ambitions, stress, clashes, strokes, heart attacks and fear of death (Akio Morita: I'll never die).

John Nathan gives us a good picture of the defeated Japan after WWII.
The Columbia saga is well told, but is better unravelled in Nancy Griffin's 'Hit and Run'.
The real story behind the loss of the crucial video battle is not revealed.

A good character study of the people who created a world company from scratch.

Many business books focus exclusively on the physical evidence left behind by a business: the profit and loss statements, product plans and reviews while ignoring the essence of the company. In Sony: The Private Life, Nathan goes far beyond the polished exterior that Sony projects to the world; far beyond simplicity of the money that Sony made and spent. Instead he presents Sony as the complex creature that it is.

The book combines interviews with Sony executives and extensive research. From the first day in post WWII Japan to mid-1998 with offices worldwide, Nathan chronicles the growth of the company. Special attention is paid to how Sony designs and develops products. Nathan delves into the creation of Sony's highly profitable Trinitron line and the birth of the Walkman. Attention is paid to how Sony desires to be consistently different-and-better than its competition, though in some cases, the result is simply being different.

Unfortunately, Nathan seems to walk the company walk in some cases, not delving into controversial subjects as deeply as readers might like. This may, simply, be due to the lack of additional sources on the subject, as much of the book is spent discussing activities that occurred far from the public view. However, as Nathan had already completed several projects for Sony before writing the book, one has to question whether he was able to maintain complete objectivity. In fact, sometimes, Nathan seems more awful of Sony and the Sony founders than he describes most Sony employees as being.

Overall, Sony: The Private Life is an exceptional book. It provides valuable insight into the operations and management style of a Japanese company. Moreover, Nathan's attention to the players, as opposed to simply the company, allows readers understanding to go far beyond that provided by most business books. If you want to understand Sony or Japanese corporations in general, this is the book to buy.

There are many books that chronicle Industrial Design, but very few give even a glimpse behind the closed doors of one of Japan's "thousand-year companies." Dr. Nathan is truly an insider. His understanding of the subtle nuance of Japanese culture and how global business really works makes for great reading. I recommend it to anyone interested in building a company from scratch into the best-loved brand in the world. I read Sony: The Private Life in one sitting - the best business book I've ever read.

"E-Tailing" is a great book for any business owner who wants to have a better understanding of electronic commerce. I have had a web site for three years, but now have a new understanding of the elements that create a stronger online presence. Bernadette Tiernan has successfully managed to address e-tailing in an easy-to-understand and comprehensive manner. I have specialized in business planning for many years and would advise every business teacher and student, and business owner to familiarize themselves with and utilize the concepts presented in "E-Tailing". Kudos for doing a great job of addressing a difficult subject.

Bernadette Tiernan has done a masterful job of organizing the very complicated and fluid subject of E-Tailing. The landscape of e-commerce shifts on an hourly basis but the fundamental elements of success identified and explained in Ms. Tiernan's book will not change. This book is a must read for any E-Tailing Entrepreneur. Even if you already have a website for you business I recommend reading this book if you want grow you business via the web.

Among other books I have purchased on E-trade, I found E-tailing to be the best no-nonsense guide in taking you from basics to the full e-trade business set up. I strongly recommend this book for managers who are considering to put their businesses on line and want to get a foothold on the subject. The book informs well in what steps to take and expected areas that will need to be tackled along the way.

This book is very well written and will give you a lot of instruction on how to use eBay that will save you lots of time. To find out how to sell products on eBay I would recommend Marsha's other book Starting an eBay business for Dummies in addition to this one. I recently became a millionaire buying and selling on eBay in my spare time in addition to my academic work and I can tell you its not that hard. You do have to know the secrets though and this book includes a lot but left out the biggest one. There is a software tool called www.powersnipe.com. eBay auctions are often lost in the last few seconds of the auction because the majority of people wait until the last seconds to place their bids. This tool bids for you at the last second and ensures you win, a big time saver and the biggest key to success.

