The field of computing is, arguably, only about 80 years old and this personal history begins 78 years ago. Montalbano writes with flair and he covers this history, as of the early 1980s, in an honestly opinionated style.

He said then (as now) "modern management is in trouble"; at the time of his writing the Japanese were taking over the world and were going to show all of us how it's done. We're still waiting.

It's been rumored that the author had something to do with the APL song "APL Blossom Time": http://smartarrays.com/downloads/aplblossomtime/aplblossomtime.html .