@p @FailurePersonified @rher

>but it's easier to get the history of computers themselves rather than the businesses.
It is easier, but you need to understand the participants in order to understand the industry.
From those autodesk files you get information about the types of applications being developed, the number of clients, the precise availability of programmers, whether these programmers are organized into a community, general timetables for development, need for marketing, need for user education. A lot of these information are very difficult to get from general writeups that focus on the larger firms and present an aggregated image.
Oh and John Walker's technical and industrial insights are a lot better than those of dedicated industry historians.