Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

liberal arts colleges. Nelson was an admittedly irascible perfectionist, his main talent that of an"innovator." He wrote a rock musical in 1957. He worked for John Lilly on the dolphin project, anddid some film work. But his head was, he later explained, helplessly "swimming in ideas" until hecame in contact with a computer and learned some programming.That was in 1960. For the next fourteen years he would bounce from one job to another. He wouldwalk out of his office in a job at a high-tech corporation and see "the incredible bleakness of theplace in these corridors." He began to see how the IBM batch-process mentality had blinded peopleto the magnificent possibilities of computers. His observations about this went universallyunheeded. Would no one listen?Finally, out of anger and desperation, he decided to write a "counterculture computer book." Nopublisher was interested, certainly not with his demands on the format a layout similar to the WholeEarth Catalog or the PCC, but even looser, with oversized pages loaded with print so small youcould hardly read it, along with scribbled notations, and manically amateurish drawings. The bookwas in two parts: one was called "Computer Lib," the computer world according to Ted Nelson; andthe other, "Dream Machines," the computer future according to Ted Nelson. Shelling out twothousand dollars out of pocket "a lot to me," he would say later he printed a few hundred copies ofwhat was a virtual handbook to the Hacker Ethic. The opening pages shouted with urgency, as hebemoaned the generally bad image of computers (he blamed this on the lies that the powerful toldabout computers, lies he called "Cybercrud") and proclaimed in capital letters that THE PUBLICDOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE WHAT IS DISHED OUT. He brazenly declared himself acomputer/an, and said:I have an axe to grind. I want to see computers useful to individuals, and the soonerthe better, without necessary complication or human servility being required. Anyonewho agrees with these principles is on my side. And anyone who does not, is not.THIS BOOK IS FOR PERSONAL FREEDOM. AND AGAINST RESTRICTION ANDCOERCION... A chant you can take to the streets:COMPUTER POWER TO THE PEOPLE! DOWN WITHCYBERCRUD!"Computers are where it's at," Nelson's book said, and though it sold slowly, it sold, eventuallygoing through several printings. More important, it had its cult following. At PCC, Computer Libwas one more reason to believe it would soon be no secret that computers were magic. And TedNelson was treated like royalty at potluck dinners.But people were not coming to potluck dinners to see the wizards of the computer revolution: theywere there because they were interested in computers. Some were middle-aged, hard-core hardwarehackers, some were grammar-school kids who had been lured by the computers, some were longhairedteen-age boys who liked to hack the PCC PDP-8, some were educators, some were just plainhackers. As always, planners like Bob Albrecht would talk about the issues of computing, while thehackers concentrated on swapping technical data, or complained about Albrecht's predilection for