Edition: U.S. / Global  Geek Lore  By David Pogue Published:
April 4, 1999   Xerox PARC and the Dawn  of the Computer Age.
By Michael Hiltzik.  448 pp. New York:  Harper Business. $26.
How the World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company Went
Insane.  By Michael S. Malone.  597 pp. New York:
Currency/Doubleday. $27.50.   The Real Story of Apple Computer,
Inc.  By Owen W. Linzmayer.  Illustrated. 268 pp. San Francisco:
No Starch Press. Paper, $17.95.  Why is Apple Computer such
catnip to writers? After all, Apple is neither the most
successful high-tech institution nor the least, neither the
largest nor the smallest. Nonetheless, books pour forth,
retelling the legends of Apple's origins and its business
blunders.  The authors of these three books, in fact, explore
Apple from such drastically different perspectives that they
resemble the blind men encountering an elephant; only when their
descriptions are taken together do they begin to create
something of a complete picture of their challenging subject.