Foreword

There are occasionally short windows in time when incredibly important things get invented that shape the lives of humans for hundreds of years. These events are impossible to anticipate, and the inventors, the participants, are often working not for reasons of money, but for the personal satisfaction of making something great.

The development of the Macintosh computer was one of these events, and it has changed our lives forever. Every computer today is basically a Macintosh, a very different type of computer from those that preceded it. Who were the people who developed this revolutionary computer? What motivated them? What advancements did they make? How were tradeoffs made? What was the environment like where it happened?

The answers to some of these questions can be derived from other books. But they too often have the flavor of highly edited reality TV shows scripted by outsiders who weren’t there. I occasionally read an article based on good, exhaustive reporting that gets to the heart and soul of this computer and of the people who created it, but none do it as well as this book.

Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made is a collection of stories by the actual personalities who gave life to this amazing computer, and it’s more captivating than any book or article I have read. As you’ll soon discover, these are people whose passion for doing great things has never before been captured, until now.

It’s chilling to recall how this ...

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