I’m reviewing two books here with their origins in the mid-1970s microcomputer revolution:

• David Pogue‘s Apple – The First 50 Years
• Ben Zotto‘s Go Computer Now – How Sphere Invented the Modern Microcomputer – Then Disappeared

These two companies – Apple and Sphere – started at around the same time with similar products. Yet the two corporate histories are quite a contrast. Apple is a wild success, becoming one of the largest companies on the planet. Sphere vanished with barely a trace, just a couple years after its founding. Yet, these two stories originating from the dawn of the microprocessor have remarkable connections.