The Books in the Box

Oxide and Friends · 28 Sept 2021 · 1h 17m · Episode 16

What this episode covers

Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal host a Twitter Space with guests including Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, and Antranig Vartanian, discussing a wide array of books on technology history, engineering, and business. They cover works such as 'The Inventor's Dilemma' about Joseph Gerber, 'Drift into Failure' by Sidney Dekker, and 'Skunk Works' by Ben Rich, while also sharing anecdotes about industrial espionage involving companies like VMware, Parallels, and Cisco. The conversation highlights the importance of historical context in understanding modern hardware and software development, with Cantrill lamenting a missing box of books containing titles like 'DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC' and 'Datapoint'.

Mentioned

Companies
Oxide Computer Company, Lockheed, Fairchild Semiconductor, Wang Laboratories, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, Blockbuster, Sun, Apollo, Avanti, Cadence, VMware, Parallels, Cisco, Huawei, Bell Labs, Microsoft, Apple, Xerox PARC, Sierra Online, MIT Rad Lab
Products
BitKeeper, Git, Inferno, Pathstar, Xerox Star, ARPANET, MRI, U-2, SR-71, F-107, DC-10, Plato, VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc
Also
Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, Antranig Vartanian, Simeon Miteff, Matt Campbell, Jeremy Tanner, Joshua Clulow, Ian, Tim Burnham, Nathaniel Reindl, Dave Hitz, Pat Walsh, Peter Thiel, David Jacques Gerber, H. Joseph Gerber, Sidney Dekker, Robert Buderi, Richard Rhodes, Michael Riordan, Lillian Hoddeson, Craig Canine, David Fisher, Marshall Fisher, Michael Hiltzik, Ernest Lawrence, Ben Rich, Leo Janos, Clarence Kelly Johnson, Brian Dear, Randall Stross, Steve Jobs, Christophe Lécuyer, David C. Brock, Jay Last, Lamont Wood, Charles Kenney, Edgar H. Schein, Alan Payne, Rick Altheater, John Gage, Larry McVoy, Ken Olson, Andy Bechtolsheim, Barry Cooks, Albert Corey, Jerry Kaplan, Ryan Carnahan, Josh Scott, Douglas Coupland, John Markoff, Robert X. Cringely, Paul Halmos, Paul Erdős, John von Neumann, Andrew Wiles, Jeffrey Hofstein, Brian Greene, Leonard Euler, Robert X. Grindley, Steven Levy, Richard Stallman, Roberta Williams, Penn Jillette, Gordon Moore, Bob Kahn, J.C.R. Licklider, NMR, Wired Magazine, PC Magazine, InfoWorld, Wizards Stay Up Late, What the Dormouse Said, Dealers of Lightning, Inventing the Future, Accidental Empires, Startup, UNIX: A Memoir, Microserfs, Hackers, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, The Elegant Universe, The God Particle, Zero to One, How to Castrate a Bull, The Inventor's Dilemma, Drift into Failure, The Invention that Changed the World, Dark Sun, Crystal Fire, Dream Reaper, Tube, Big Science, Skunk Works, The Friendly Orange Glow, Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing, Makers of the Microchip, Datapoint, Riding the Runaway Horse, DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC, Built to Fail, I Want to Be a Mathematician, Turn, You Must Give Us a Buzz

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