Frequently insightful and cutting, the book provokes thorough reconsideration of how we may understand computers and software then and today.

Nooney writes about the creation of consumer computing in the late 70's and early 80's in the US by going into the technical, economic, social, and ideological forces acting on, as well as the well- and lesser-known figures in, the establishment of consumer computer markets. Effort is made to avoid repeating the common stories, to not fall into a hagiographic focus on Jobs, Woz, Gates, etc. These differences in perspective—going into the importance of how VisiCalc was marketed and packaged—and subject—chapters on bit-by-bit copy utilities and The Print Shop—enable Nooney to break out of worn narratives about what, how, and for whom personal computing came to be.