
Silicon Valley History - rmason
http://patrickcollison.com/svhistory
======
rogerbinns
I highly recommend "The Secret History of Silicon Valley" \- a talk given at
the Computer History Museum. It starts with talk about radar and electronic
warfare in WWII. "Every WWII movie you have ever seen that included airplanes
on bombing missions is wrong". That soon becomes the genesis of universities
in the war effort (research), east vs west coast, and Stanford with Fred
Terman who is widely credited as being the father of Silicon Valley (along
with William Shockley). He encouraged students to set up companies, sometimes
investing in them too.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)
Hour long video

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Terman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Terman)

------
smoyer
It doesn't take place in Silicon Valley but I thought "Soul of a New Machine"
[1] was a great read!

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-A-New-
Machine/dp/0316491977](http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-A-New-
Machine/dp/0316491977)

~~~
vram22
Yes, I read that book some years ago and thought it was a great read too - in
the sense of entertaining, like a novel, even though it is mainly about the
computer industry and the race to create that computer, a next generation Data
General minicomputer. It's also to a good extent about skunkworks style
product development. I love that quote about pinball in the book; won't spoil
it for readers by saying what it is, but it is likely to appeal to many people
on HN.

~~~
vram22
Just saw this, from the Wikipedia article about the book, and thought it worth
posting:

[http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/soul.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/soul.html)

It's a short article in Wired about Tom West, the leader of the team that
built the machine, many years later, when he was retired in a coastal town.

------
DonHopkins
What was the name of that slightly fictionalized story that somebody wrote
about the rise and fall of the iPhone fart app?

Aha there it is: [http://www.flailfast.com/](http://www.flailfast.com/)

Along with Jacob’s laughter. “I thought it was hilarious. I mean, we both ate
like pigs at the time, and I wasn’t surprised that Ben had to let one go, but
man...what a doozy.” Ben and Jacob left the breakout room early; they feared a
hazmat team was required to make the room usable again. But they couldn’t stop
listening to the video as they walked back to Jacob’s apartment. Jacob
remembered his epiphany; he didn’t think much of it then. “I didn’t like
having to pull out my Flip cam to listen to it over and over again, when I had
my iPhone right there. It deserved to be more convenient.” As soon as they
returned to Jacob’s apartment, he built a (aptly described) “quick and dirty”
iPhone app that could serve his purposes. All the app displayed was a big red
button and the word “FART!” underneath it. Satisfied that it functioned as
expected, Ben spent some time prettying up the button, and installed it on his
own phone. The novelty refused to disappear as they pressed the button over
and over again; the staying power of Ben’s indigestion was unprecedented.

------
yzzxy
I like the doorstopper _Fire In The Valley_ a lot and have read it several
times. It hits basically every part of SV history, following personal
narratives of major players in each time period. This style makes it very
interesting to read.

Disclaimer: I have no idea where it stands with regards to factual accuracy.

[http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Valley-Personal-Computer-
Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Valley-Personal-Computer-
Edition/dp/0071358927)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I just read the latest edition, what really struck me is how many of the
giants of the industry were really just in the right place at the right time.

------
chubot
Great talk about Silicon Valley history:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ)

I watched this talk a long time ago, but I just noticed the name is Steve
Blank, the "customer development" guy, and I have one of his books. That's
pretty cool.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank)

------
walterbell
A few more references:

(Commodore) _The Home Computer Wars_ , Michael Tomczyk
[http://michaeltomczyk.com/Tech-Pioneer.php](http://michaeltomczyk.com/Tech-
Pioneer.php)

(Apple) _The Apple Revolution_ , Luke Dormehl,
[http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-apple-revolution-book-
revie...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-apple-revolution-book-review/)

 _A Bibliography of the Personal Computer_ , Roy Allan,
[https://archive.org/details/ABibliographyOfThePersonalComput...](https://archive.org/details/ABibliographyOfThePersonalComputer)

 _A History of the Personal Computer_ , Roy Allan,
[https://archive.org/details/A_History_of_the_Personal_Comput...](https://archive.org/details/A_History_of_the_Personal_Computer)

~~~
leoc
If you want Commodore, there's _On the Edge_ by Brian Bagnall
[http://www.amazon.com/On-Edge-Spectacular-Rise-
Commodore/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Edge-Spectacular-Rise-
Commodore/dp/0973864907) and its half-a-second-edition _Commodore: A Company
on the Edge_ .

~~~
hansjorg
Deathbed Vigil by Dave Haynie might also be interesting, the last days of
Commodore:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QKnGTEiJo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QKnGTEiJo)

------
dangoldin
Also not on the list and doesn't take place in SV but I loved it and the
culture is very SV like - [http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-
Lockheed/dp/0316743003)

------
rmason
Here's a great PBS documentary on the history of the transistor which is also
a great look into both the creation of Silicon Valley and Intel

[http://video.pbs.org/video/2332168287/](http://video.pbs.org/video/2332168287/)

------
leoc
There's a new book on Intel out, /The Intel Trinity/
[http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062226761/the-intel-
trinity](http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062226761/the-intel-trinity) by
Michael S. Malone.

~~~
drudru11
have you read it. I think highly of Michael Malone's great coverage of silicon
valley.

~~~
leoc
So far I've just dipped into it at the bookshops. Maybe a _little_ bit
inspirational and personality-centric, but overall Malone seems to be fairly
well-informed (I am not a topic expert) and not concerned to sugar-coat the
bad. For a book billed as a joint biography, it's disappointing that the
author doesn't seem to have had any direct access to the subjects. But if
you're interested in a popular history of Intel or the first decades of the
semiconductor industry then I think this should do nicely. (However see this
lukewarm review on Amazon:
[http://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZKDIXCGFBZ02/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZKDIXCGFBZ02/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00G2A7WL2)
.)

~~~
drudru11
Thanks. Yeah, I just saw the computer history interview with him for the book.
I gotta check this out.

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davepeck
This is a great list and seems to nicely complement a list of similar intent I
posted a while back: [https://davepeck.org/2014/01/02/hacker-history-
bookshelf](https://davepeck.org/2014/01/02/hacker-history-bookshelf)

I love that Robert Noyce makes an appearance in Patrick's list; I feel that he
did much to set the tone for entrepreneurship in the Valley.

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zeeshanm
Here's another good book, published by Silicon Valley Historical Association

[http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!silicon-valley-
hist...](http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!silicon-valley-history-
book/c166b)

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yang140
I really like The Innovators by Walter Isaacson, it is a great book about the
whole computer history and many ideas that made it possible.

------
simonebrunozzi
This is a great list, thanks Patrick.

The problem with these lists is that I never find time to go through them
properly.

~~~
gargarplex
Not everyone has to be a credible, billionaire startup founder.

