The original classic in this genre is Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder,
about Tom West and his team at Data General designing and building a new model minicomputer in the 1970s. It won the Pulitzer prize for nonfiction in 1982.
Another early classic is Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. There is a long initial section on the early years of the AI Lab at MIT in the 1950s and 60s, then the scene shifts to California for the start of the personal computer and computer games industries in the 1970s, then back to MIT
in the early 1980s for the start of the Free Software movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
Another early classic is Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. There is a long initial section on the early years of the AI Lab at MIT in the 1950s and 60s, then the scene shifts to California for the start of the personal computer and computer games industries in the 1970s, then back to MIT in the early 1980s for the start of the Free Software movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...