I just finished John Markoff’s “What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry.” It’s been on my list for a while. Overall, it was a great read.
Some of it is a rather dry account of the rise of the personal computer in Silicon Valley. And at times Markoff seems to generalize about the connection between the computer innovators and the counterculture. But there are strong ties in many spots, especially in the way LSD and the counterculture affected the worldview of these folks and their attitudes. It goes a long way to explain the open source movement and some of the collaborative approaches to development that have characterized the rise of the personal computer.
A few interesting notes: