Siliconnections: Coming of Age in the Electronic Era

by Forrest M. Mims III

The behind-the-scenes story of the early days of the computer revolution contains anecdotes, reflections, and firsthand accounts by the co-inventor of the first personal computer

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1986

About the author

Forrest M. Mims III is an amateur scientist, magazine columnist, and author of the popular Getting Started in Electronics and Engineer's Mini-Notebook series of instructional books that was originally sold in Radio Shack electronics stores. Mims graduated from Texas A&M University in 1966 with a major in government and minors in English and history. He became a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force.

Although he has no formal academic training in science,Mims has had a successful career as a science author, researcher, lecturer and syndicated columnist.

Reviews

[Metin Ozsavran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just can't get enough of electronics history books. With Forrest Sims, it doesn't get much better. Waited a long time to land a copy. İt fills the curious void between İntel's first microprocessor 4040-8080 and up till to the hoopla of Wozniak's Apple-1. Specifically the publication of Altair design on Popular Electronics magazine and burst of copy cats from that. This is a book from frigging 1986, and I struggled to find a reasoably priced copy, finished reading in 2020. Amazing how still current this guy's ideas and analyses are after 34 years! It talks about everything that happened in electronics industry including internet fairly accurately. Mindful readers will easily discern that Wozniak didn't revolutionaze jack sh*t, he just lifted a popular electronics magazine article about putting text on TV. The poor actual writer-inventor long forgotten. As Dave Jones showed on youtube intel had a fairly fleshed out microprocessor eval board that should have served as a reference design for all following home computers. This book is a gemstone treasure trove for avid students of electro-tech industry. Glad I have a copy.