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104.
My Computer Likes Me.
Menlo Park, CA: Dymax, 1972. First edition. 4to. Green printed wrps., perfect bound, 62pp. + 2pp. ads. Illustrated with hand-drawn cartoons alongside teletype printouts.
A hugely influential BASIC primer, opening with the declaration that "This book is about people, computers and a programme language called BASIC. We will communicate with a computer, in the BASIC language, about population problems" (a hot topic at the time, since 'The Limits to Growth', a report on a computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth that forecast global environmental and economic collapse, appeared in 1972).
Based at the Portola Institute in Menlo Park, California, and influenced by the publication of its Whole Earth Catalog, Albrecht toured the state's campuses in his VW bus loaded with a bulky PDP-8 minicomputer borrowed from the Digital Equipment Corporation, and gave demonstrations to students and educators of its potential and (relative) portability. In return, the DEC helped distribute Albrecht's book, which went on to sell more than 250,000 copies. Around the same time, Albrecht started the People's Computer Company (named after Big Brother and the Holding Company), a newsletter "about having fun with computers" that, like his book, aimed to bring computing to the people.
Although 'My Computer Likes Me' sold in large numbers (and appeared with various different colour covers), copies are not common. This example was imported to the UK and bears the original small price label to the front cover and the stamp of its Essex-based distributor on the first page (accompanied by their loosely inserted sales leaflet). Near Fine.