What the Dormouse Said

Most histories of the personal computer industry focus on technology or business. John Markoff’s landmark book is about the culture and consciousness behind the first PCs—the culture being counter– and the consciousness expanded sometimes chemically. It’s a brilliant evocation of Stanford California in the 1960s and ’70s where a group of visionaries set out to turn computers into a means for freeing minds and information. In these pages one encounters Ken Kesey and the phone hacker Cap’n Crunch est and LSD The Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Lab. What the Dormouse Said is a poignant funny and inspiring book by one of the smartest technology writers around.