Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

Fred Moore had set up a table in the front and took notes, while Gordon French,who was unspeakably proud of his own homebrew 8008 setup, moderated.Everybody introduced himself, and it turned out that six of the thirty-two had builttheir own computer system of some sort, while several others had ordered Altairs.Right away, there was some debate about the relative merits of chips, particularlythe 8008. In fact, there were endless topics for debate: hex (base sixteen numbers)versus octal (base eight); operating codes for the 8080; paper tape storage versuscassette versus paper and pencil listings... They discussed what they wanted in aclub, and the words people used most were "cooperation" and "sharing." Therewas some talk about what people might do with computers in the home, and somesuggested games, control of home utilities, text editing, education. Lee mentionedCommunity Memory. Albrecht distributed the latest issue of PCC. And SteveDompier told about his pilgrimage to Albuquerque, how MITS was trying to fillfour thousand orders, and how they were so busy trying to get basic kits out thedoor that they were unable to even think of shipping the extra stuff that wouldenable the machine to do more than flash its lights.Fred Moore was very excited about the energy the gathering generated. It seemedto him that he had put something in motion. He did not realize at the time that thesource of the intellectual heat was not a planner-like contemplation of the socialchanges possible by mass computing, but the white-hot hacker fascination withtechnology. Buoyed by the willingness everyone seemed to have to work together,Moore suggested the group meet every fort night. As if to symbolize the conceptof free exchange that the group would embody, Marty Spergel, the electric partssupplier who would be known as "the Junk Man" within the group, held up anIntel 8008 chip, just as everyone was leaving. "Who wants this?" he asked, andwhen the first hand went up, he tossed the chip, the fingernail-sized chunk oftechnology that could provide a good percentage of the multimillion-dollar powerof the TX-0.Over forty people came to the second meeting, which was held at the Stanford AIlab in the foothills, home of Uncle John McCarthy's Tolkien-esque hackers. Muchof the meeting was taken up by a discussion of what the group should be called.Suggestions included Infinitesimal Computer Club, Midget Brains, Steam BeerComputer Club, People's Computer Club, Eight-Bit Byte Bangers, Bay AreaComputer Experimenters' Group, and Amateur Computer Club of America.Eventually people decided on Bay Area Amateur Computer Users GroupHomebrew Computer Club. The last three words became the de facto designation.In true hacker spirit the club had no membership requirement, asked no minimumdues (though French's suggestion that anyone who wanted to should give a dollarto cover meeting notice and newsletter expenses had netted $52.63 by the thirdmeeting), and had no elections of officers.