I've been really interested in early-80s to present PC history recently. There's actually a fair amount archived on it, but you'll sometimes have to approach things from the point of view of a historian rather than just a reader of history. My recent bent has been studying Atari, but there's lots of other resources available if you look. For whatever reason, videogames seem to have the lions share of work being done right now. I'd say that the archival and research phase is currently happening right now, with histories finally starting to be really written.
For anybody interested in business (like the HN readership) I really recommend studying not only about the history of Apple, but the history of its early competitor Atari. Equally as interesting and represents a kind of alternate universe where the Google of its time failed spectacularly. The reasons why are complex and very informative, especially the Tramiel years.
Some samples:
There's not many books looking back, but there are a few and they're quite good:
What's nice is that this all happened recently enough that you can actually go to the primary sources and read/listen/talk with these events as they happened, but can now look back informed by decades of the aftereffects.
For anybody interested in business (like the HN readership) I really recommend studying not only about the history of Apple, but the history of its early competitor Atari. Equally as interesting and represents a kind of alternate universe where the Google of its time failed spectacularly. The reasons why are complex and very informative, especially the Tramiel years.
Some samples:
There's not many books looking back, but there are a few and they're quite good:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Was-Here-Commodore/dp/02620...
http://www.amazon.com/Atari-Inc-Business-Complete-History-eb...
http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Spectacular-Rise-Fall-Commodore/d...
http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/14516485...
Classic magazines:
https://archive.org/details/computermagazines
There's also plenty of old shows both archived, and made more recently, some with a stunning number of important interviews
https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Dr+Sparkle...
https://archive.org/details/thescreensavers
https://www.youtube.com/user/MrGameSack
https://www.youtube.com/user/tezzaNZ
https://www.youtube.com/user/blacklily8
And there's a vast retrogaming/retrocomputing podcasting phenomenon going on right now, often with even more amazing interviews
http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/
http://www.retronauts.com/
and a larger list https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8544576
What's nice is that this all happened recently enough that you can actually go to the primary sources and read/listen/talk with these events as they happened, but can now look back informed by decades of the aftereffects.