Pop Up Guide to the Personal Computer
Corrin and I dropped some stuff off at Goodwill the other day, and when we were looking around inside I made an amazing find. For only two dollars, I purchased a pop-up book describing the internals of a 1980’s PC! I’ve uploaded pictures of most of the book. I left out a few of the more boring features, such as opening a floppy disk to see the mylar disc inside. Sorry about the datestamps - I always forget to turn them off.
This pop-up computer greets you when you first open the book. The text on screen says “Insert disk and close door.” When you do, the text changes to a welcome message describing the purpose of the book.
When the tab at the bottom is pulled, the M key is depressed and the binary signal sent by the keyboard is shown. The next two pictures are a binary and an ASCII decoder that are also on this page.
This page doesn’t have any interesting interactions. There is a chip in a pocket on the opposing page that can be placed in the slots on the lower right.
The disc can be slid in, showing how it lines up with the read/write heads.
This is one of my favorite pages. The electron ray is made of string, and pixels appear behind it as it shoots down the scan line.
This is the last page of the book. Pulling the tab on the right moves the print head across the screen to reveal the word “Goodbye.”
Inside the Personal Computer: An Illustrated Introduction in 3 Dimensions on Amazon
Books by Sharon Gallagher - This Amazon search might find you some better priced copies than the one linked to above. It is only sold through Amazon partners, and they all seem to enter it in a little differently.
Welcome, StumbleUpon, reddit, Gizmodo and anyone else who ends up here! If you liked this post, you might like the Most Expensive Pop-Up Books post I just made.
Charles Marshall Says :
Had this book as a kid, and man is this a blast from the past
2009-05-02 17:34 Permalinkkenny Says :
I loved technical books and pop up books as a kid (still do). Thumbs up from me.
2009-05-02 18:58 Permalinkdee Says :
im 23 years old… and i have to say… i wish i had not seen that! :O
*faps to maxPC to take mind off of it*
2009-05-03 12:34 PermalinkBrian Says :
That’s a slick book!
2009-05-03 12:55 PermalinkKitarist Says :
This is a very interesting looking book
2009-05-03 18:42 Permalinkfuckoff Says :
I had this book as a kid, and it taught me absolutely nothing.
2009-05-05 09:23 Permalink... Says :
What an interesting book
2009-05-05 14:04 PermalinkJon Says :
I had this book as a kid, and you’ve ruined my night of stumbling. I need to go and buy that book now. Thanks a lot.
2009-05-06 05:38 PermalinkRohit Says :
i remember seeing this book as a kid, i think it was in a cousin’s place, in bangalore, India!!!
2009-05-06 19:05 Permalinksonny Says :
XD Awesome, I need to buy this thing.
2009-05-07 00:21 PermalinkHenning Says :
And I thought my family was poor when I were a child
2009-05-07 09:26 Permalinkalec Says :
wow!
2009-05-07 10:11 PermalinkMaricha Says :
Very cool. Now I want one
2009-05-07 11:52 Permalinkian Says :
Sweet!!
2009-05-07 13:00 PermalinkWill Says :
I found this book when I was a kid (my dad had it)…… And we still have it!
In about 2000 I remember asking my dad if we had a daisy wheel or dot matrix printer :-P
2009-05-07 18:19 PermalinkRambo Says :
Awesome~! A better waste of $2, I cannot think of. :>
2009-05-08 07:35 PermalinkPaul O'Flaherty Says :
WOW, I used to have a copy of that. Wonder if it’s still lying around here anywhere. LOL
Trying to avoid all the usual “Wonder if it will run Vista” jokes… LOL
2009-05-08 12:58 PermalinkChris Says :
Awesome. I had this one as a kid too. It launched my life as a computer geek. :)
2009-05-08 22:58 PermalinkCarlo Mendoza Says :
I used to have books like these, but not this! Hahaha.
2009-05-09 00:46 PermalinkMichael Davis Says :
Way Cool. Thanks for sharing. I would love to find a copy.
2009-05-09 11:18 PermalinkQuagmire Says :
on what page does it show porn?
