What the Dormouse Said
- Author
- John Markoff
- Published
- 2005
- Pages
- 323
- Recommended
- Once
John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (2005).
Why it’s on the list: Markoff’s history of the two Stanford labs — Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Center and the AI Lab — and the Bay Area counterculture around them, as the environment that produced personal computing before any company did.
Where I saw it: In the replies to Sarah Guo’s March 22, 2025 question on X — “is there a book / essay about environments that best support scientific discovery? Not about specifically bell labs, cavendish, xerox parc, los alamos - but why these places were so productive?” Kyle saved the link and reconstructed the full reply-thread list on 2026-09-17; the whole recovered list is on Is There a Book… (tweet).
Metadata checked: Open Library (2005; 323 pages).
Connections
- Silicon Valley — the place, at the moment the book covers.
- Stewart Brand — recurring figure across this and From Counterculture to Cyberculture.
- Xerox PARC — where much of this cast ended up.
- Historical Futurism — the portfolio idea.
Not yet read.