Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

9Every Man a GodJ.N June 1974, Lee Felsenstein moved into a one-room apartment over a garage inBerkeley. It didn't have much in the way of amenities not even a thermostat but itonly cost $185 a month, and Lee could fit a workbench in the corner, and call ithome. He preferred low overhead, portability, utility in a place.Felsenstein had a specific design project in mind. A computer terminal built on theCommunity Memory concept. Lee abhorred terminals built to be utterly secure inthe face of careless users, black boxes which belch information and are otherwiseopaque in their construction. He believed that the people should have a glimpse ofwhat makes the machine go, and the user should be urged to interact in the process.Anything as flexible as computers should inspire people to engage in equallyflexible activity. Lee considered the computer itself a model for activism, andhoped the proliferation of computers to people would, in effect, spread the HackerEthic throughout society, giving the people power not only over machines but overpolitical oppressors.Lee Felsenstein's father had sent him a book by Ivan Illich entitled Tools forConviviality, and Illich's contentions bore out Lee's views ("To me, the bestteachers tell me what I know is already right," Lee would later explain). Illichprofessed that hardware should be designed not only for the people's ease, but withthe long-term view of the eventual symbiosis between the user and the tool. Thisinspired Felsenstein to conceive of a tool which would embody the thoughts ofIllich, Bucky Fuller, Kari Marx, and Robert Heinlein. It would be a terminal for thepeople. Lee dubbed it the Tom Swift Terminal, "in honor of the American folkhero most likely to be found tampering with the equipment." It would be LeeFelsenstein bringing the hacker dream to life.Meanwhile, he would live off income from free-lance engineering contracts. Oneplace he sought work was Systems Concepts, the small company which employedMIT veterans Stew Nelson (the phone wizard and coding genius), and TMRC andTX-0 alumnus Peter Samson. Felsenstein was leery of anything to do with MIT;typical of hardware hackers, he was offended at what he considered the excessive