Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation - Hardcover

Wiltshire, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 050002216X ISBN 13: 9780500022160

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2020

Synopsis

Home Computers showcases the quirky and characterful beginnings of a commercial product that would come to unite the globe: the personal computer.

As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of machines, industrial design and techno-utopianism of an era in the not-so-distant past. Conceived as a visual sourcebook of the most popular, most powerful and most idiosyncratic computers to grace our workspaces, this timely publication offers a reflection on how far we’ve come and a nostalgic look at a time when digital worlds could be contained in a box and turned off, rather than ever-present in our lives.

Home Computers opens with a scene-setting retrospective by computer and gaming writer Alex Wiltshire. The book’s heart is a series of specially commissioned photographs that capture details of switches and early user-interface design, letterforms and logos, and the quirks that set one computer off from another. Images are complemented by a potted history of each device, the inventors or personalities behind it, and its innovations and influences.

About this title

About the Authors

Alex Wiltshire is author of several books, including Home Computers: 100 Icons That Defined a Digital Generation, Minecraft Blockopedia, and two oral histories of early game industries: Britsoft and Japansoft. He also writes about videogames, design and technology for various magazines and websites. A former editor of Edge magazine, he is publishing editor at videogame developer Mojang, where he creatively manages licensed books about Minecraft. He lives in Bath, UK.

John Short is best known for his still life, interiors and landscapes. His work is regularly published in Wallpaper*.

From the Back Cover

It is all too easy to forget, as we go through life with computers in our pockets, that the digital revolution started at home. Home Computers showcases the quirky and characterful beginnings of a commercial product that would come to unite the globe: the personal computer. As so much technology is forgotten once it is superseded, this is a celebration of industrial design and techno-utopianism from the not-so-distant past. Conceived as a visual sourcebook of the most popular, most powerful and most idiosyncratic computers to grace our workspaces, this timely publication offers a reflection on how far we've come and a nostalgic look at a time when digital worlds could be contained in a box and turned off, rather than everpresent in our lives.
Home Computers opens with a scene-setting retrospective by computer and gaming writer Alex Wiltshire. The book's heart is a series of commissioned photographs that capture details of early user-interface design, letterforms and logos. Images are enlivened by a potted history of each device, the inventors or personalities behind it, and its innovations and influences. These wonderful machines offered a bridge from the analogue to the digital. As such, we would do well to reflect on, and celebrate, the profound changes they have brought.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 050002216X
• ISBN 13: 9780500022160
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256