Well in my vaguest memories of the olden days, I understood the 'war' was between IBM and DEC. I think to tease it out I would start with 'Hackers' by Steven Levy where the libertarian ethic is considered as part and parcel of hackers - based at MIT on the PDP 11's. In the PC world, it was carried on by DOS vs. CP/M - then between IBM and pretty much the rest of the computing world, and then along came Apple! Ok, early stuff is accessible at: Frieberger, P. and M. Swaine (1999[1984]). Fire in the valley: The making of the personal computer. Berkeley, CA, Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Denise N. Rall, Ph.D. submitted, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tuesdays: Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html