5/16/2000
Journalists Freiberger and Swain are back, 16 years after they first chronicled the birth of the personal computer industry, with a new edition of Fire in the Valley. The story has been updated with revisions to the original material and new chapters on developments in the field since 1984, including the ongoing stories of Apple and Microsoft, of newer players like Sun and Netscape and, of course, of the rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web. But the heart of this tale remains the story of the early days, of how "hobbyists became visionaries, and visionaries became millionaires." The personal computer industry that arose in Silicon Valley has changed the world, write Freiberger and Swain in telling the tale, and "it's all the more amazing when you think about how it got started."