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149.
Computer Lib/Dream Machines.
Chicago: Hugo's Book Service (for the author), 1974. First edition. Sm. folio. Wrps., bound tête-bêche, 69pp. + 59pp.
SIGNED by the author on the cover in red ink to Henry Tropp, computer historian and co-creator of the Computer Oral History Collection at the Smithsonian Institution (Nelson and Tropp both gave papers at the first West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco in April 1977 [item #169]; the occasion also saw the launch of Apple II, presented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak).
Subtitled "You can and must understand computers NOW", 'Computer Lib' is regarded as the first book about the personal computer (it was published just before the release of the Altair 8800), and with Nelson's cover art suggestive of political struggle it presented individual computing as a form of rebellion against the IBM "behemoth" and the concentration of computing knowledge and power in the military-industrial complex. Nelson had earlier coined terms such as hypertext and hypermedia, and in 'Computer Lib' he significantly expanded the concepts at a time when global networks as a space for the hypertext system were first being developed (other terms Nelson introduced in the book were 'Cybercrud', 'Intertwingularity', and 'Fantics').
Loosely based on the Whole Earth Catalog, with which it shares certain stylistic characteristics as well as its thinking about the possibilities of new technology, the work is divided into numerous densely packed sections, each featuring pull quotes, cartoons, photographs, diagrams, sidebars and multiple typefaces (Stewart Brand returned the compliment when he contributed a foreword to the second edition in 1987).
In the volume's flipside, 'Dream Machines: New Freedom through Computer Screens - a Minority Report', Nelson explores the countercultural possibilities of personal computers further (then still called individual or mini-computers), advocating their use in education (an approach later adopted by Apple) and availability to everyone.
Some foxing to page edges, and minor spotting to 'Dream Machines' cover, o/w a tight, Very Good copy of a book that pioneered the democratisation of information technology and proved hugely influential in the work of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and countless software designers since. Once described by tech maven Howard Rheingold as "the best-selling underground manifesto of the microcomputer revolution", most extant copies are reprints, making this first printing, published in an edition of only a few hundred copies self-funded by the author, extremely scarce, even more so signed.
