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I read this when it was current. I am now old.

Stephenson had a great sideline in really deep-dive nonfiction pieces there for a while (around the same time that Wired was experimenting with running them, in print). It was a pretty great combination.

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I'm so old I bought this when it was published in paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-was-Command-Line/dp/0380815...

Edit: Amazon informs me that I purchased it on 19 June 2000.

I always forget Amazon's been around that long.

Yeah, IIRC they were still just a book store back then with B&N competing nicely with them. Seems like such a long time ago now!

That same order from June 2000 included five other books and one Sega Dreamcast game (Grand Theft Auto 2), so they must have had a few non-book departments back then.

I guess getting into other media was probably the logical first step so makes sense.

They started selling other media like music and videogames fairly early, but it was quite a while before it became a place to buy literally anything.

I bought it in paperback as well, and read and loved it immediately. I then gave it to a young programmer I met in Sapporo, who was (at the time) working with BeOS.

I have the text version (the proper one, I suppose!) on my laptop as I type.

I handed out copies as Christmas presents one year XD

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