https://www.amazon.com/Future-Was-Here-Commodore-Platform/dp...

The Future Was Here: https://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Was-Here-Commodore/dp/0262...

Absolutely amazing book on the tech and history behind the Amiga http://www.amazon.com/The-Future-Was-Here-Commodore/dp/02620...

They seem to be online, along with people selling devkit CDs: http://amigadev.elowar.com/read/ADCD_2.1/Hardware_Manual_gui... / http://www.vesalia.de/e_developer2.htm

But I was hoping for something with a little more of the design rationale. Maybe this is what I'm looking for. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Future-Was-Here-Commodore/dp/026...

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:

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.

Also check out this excellent book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Was-Here-Commodore-Platform-e...

An excellent book that studies that is The Future Was Here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Was-Here-Commodore-Platform-e...