{"product_id":"9780692420867","title":"String's Cross","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eString’s Cross\u003c\/em\u003e paints an honest, seldom seen tapestry of American history - from its orange ranch settlements in Southern California through its deceptions over how the personal computer came about and the path one of Microsoft’s co-founders took to become the richest man in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat was life really like for those who reached adulthood during WW II, only to immediately inherit the Cold War that followed - men and women whose country, America, would come to call them “The Greatest Generation”? \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho in that Greatest Generation were politically dangerous: too liberal, a threat, Communists?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnswers to these questions weave seamlessly with portrayals of life in modern America: its computer pioneers, “sexual-revolution” upheavals, and later wars. \u003cem\u003eString’s Cross\u003c\/em\u003e is a bold, satirical and beautifully written account of an ordinary American, “Everyman,” a man buffeted by history, moods, and beliefs. The grandson of immigrants from Europe’s east and west whose father’s kin settle in a New York ghetto, his mother’s among the first to help turn an arid California desert - ten hours by horse due west of Los Angeles - into a lush forest of orange trees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen his grandfather’s illness shifts the tale from that ranching paradise to San Diego, his parents meet and his life - along with an insider's history of that colorful beach town - unfolds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho holds the first patent for a personal computer?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho first published a paper on how to include pictures in a computer printout?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWho created the first operating system for a personal computer?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eString’s Cross\u003c\/em\u003e shocks, startles its reader with a factual account of the awakening digital age, birth of the personal computer, and the extent to which recent technological history has been distorted. In a first-person aside, the author details his personal claim to the patent and the paper, answers to the first two questions. His patent for a personal computer, the Dinkiac I, was filed on May 17, 1971, almost five years prior to that April Fools’ Day in 1976 when Apple Inc. was founded. His presentation of a method for adding pictures to printouts had taken place three years earlier at a national computer conference in Atlantic City.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf the final question, Dr. Essen has much to say. He opens your eyes to the bitter struggle over the operating system DOS, that tiny bit of possibly-stolen software that made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. Only a person intimate with the times, and some of its participants, can tell that story. He writes: “To briefly outline that cloudy tale, told so many times before, it was Gates, himself, that sent IBM to meet with DRI [Gary Kildall] … .“\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HeronDrivePress","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49849305694448,"sku":"9780692420867","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780692420867","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}