The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal by Laine Nooney (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by:

• The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal by Laine Nooney
• Zachary Loeb (bio)

The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal By Laine Nooney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023. Pp. 352.

In the version of its history that Silicon Valley likes to tell about itself, computing's rise is credited to a gaggle of iconoclastic former hippies who envisioned a world transformed for the better by the computer. This is a myth that is dismantled by Laine Nooney in The Apple II Age. Focusing on the titular Apple II, the book rejects the idea that personal computing was "instantly recognized as a revolutionary technology" (p. 7), instead treating computing as a site of clashing ideas. While engaging closely with the Apple II's affordances, Nooney argues that the history of personal computing is less about counterculture types wanting to produce "a social revolution" and more about "financial interests" wanting to secure "their financial standing" (p. 17).

Beginning with a brief history of the computer before it became personal, Nooney juxtaposes the spread of large mainframe computers with the growth [End Page 418] of a hobbyist subculture of people who wanted their own computers. Though connected to that hobbyist milieu, Nooney frames the path to the Apple II as an attempt to launch a successful consumer product, albeit one offering "a synthesis of hobbyist instincts for access and accessibility" in a package that was "more approachable to novices than anything else available" (p. 65). The Apple II's hardware was not enough for its potential to be realized; nonspecialist users needed to be convinced the machine could fit into their lives, and they needed software to convince them.

Thus, Nooney focuses on five applications that illustrate "how the computer became personal" (p. 70). Primary among these is VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program that elevated the microcomputer from a hobbyist toy to a business machine. Beyond business software like VisiCalc, games like Mystery House were also top sellers, as they demonstrated the microcomputer's entertainment potential. The challenge was to teach "potential users … to imagine their lives as available for intervention by a computer" (p. 195), something that the card and banner maker The Print Shop did admirably. Businesses represented valuable markets for the makers of hardware and software, but so too did schools, where programs like Snooper Troops could capitalize on interest in and desire for educational software. And all the while, the technical challenges of microcomputers—such as the need for backups—provided the space for controversial utility programs like Locksmith. These five pieces of software are considered alongside additions like the 5.25-inch floppy drive and the dot matrix printer, which further expanded what it was possible to do with the Apple II.

The word "age" in the book's title is instructive, for this is not a narrow history of a single machine or company but a consideration of how the Apple II became a site where competing visions of personal computing played out. A staunchly antideterministic narrative, the book eschews any kind of hagiographic paean to the inevitability of the Apple II (or Apple Computer), emphasizing that more than the hardware, it was the software that sold the Apple II. This matter of selling is central to Nooney's narrative, for even as the book is populated by intriguing figures with their own ideas about personal computing, the book keeps coming back to these figures' desire to create something that would sell. And while the book considers a range of novel programs, their success has less to do with their intrinsic quality than with connections to investors and other sources of capital.

Those with only a passing knowledge of computing's history will have their preconceived notions challenged by this book, while those with greater knowledge will gain from the book's focused analysis, theoretical depth, and thoughtful engagement with sources (notably, its use of computer magazines). Perhaps the harshest critique to level at this book is that there are sections and chapters that cry out for entire monographs of their own, but this just points to the important work this book does in grounding the history of computing in the...