I think many tech history books are dry, unless they talk about the people and personalities.

https://www.folklore.org/

https://steveblank.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Le...

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-C...

https://www.cringely.com/2013/02/04/accidental-empires-part-...

(all the chapters are there)

Someone else already mentioned, "Hackers" by Steven Levy, which was great. Levy's "Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything" was also a vey good read (and only $4.99 for Kindle edition!).

https://www.amazon.com/Insanely-Great-Macintosh-Computer-Eve...

And not sure how well it's aged, but I remember "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date" was a fun, breezy read.

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-C...

This is required reading for anyone on HN...

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-C...

...more for fun historical perspective than anything else. Lots of great anecdotes and stories about founders. The book became a PBS series that become a movie with Noah Wiley as Steve Jobs. And useful insight:

"As inventive organizations grow and mature, they often convert themselves into maintenance organizations, dedicated to doing revisions of formerly inventive products and boring as hell for the original programmers who were used to living on adrenalin rushes and junk food. This transition time, from inventive to maintenance, is a time of crisis for these companies and their founders."

Yes, but Mark Stephens (this Cringely) is arguably the Cringely, in that he was the one who made the column popular, and he published a book (Accidental Empires: http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Co...) under the name. So there have been other Cringelys, but when people say "Robert X. Cringely," they almost always mean Mark Stephens.