Inside the IBM PC

What Hacker News says

1. hangonhnDec 2019
   Boy. His book "Inside the IBM PC" was my first intro to really understanding how computers work and now I'm counting almost 20 years working as a software engineer. I think that book set me on this path because, IIRC, it talked about BASIC and might have had some programs printed in it and I typed them up in QBASIC. From that point on, I used QBASIC's help menus to teach myself how to program. I owe that man a debt of gratitude.
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2. stickfigureSep 2012
   I "grew up" in the 80s with computers that barely worked. It took hours of fiddling with jumpers and IRQ settings to get simple CGA programs to run (not to mention copy). Even in the 90s in college, to play the fun games (xtank, hunt, muds) I had to compile them myself - not always straightforward with the myriad exotic flavors of unix prevalent at the time. It was NOT "magic".

   This is the experience that taught me how computers work. This is why was enraptured by Norton's _Inside The IBM PC_ when I was 14. Without the early struggle, I'd be just another clueless user waiting for the Acolytes of Steve Jobs to come down from the mountain with a new miracle.

   Screw that. When you're young, it _should_ be a struggle. Kids shouldn't be able to take technology for granted, they should have to figure it out. If and when I have kids, I'm going to make sure that their technology breaks at regular intervals and if they want to keep playing Super Mario 18, they're going to have to figure out how to fix it themselves.

   All these problems you mention with Rasberry Pi make me think it is ideal for teaching children to program computers.

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3. simmonsDec 2019
   I read Peter Norton's Inside the IBM PC (1986 edition) [1] a while back, out of an interest in computer history. It struck me as being quite a bit different than today's technical books. It had a very conversational writing style, and it seemed like it was aiming to accommodate computer hobbyists/enthusiasts who wanted to learn more about how their machine actually worked. There were probably a lot more such people back in the 80's than today.

   [1] https://archive.org/details/insideibmpc00nort

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4. jemfinchNov 2010
   This is one of the worst lists I've yet seen, promoted by the purveyor of the website itself.

   BASIC Computer Games?

   The Word Processing Book?

   Inside the IBM PC?

   DOS For Dummies?

   Are you serious? No, you're just fishing for pageviews.

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