What the Dormouse Said
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
What the Dormouse Said
| Full title | What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry |
|---|---|
| Author | John Markoff |
| Published | 2005 |
| Pages | 323 |
| Recommended | 2 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | John Markoff’s history of 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 heard about it
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Sarah Guo’s thread — named in the replies to her March 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?” Full set of replies: Is There a Book… (tweet).
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On Patrick Collison’s Bookshelf — Patrick Collison’s catalog of the physical books he owns (unflagged). Saved in Kyle’s April 19th, 2020 Roam daily note.
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.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.