micromania/mike ro MAY nee uh n. The delusion that a part of one's body has shrunk or is in danger of shrinking.

Micromania is also the name of a book, published in 1984 by Gollancz, which provides a witty, and very cynical, account of computing as it was then, and a view of the predicted future of civilisation in the light of the then current fears and observations of computers and their uses. Written by Charles Platt, with input from David Langford for the UK edition.

Well worth a read even if it's just to laugh at the hideously outdated technology, especially the passages dealing with hard disks, and the concept of the mouse, this book also included some scarily accurate predictions about the role that computers now play in modern life. Also worthy of note are the illustrations showing the degeneration of a healthy human being into a micromaniac computer geek. Categories of micromaniac include the hacker, end user and hardware freak (and you know you fit into one of them).

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