2009-05-09 16:19 PermalinkSkid-Vicious Says :
Quagmire: The last one, the message is very suggestive.
2009-05-09 18:30 PermalinkJon Says :
Quagmire, I think you’re looking for this book: The Pop-up Book of Sex
Make sure you check out the video further down that page.
2009-05-09 18:43 PermalinkTheSoftwareMan Says :
Wow! Wow! I actually had to support and repair the Apple III and printer they’re showing as the pop-up!
Neat stuff. And in excellent shape too.
And Quagmire and Sid-Vicious: They are alluding to War Games… “Do you want to play a game?”
The movie that launched a million nerds and as many hackers.
2009-05-09 18:45 Permalinkdaniel Says :
I also had this book as a kid!
2009-05-09 19:22 Permalinkit is great to see it again
Kunal Says :
holy crap I had this exact book. lol
2009-05-09 21:04 Permalinkpenorz Says :
I came!!!!
2009-05-10 00:34 Permalinkclitorz Says :
i go!
2009-05-10 01:15 PermalinkElak Swindell Says :
Still have this one in mint condition in a box somewhere. Loved that book at the time. Very inventive pop-ups.
2009-05-10 02:11 PermalinkPranav Negandhi Says :
My uncle used to have this book too and I really enjoyed playing with the ‘computer’ popup. Too bad there wasn’t anybody to explain all the big words to me back then. I was 6 or 7 I think.
2009-05-10 03:32 PermalinkRichard Says :
ha ha that’s awesome I had the same book when I was young too. Made my day seeing it :)
2009-05-10 03:32 PermalinkEdward McCain Says :
Will Says “In about 2000 I remember asking my dad if we had a daisy wheel or dot matrix printer”
IBM 1403 FTW :)
2009-05-10 10:03 Permalinkspoony Says :
I made a video of this book a couple years ago and put it up on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYwf32nPteo
enjoy! :)
2009-05-10 11:06 Permalinkmichelle bahr Says :
Way too funny!
2009-05-10 13:40 PermalinkIt may end up in the Smithsonian someday1
Chris Says :
I had this book as a kid, totally damn awesome.
2009-05-10 22:09 PermalinkMark Bell Says :
Wow, haven’t seen this book for years… brings back a lot of memories!
2009-05-11 04:27 PermalinkRobert Says :
bought one for my kid
2009-05-11 06:39 PermalinkCyril Gupta Says :
!! I used to have this when I was young. It was pretty and cool but rather useless. But I enjoyed it. Thanks for bringing back a lost memory from the past.
I think that was in the 80s.
Cyril
2009-05-11 11:14 PermalinkRay Grant Says :
Inside The Personal Computer by Sharon Gallagher (1984). She was only 26 when she wrote this. There are at least three copies on ABEBooks.com for under $10. The cheapest copy I saw on Amazon was $23. If you want it, you can get it.
2009-05-11 12:51 Permalinkfdhmcbmn fgjmfg Says :
give you $2.50 for it
2009-05-14 00:25 PermalinkBlazemore Says :
Oh wow I actually have this book! I love it.
2009-05-14 17:55 Permalinkvmos Says :
I had this book, I got it the same christmas as I got my first real computer
AWRSOME!
2009-05-15 16:01 PermalinkColette Iris Says :
OMFG I used to have this book as a child too. Awesome find!
2009-05-17 10:30 Permalinkretrogaming Says :
Here’s one the Kindle won’t get.
2009-06-17 18:27 Permalink(PS: your security check sucks)
robb Says :
awesome little book.
2009-08-23 12:49 Permalinki’d like to have one too.
btw it’ll be great for kids.
Ribambins Says :
Very efficient. I like it
2009-09-09 06:25 PermalinkAnonu Says :
i was rummaging through a box of books yesterday that someone had thrown out on the streets of manhattan… When I came across this book I knew i had something awesome! we used to have CRT screens!
2009-09-17 12:40 PermalinkBorellus Says :
Sweet book!
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2010-08-15 07:32 Permalinksocial bookmarking service Says :
excellent work , thank you
2010-09-01 01:50 Permalink