[mxyzpt1k]

There's a chapter about Sierra On-Line in "Hackers" by Steven Levy -- a fascinating book.

[Tloewald]

It's a great book, and does a better job of explaining the origins of personal computing (and time shared systems) than pretty much anything else out there.

[spb]

Indeed. I'd also add Code (by Charles Petzold) and D is for Digital (which I desperately want to read but haven't yet).