I found this unusual book in a pile of old junk. It is a wonderful look at marketing of home computers in the early 1980's. It is entitled "Computers for People", but is really a 170 page advertisement for the Atari 400/800 home computers at the time.

I especially love certain things depicted which would not become mainstream until the Internet took off in the late 1990's, such as booking flights and checking stock prices using the computer. Also note the use of cheap color televisions as monitors and the old-school acoustic coupler modems. This book is a wonderful snapshot of the visions that microcomputer companies had at the time.

fullsized	fullsized I love the way Atari packaged their hardware. It was so modular and user-friendly, even for the early 80's!	fullsized Acoustic Modems, Tape Recorders and 40 Column Printers, Oh my!
fullsized Checking stock prices on a computer? HAH! This wouldn't become anywhere near mainstream until the late 90's.	fullsized I love the 'fro. The 'fro rules this page.	fullsized Gee, when I was in school (at this time, too!) we were just given a few boxes of disks and did whatever we want. I discovered fun and interesting ways to crash Apple II's using machine language while the other kids played Math Blaster. Hehe.
fullsized I don't ever remember being taught programming in elementary school. We just played educational games. It's sad; these days kids just learn how to use MS Word and surf the web.	fullsized A nuclear power plant simulator! Cool! I never had this!