Ebay is great for buying things and I have been selling a few items. This book covers all the little details that are easy to forget. I find myself jumping around from chapter to chapter, looking up things I need to clarify. The answers are all there, and I keep the book next to my computer. I'm selling more on ebay now, and the tips I got from the book are helping me get higher prices for my items then I did before. Even though ebay is constantly changing - this edition is updated with all the new features.

Grammatical nuances aside, this book is the only book to bring us simplified, up to date information on the ebay site. In Dummies style, its fun and informative and is a solid starting book for the beginner. I found step by step instructions for the the important tasks necessary to be sucessful on ebay. Even though I have been a casual ebay user, I found tips in this book that I couldn't find elsewhere. I recommend it highly for the newcomer to ebay's world.

This is an excellent book that I would recommend for everyone interested in putting a store on the web. However it is NOT a book that explains the actual site design aspect of making your own store. I assumed this would show how to make a store from the site designer's stand point, and this is book only covers what the store owner needs to to do get started.... It is a great book if you want to setup a store for your business, but if you are looking for a book to actually tell you how to add and setup the code or software that runs the e-commerce part of the web site, this is the wrong book.

I am using this book to get my online store up and running - it is an excellent map - showing me the way and steering me clear of the many pitfalls involved in opening an onine store (especially those involving credit cards). I wish there was more information and reviews of the checkout process (shopping cart services) as this is the part I am most confused about -how do I get a shopping cart on my site. There is some coverage of some services and I think there are even more services available now that weren't available when this book was printed. It would be great if the author wrote an updated version but as it is, it is pretty updated and aside from that one tiny complaint - the book is excellent and I highly recommend it. It's the best book out there today!

I am really interested in starting my own web store. After reading this book, I really feel like I can do it! This book covers everything and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to start an e-business but has no idea where to start!

It's true that no completely scientific studies have been done on Dvorak vs Qwerty, but it hardly takes a study to see that Dvorak is better. Qwerty was created before touch typing was ever dreamed of. It's no better than an alphabetic arraingement.

Anyone who touch types knows that some words are harder to type than others because you have to reach for awkward keys or one finger has to do too much work. Dvorak simply makes the common keys easier to get to and all but eliminates the need for one finger to type two letters in succesion. Just think of a word that's easy for you to type in Qwerty (e.g., flask), and consider that the majority of words you type in Dvorak feel like that. Do you believe these agenda driven jokers or your own fingers?

This isn't rocket science. I don't need a study to tell me that a layout designed for touch typing will be better than one that was designed to keep primitive machines from jamming, and I don't trust the authors of a book who will set aside common sense and ignore the obvious in their quest to prove their pet theory.

Also, I think Microsoft is a great company and we're all better off because it exists, but to deny that their OS monopoly gives them a huge advantage in the marketplace for other software products is a special kind of idiocy which can only be obtained through decades of academic isolation.

No economist (or team of economists) has produced during the 1990s research that is as compelling, as exciting, as important, and as well-grounded in both theory and data as that of Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. These guys' work is truly and deeply impressive. And their writing is a joy to read.

They tackle some of the most challenging issues at play in modern economics -- and they succeed brilliantly! Because of the research these two scholars produced earlier in this decade, it is inexcusable for anyone to trot out the success of the QWERTY keyboard or that of the VHS tape as examples of "inefficient lock-in." Because of the research they have done, and report clearly, in this new book, it is now inexcusable for anyone to claim that Microsoft's market success is due exclusively -- or even principally -- to "path-dependency" or "inefficient lock-in."

Liebowitz and Margolis show beyond any reasonable doubt that in those markets where Microsoft achieves and maintains a large market share, it does so by offering consumers deals that consumers fine attractive. Period.

WINNERS, LOSERS, AND MICROSOFT is economics at its finest and most relevant.

