I lived through the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and early 1980s as a single-digita and double-digit youth. I used a Commodore PET and Radio Shack TRS-80 (models 1 and 3) in junior high, spent way too much time at a local computer store using their Apple IIs and other computers, and owned my very own OSI C1P (Ohio Scientific Corp.) in 1980.

I’ve also read dozens of books about personal computer history, some written contemporaneously, and some decades later. When Ben Zotto contacted me last year about a manuscript for a book about Sphere Computers, a Utah-based PC pioneer, my reaction was, “WHAT? WHO? WHEN? WHAT? UTAH?” Then I settled down and edited his book, now titled Go Computer Now! after the cheery headline on one of the many ads Sphere flooded magazines with during their brief lifespan in 1975–1977.

It is an amazing story, which Ben stumbled into by nearly stumbling over a Sphere 1 model left on the streets of San Francisco. He brought it home, got it working, and fell into the rabbit hole of researching a company that nobody had talked about much for nearly 50 years. He found primary documents, talked to dozens of people connected wih the company or its genius-but-flawed founder, Mike Wise, and even built a new circuit board (a floppy disk controller) for the ancient machine.

Sphere was unique in so many ways, including creating what is arguably the first personal computer with an integral monitor and keyboard that booted into an operating system—however thin—when you turned it on. Firsts are iffy—if it wasn’t the first at many things, it was a miracle it ever existed. With more money and more experienced managers and financial people, Sphere might have been another Commodore—or even Apple. Instead, only Ben is here to tell its riveting tale.

You can get a copy of Ben’s book by backing the Kickstarter campaign today!