Season 5: “The Laine Nooney Episode”

Inside this Episode with your host, Mitch Hampton:

At first screen glance Laine Nooney's  The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal might be perhaps a less likely subject for an episode. 

Yet, given my steadfast interest in unconventional treatments of normally conventional subject matters as well as my overall interest in the period of time encompassing the 1970s into the 80s I don't think there is a better guest for our podcast than Nooney, nor a more appropriate book than his. 

Although their work is both intellectual and social history of a kind, aesthetic issues are equally at play, both in the sense of their being an era of tech prior to the present one, as well as the creativity of individual tech people, some of whom are wonderfully portrayed by Nooney. 

I hope you find this episode as interesting to hear as it was for us to record.

Laine’s Bio and links to their work:

Laine Nooney is an Assistant Professor of Media Industries at New York University, specializing in historical, cultural, and economic analysis of the video game and computer industries. Their book, The Apple II Age: How The Computer Became Personal, is out now.

Their research has been featured in popular venues such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Motherboard, and NPR, as well as academic journals such as Game Studies, The American Journal of Play, and Journal of Visual Culture.

Recent Events + Goings on

How Computers Took Over Our Lives  @ Factually!

Listen in on this fact-and-fun-filled conversation with Adam Conover on Factually!, as we leave no stone unturned on the origins of personal computing.

THE APPLE II AGE Reviewed @ The New Yorker

Kyle Chayka explores "the story of how computers became irrevocably personal" in his coverage of THE APPLE II AGE in The New Yorker.

BOOK EXCERPT @ Motherboard

Check out an excerpt of THE APPLE II AGE @ Motherboard: "Don't Copy that Floppy": The Untold History of Apple II Software Piracy. The article tells the story of one of the earliest copy protection battles of the personal computer era.

Social Media

Laine has public accounts on Twitter [@sierra_offline], Mastodon [@LaineNooney@mastodon.social], Bluesky [@lainenooney.bsky.social], and Threads [@sierra_offline]

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