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While most historical accounts of the development of computer design focus on specific computers or manufacturers, examining the success stories of hardware and operating systems, Delete: A Design History of Computer Vapourware creates a completely new narrative by investigating the machines that didn''t make it. Fascinating, full-colour images of computer designs, many of them previously unpublished, are accompanied by the hitherto untold stories of their planning and development, the pitfalls and successes in their creation, the market and competition at the time and the reasons why they never finally appeared for sale. Appealing both to a broad audience and to a more specialist one of designers and computer historians, Delete , with its unique collection of prototypes that never made it to the market, depicts a technological world that might have been.>
List of contents
Preface
Introduction: Imagined Machines
Part One: Mainframe and Minicomputers
Part Two: Personal Computers
Part Three: Pen Computers
Part Four: Handheld Computers
Conclusion: The Agency of Ideas
Timeline
Acknowledgements & Credits
Bibliography
Index
Report
[A] sumptuously photographed, elegantly laid-out volume... Atkinson's book relates in engaging detail the design history of some of the "also ran" products of the computing industry. It represents a carefully chosen slice through the landscape of next-big-things that never quite succeeded in fighting their way to the centre of the marketplace... The text is well written, amusing and perceptive - but for me the real treasure is in the book's excellent collection of photographs of computer hardware. Taken mostly from the original marketing material, it embodies all that is best about professional photography. Beautifully lit, tastefully styled and of the highest technical quality, the photographs are a testament to those practitioners who could make even the blandest putty-coloured box look interesting, powerful and oddly seductive. John Gilbey, Aberystwyth University Times Higher Education 20131017
