When they were children, my son Bill and his sister Lynda already demonstrated clear signs of the exceptional talents they later revealed. Lynda, even in third grade, demanded every available color of Crayola the company offered, and later in her teens, purchased sets of Magic Markers with exotic and unusual shades. Bill, on the other hand, quickly outshone his poor father whose successful construction of a HeathKit High Fidelity amplifier, tuner, and speakers gave himself such pride of accomplishment. Bill proceeded to build better and more powerful units from scratch, using parts he purchased at Henry's Radio.
All of us have been involved with computers from an early date. Bill owned an Altair, the first Personal Computer, built from a kit and described and featured in the July, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. Lynda learned to hack on an Apple II Plus, and eventually bought the first available Macintosh in 1984. Bill became a DOS wizard, and I bought a Commodore 64 myself.
I was thrilled and proud of the opportunity to write a foreword to their book, and I read the chapters one by one as they emerged from the printer. As a casual computer user, not very deeply involved in the programming or technical side of it, I found this book amazingly clear and instructive.
I have "surfed" the web since being introduced to it about three years ago. But the details of just how and through what magic process I could find myself visiting the Louvre or researching the works of Shakespeare were a complete mystery to me. Now, they are not that big a mystery.
My hope is that you will enjoy reading this book as much as I did.