Steven Levy
Heroes of the Computer Revolution
O'REILLY
Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
 |
| Hackers Heroes of the Computer Revolution |
Steven Levy is a senior writer for Wired. Previously, he was chief
technology writer and a senior editor for Newsweek. Levy has
written six books and had articles published in Harper’s, Macworld,
the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Premiere,
and Rolling Stone. Steven has won several awards during
his 30-plus years of writing about technology, including Hackers,
which PC Magazine named the best sci-tech book written in the
last twenty years, and Crypto, which won the grand ebook prize
at the 2001 Frankfurt Book festival.
Acknowledgments
I’m indebted to many people who assisted me in various ways
while I was working on Hackers. First, to the people who agreed
to be interviewed for the book. Some were veterans of this sort of
journalistic exchange; others had only spoken to interviewers on
technical matters, and hadn’t spoken of the personal or philosophical
nature of hacking before; others just hadn’t spoken to people
like me. Almost all spoke freely and candidly; I think it not coincidental
that hackers are as free in conversation, once they get
started, as they are with sharing computer code. Many of the following
consented to multiple interviews, and often follow-up calls
to verify facts or clarify technical details.
My conversations with them were the backbone of the book, and I
would like to thank, in alphabetical order, Arthur Abraham, Roe
Adams, Bob Albrecht, Dennis Allison, Larry Bain, Alan Baum,
Mike Beeler, Dorothy Bender, Bill Bennett, Chuck Benton, Bob
and Carolyn Box, Keith Britton, Lois Britton, Bill Budge, Chuck
Bueche, David Bunnell, Doug Carlston, Gary Carlston, Marie
Cavin, Mary Ann Cleary, Bob Clements, Tracy Coats, David
Crane, Edward Currie, Rick Davidson, Bob Davis, Jack Dennis,
Peter Deutsch, Steve Dompier, John Draper, Dan Drew, Mark
Duchaineau, Les Earnest, Don Eastlake, Doug Englebart, Chris
Espinosa, Lee Felsenstein, LeRoy Finkel, Howard Franklin, Bob
Frankston, Ed Fredkin, Gordon French, Martin Garetz, Harry
Garland, Richard Garriott, Lou Gary, Bill Gates, Bill Godbout,
Randall Rothenberg, David Weinberg, and many others—they
know who they are—who will have to accept this insufficient mention.
The book was also a product of the enthusiasm and patience of
my agent, Pat Berens, and my editor, James Raimes, who encouraged
me mightily. Those terms also apply to Teresa Carpenter,
who coped magnificently with the book and its author through
the long process of research and writing.
Finally, thanks to Steve Wozniak for designing that Apple II on
which I wrote the book. Had it not been for the revolution which
I address in Hackers, my labors might have continued for another
year, just to get a clean draft out of my typewriter.
Preface
I was first drawn to writing about hackers—those computer programmers
and designers who regard computing as the most
important thing in the world—because they were such fascinating
people. Though some in the field used the term “hacker” as a
form of derision, implying that hackers were either nerdy social
outcasts or “unprofessional” programmers who wrote dirty,
“nonstandard” computer code, I found them quite different.
Beneath their often unimposing exteriors, they were adventurers,
visionaries, risk-takers, artists . . . and the ones who most clearly
saw why the computer was a truly revolutionary tool. Among
themselves, they knew how far one could go by immersion into
the deep concentration of the hacking mind-set: one could go infinitely
far. I came to understand why true hackers consider the
term an appellation of honor rather than a pejorative.
As I talked to these digital explorers, ranging from those who
tamed multimillion-dollar machines in the 1950s to contemporary
young wizards who mastered computers in their suburban
bedrooms, I found a common element, a common philosophy that
seemed tied to the elegantly flowing logic of the computer itself. It
was a philosophy of sharing, openness, decentralization, and getting
your hands on machines at any cost to improve the machines
and to improve the world. This Hacker Ethic is their gift to us:
something with value even to those of us with no interest at all in computers.
and designers who regard computing as the most
important thing in the world—because they were such fascinating
people. Though some in the field used the term “hacker” as a
form of derision, implying that hackers were either nerdy social
outcasts or “unprofessional” programmers who wrote dirty,
“nonstandard” computer code, I found them quite different.
