alt.hn

5/25/2026 at 10:29:07 PM

Micromania: The Whole Truth about Home Computers (1984)

 https://taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=Micromania

by sohkamyung

5/29/2026 at 5:39:46 AM

> This leads us to Platt’s Second Law of Computers: People like computers because computers do what they’re told. The job they actually perform is less important than their obedience in doing it.

This is why I loved computers as a kid. The adults and systems around me were capricious but computers had reproducible behavior.

by saulpw

5/29/2026 at 8:46:30 AM

This is interesting. I became enamoured of computers in the 8 bit age because those blinking cursors seemed to offer endless possibilities. I don’t think I ever looked at one as obedient, more a willing but strict companion.

In a lot of ways the LLM era seems like a culmination of that illusion.

by smackeyacky

5/28/2026 at 11:40:59 PM

"My second computer is a Commodore 64, which I use for developing game programs. This machine was my software publisher’s choice; I would have preferred an Atari."

Now I know the author was legit.

by MoonWalk

5/29/2026 at 1:53:17 AM

Asolutely. Atari 800 > Commodore 64.

by jnaina

5/29/2026 at 12:45:41 AM

I’ve still got a copy of this on a shelf somewhere in the house. Mine is the paperback edition with the funky comic style artwork of a dishevelled guy hunching over a computer in the middle of a tip of a room though.

I can’t remember whether I bought it or was given it, but it would have been some time around 1988 or 1989, because I think I still had my ZX Spectrum at that point. Or I might have picked it up on a choir tour in the early summer of 1990 - by which time I was into a relatively brief ownership of a C64 - because I have distinct memories of reading it on a narrow boat.

I enjoyed it quite a lot but, even then, its somewhat satirical take on microcomputers and the culture around them already felt quite outdated in many ways, so it was like a slightly jaded insider’s view into a past I hadn’t quite experienced - especially user groups.

At any rate it obviously made an impression because 36 years later I still own it - even though I probably haven’t read it in 35 years (though I did read it several times) - which I cannot say for a lot of books I had from my childhood and teen years.

by bartread