first edition

In English

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999

ISBN: 0-88730-891-0 (Wikipedia Book Sources) (Wikipedian kirjalähteet)
LCCN: 98-47043 (Library of Congress)

It was April in Californa's Santa Clara Valley, a fine time to the changing the world. Late one night a group of young engineers clustered in a quiet office in a low-slung building on a crest of the foothills of the Santa Cruz range. They had come quietly, without fanfare, newspapers, or speeches, to witness the birth of the extraordinary new machine they called Alto.

Fast and powerful, small enough to slide under a desk and simple enough for children to use, Alto was the world's first "personal computer." Its creators coined the term, just as they conjured up its specifications and imagined the full range of its possible uses. They were also years ahead of their time.

For this was 1973. Of the companies and individuals later credited with the invention of the personal computer, IBM was still turning out electric typewriters; Microsoft's Bill Gates was a freshman entering Hardward; and Apple Computer's Steve Jobs was a college dropout wandering around In search of his Zen master.

But Alto lived.