Beneath their often unimposing exteriors, they were adventurers,
visionaries, risk-takers, artists . . . and the ones who most clearly
saw why the computer was a truly revolutionary tool. Among
themselves, they knew how far one could go by immersion into
the deep concentration of the hacking mind-set: one could go infinitely
far. I came to understand why true hackers consider the
term an appellation of honor rather than a pejorative.
As I talked to these digital explorers, ranging from those who
tamed multimillion-dollar machines in the 1950s to contemporary
young wizards who mastered computers in their suburban
bedrooms, I found a common element, a common philosophy that
seemed tied to the elegantly flowing logic of the computer itself. It
was a philosophy of sharing, openness, decentralization, and getting
your hands on machines at any cost to improve the machines
and to improve the world. This Hacker Ethic is their gift to us:
something with value even to those of us with no interest at all in computers.
It is an ethic seldom codified but embodied instead in the behavior
of hackers themselves. I would like to introduce you to these
people who not only saw, but lived the magic in the computer and
worked to liberate the magic so it could benefit us all. These
people include the true hackers of the MIT artificial intelligence
lab in the fifties and sixties; the populist, less sequestered hardware
hackers in California in the seventies; and the young game
hackers who made their mark in the personal computer of the eighties.
This is in no way a formal history of the computer era, or of the
particular arenas I focus upon. Indeed, many of the people you
will meet here are not the most famous names (certainly not the
most wealthy) in the annals of computing. Instead, these are the
backroom geniuses who understood the machine at its most profound
levels and presented us with a new kind of lifestyle and a new kind of hero.
Hackers like Richard Greenblatt, Bill Gosper, Lee Felsenstein, and
John Harris are the spirit and soul of computing itself. I believe
their story—their vision, their intimacy with the machine itself,
their experiences inside their peculiar world, and their sometimes
dramatic, sometimes absurd “interfaces” with the outside world—
is the real story of the computer revolution.
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Product details
Price
|
|
|---|---|
File Size
| 12,860 KB |
Pages
|
520 p |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| 978-1-449-38839-3 |
Copyright
| 2010 Steven Levy |
Contents
CAMBRIDGE: The Fifties and Sixties
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Who’s Who: The Wizards and Their Machines . . . . . . . xi
Part One. TRUE HACKERS
CAMBRIDGE: The Fifties and Sixties
Chapter 1
The Tech Model Railroad Club . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 2
The Hacker Ethic . .. . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 3
Spacewar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4
Greenblatt and Gosper . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 5
The Midnight Computer Wiring Society . . . . . . 83
Chapter 6
Winners and Losers . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Chapter 7
Life . . . . . . . . . .. . 123
Part Two. HARDWARE HACKERS
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: The Seventies
Chapter 8
Revolt in 2100 . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Chapter 9
Every Man a God . . . . . . . . . . 179
Chapter 10
The Homebrew Computer Club . . . . . .. . . 201
Chapter 11
Tiny BASIC . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Chapter 12
Woz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Chapter 13
Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Part Three. GAME HACKERS
THE SIERRAS: The Eighties
Chapter 14
The Wizard and the Princess . . . .. . . . 289
Chapter 15
The Brotherhood . . . . . .. . . 313
Chapter 16
The Third Generation . . . . . . . 325
Chapter 17
Summer Camp . . . . . . . . . . 345
Chapter 18
Frogger . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Chapter 19
Applefest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Chapter 20
Wizard vs. Wizards . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Part Four. THE LAST OF THE TRUE HACKERS
CAMBRIDGE: 1983
The Last of the True Hackers . . . . . . . 437
Afterword: Ten Years After . . . . . 455
Afterword: 2010 . . . . . . . . 463
Notes . . . . . . . . . 479
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Index . . . . . . . . . . . 489
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