There are a lot of myths about why products succeed or fail. Many claim that customers get "locked into" products simply because they arrive on the scene first even when much better products are available. Some claim that Microsoft has taken over different markets despite inferior software simply because of the monopoly that it has in operating systems. Liebowitz and Margolis provide straightforward, convincing, and imaginative evidence that these claims are false.

It is amazing how many stories like the superiority of the DVORAK keyboard hang around for years with no supporting evidence. They make for great stories, but as these authors point out they are false.

If you want to learn about how markets work, read this book.

Finally, the previous commentor's remarks about these authors being bought off is offensive and false. Liebowitz and Margolis wrote about these issues a decade before Microsoft became involved in its current legal problems. Anyone who reads this book will realize that Microsoft would have been a lot better off if they had hired them rather than the lame effort they got from the MIT business school dean.

I'll admit -- I finished this book relatively quickly. It's a quasi-page turner; that's why I gave it three stars instead of one.

But all along, as Kuo recounts his story of working for a seemingly mentally unstable CEO, he seems to feign naivete. "I saw Craig Winn as a visionary." But in the next paragraph, Kuo is pointing out how Winn was lying to the press and financial analysts. So Kuo really undercuts his own credibility by trying to play both sides here.

Here's my theory: He needed to suck up to Winn to get access in order to write this book. So even though he points out Winn's erratic moments and his outright lying, he thanks Winn at the end, and praises him. Ah, the price of media access!

Also, I think Kuo is embarassed, as he should be. He bought the dot-com story hook, line and sinker. He thought he'd be a millionaire, so he desperately wanted to believe Craig Winn's blather. On top of that, Kuo recruited his own wife and in-laws to work at Value America, so he's got a lot to be embarassed about!

Ultimately, Kuo's own equivocation prevents this story from being genuinely compelling.

Holy Mackerel! This insider story, albeit one-sided, of Value America's meteoric rise and equally memorable crash is a page turner. This "true story" is better than any fiction I have read lately.

Starting with the author's arrival at VA, David Kuo takes the reader on a journey through tyrannical leaders, pompous venture capitalists, overpaid executives, starry-eyed employees, furious customers and a laundry list of extravagant ways to waste money.

Just from a purely voyeuristic vantage, this book is an exciting roller coaster ride of good fortune and bad decisions. -- Always makes for a good read. -

However, from a business perspective, it is just plain frightening. From the colossal waste of investor's money to the inner-circle of executive back-stabbing, this book has all the makings of a Hollywood screenplay. I literally couldn't put it down, wondering what disaster was awaiting the cast of characters in the next chapter.

That being said, I realize this book is a very subjective viewpoint of a single employee of VA. Sour grapes? Perhaps. But if even half of what the book purports to be truth is accurate, VA was once a very scary ride for both its employees and investors.

Dot.bomb has it all: a great plot, amazing characters, jaw-dropping twists and some real insights into the Internet Age -- and it's a true story, written by an insider who also happens to be a gifted storyteller. I can't recommend it more highly.

It's a cliche, but I really wasn't able to put this book down. It describes the rise and fall of Value America at a galloping pace that conveys the headlong vertigo of the dot.com gold rush. Its heroes and villains are so much larger than life it's hard to believe they're real people. But Kuo not only has an ear for telling anecdotes and convincing personal details, but an obvious empathy for all of the people he worked with -- including Value America's chairman, a megalomaniac with a heart of gold. Kuo is also refreshingly honest about his own role in this techno-tragicomedy.

The book reads like a combination of Douglas Coupland ("Generation X"), Michael Lewis ("The New New Thing") and Joe Klein ("Primary Colors"). That makes it a riveting read, laugh-out-loud funny, lightly introspective and keenly astute about the intensely political nature of building a business.

Kuo's you-are-there perspective adds extra punch to his surprising conclusion: while you can't believe the hype about the Internet, it really is going to change the world.

When I first picked this book up, I wasn't sure what to expect, or whether I would enjoy reading it given what's happening in the world today. I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. Dot.bomb is both a welcome diversion from today's headlines and a reminder of the positive potential tomorrow holds.