Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

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Osbome while he and the others were working for slave stipends at CM. The factthat much of the money for CM came from Lee's work on that machine botheredLipkin like a bug in a program, a fatal error which could not be coded away.Lipkin was a hacker purist; while he and Lee agreed on the spirit of CommunityMemory using computers to bring people together he could not accept certainthings. Efrem Lipkin told the group that one thing he could not accept was anysales of the software he'd written to the military.The problem ran deeper than that. Personal computers like the Apple and theOsbome, along with modems in the style of Lee's Pennywhistle, had engenderedother examples of the kind of thing Community Memory was attempting. Peoplewere using computers for communication. And the original mythos of CommunityMemory, the ideal of machines of loving grace in a field watching over us, hadbeen largely fulfilled in less than ten years, computers had been demystified. Theywere no longer evil black boxes to be feared. They were even hip in due time,computer technology would not only be commonplace around Leopold's Records,but would probably be sold there, in software that replaced records in some of theracks. Jude Milhon, close friend to both Lee and Efrem, a person who'd given asubstantial portion of her life to Community Memory, could hardly get the wordsout when she discussed it, but she knew: they'd blown it. The Revolt in 2100 wasover, and it wasn't even 1984 yet. Computers were accepted as convivial tools, andthe power of computers was accessible at thousands of retail stores, for those whocould pay.Racked with frustration, Efrem Lipkin blew up during a meeting. He laid downwhat he considered the failure of the group. "Basically I thought the thing wasfalling apart," he later said. He was particularly hard on the topic of Lee's moneyfinancing the group. Lee told him that this tainted money was paying Efrem'ssalary. "Not anymore," said Efrem. And the hacker was gone. Less than a yearlater, there was no more Osbome Computer. Management bungling worse than atProcessor Technology had made the firm the first of many major financialdisasters in what would be called "The Great Computer Shakeout." Lee's papermillions would be gone.But he would still have his dreams. One great battle had been won. Now, perhapstwo thirds into the epic science-fiction novel, it was time to gather forces for afinal spin into greatness. Sometime before Osborne Computer went bankrupt, Leehad been lamenting the opaque nature of the most recent computers, the lack ofnecessity that would lead people to actually go inside the chips and circuit boardsand wire them. Hardware construction, he was saying, is an objectified way ofthinking. It would be a shame if that went by the wayside, were limited only to thefew. He did not think it would be gone. "[The magic] will always be in there to acertain extent. You talk about deus ex machina, well, we're talking about deus in
machina. You start by thinking there's a god in the box. And then you find thereisn't anything in the box. You put the god in the box."Lee Felsenstein and the hardware hackers had helped make the transition from theworld of the MIT hacker, where the Hacker Ethic could flourish only within thelimited, monastic communities around the machine, to a world where the machineswere everywhere. Now, millions of computers were being made, each one aninvitation to program, to explore, to mythologize in machine language, to changethe world. Computers were rolling off assembly lines as blank slates; a newgeneration of hackers would be seduced by the power to fill the slates; and thesoftware they created would be presented to a world which saw computers in quitea different way than it had a decade before.
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HACKERSHeroes of the Computer Revol
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Contents●●●●●●●●●
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hero.Hackers like Richard Greenblat
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Steve DompierHomebrew member who fi
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"Uncle" John McCarthyAbsent-minded
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Dan SokolLong-haired prankster who
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Part OneTrue HackersCambridge:The F
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these machines to punch holes in th
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The clubroom was dominated by the h
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That spring of 1959, a new course w
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of course, was what those Signals a
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officious priests. The technician i
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Deutsch's comments would turn out t
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At that time, only a few people in
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Carroll's poem with the line "The t
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2The Hacker EthicSOMETHING new was
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that easy flow of information.Mistr
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instruction which contained the num
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focus, made their lives adventurous
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occupying valuable space within the
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3SpacewarIN the summer of 1961, Ala
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was a brand-new firm called Digital
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Dennis had written the original of
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The TMRC hackers were not the only
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exerted on others were totally outl
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All of this was actually a signific
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that often formed in the aftermath
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heavy star would be in the center,
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F. J. Corbate, who would seek some
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changed irrevocably the day in 1954
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doing. Then you can see your offspr
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709, or working routines with a new
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hacking them, he would. He would si
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They went back loaded with Chinese
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Though some hackers led somewhat ac
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Despite these odd personal traits,
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impossible was a useful LISP on a P
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opponent could get out of this was
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Dance, phone lines, dance!And the s
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oxes" hardware devices to make ille
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showed up on the ninth floor to wor
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Gosper's forte, and he did some ear
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the companionship of fellow hackers
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master key was a magic sword to wav
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sanctified objects, things you nurt
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6Winners and LosersBY 1966, when Da
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instead of sailing past the end of
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like a pair of antlers. It looked,
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made the same stupid mistake. Only
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"Well, it has them, it's just that
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their PDP-6, and you had one loser
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on a data disk accessible by the co
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system, Greenblatt and the rest exe
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create useful concepts and tools to
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7LIFETHEY would later call it a Gol
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seriously. These were the days of t
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Sometimes the hacker failure to be
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later: "It was sort of necessary fo
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explored in the Adventure world wer
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and weird patterns established in t
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etter program. Greenblatt howled in
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The world.As much as the hackers tr
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mainframe machine in the basement o
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He loved the idea of electronics. H
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But the war was just beginning. For
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month he rented a room. It was belo
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expose people, especially kids, to
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Harbor, about thirty miles south of
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liberal arts colleges. Nelson was a
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I like to think(it has to be!)of a
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9Every Man a GodJ.N June 1974, Lee
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microprocessor.Lee Felsenstein, in
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if he wanted to get involved in bui
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elieve it an acronym for "Man In Th
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kinds of gratification that a human
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would come out of these systems was
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company to help out in the crunch,
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dreaming of things to put in it to
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things done.Bob Albrecht did not li
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Fred Moore had set up a table in th
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charted the musical scale and writt
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Bob Marsh understood that this was
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Homebrew reviewers would examine ca
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could run some real programs on the
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Moore explicitly identified the pur
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SLAC, he talked of video displays,
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of the concept at work. One person'
Page 176 and 177: themselves to the hacker pursuit of
Page 178 and 179: after the meeting, Solomon was tell
Page 180 and 181: eaders), you would have a way to wr
Page 182 and 183: held at Albuquerque a year after th
Page 184 and 185: you steal your software. Hardware m
Page 186 and 187: fun," he later explained. Knowing s
Page 188 and 189: But by then the possibility of maki
Page 190 and 191: The computer is more interesting th
Page 192 and 193: The convivial approach I suggest wo
Page 194 and 195: amok. Marsh would often interrupt L
Page 196 and 197: profile, its typewriter-style built
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Page 200 and 201: oards); a 30-chip TV display. Skill
Page 202 and 203: He turned to computer programming,
Page 204 and 205: that use one less chip than the las
Page 206 and 207: Years later, the people attending t
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Page 210 and 211: computers. Now that hackers like Wo
Page 212 and 213: "Silicon Gulch," as he called it. O
Page 214 and 215: So the Apple people were prepared t
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Page 218 and 219: 13SecretsTED Nelson's speech was no
Page 220 and 221: The former "Captain Crunch" was in
Page 222 and 223: consuming passion was the resurrect
Page 224 and 225: energies were divided between that,
Page 228 and 229: Part ThreeGame HackersThe Sierras:T
Page 230 and 231: faded blue T-shirt. He had driven u
Page 232 and 233: A more important relationship to Ke
Page 234 and 235: Ken had gotten a taste of this more
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Page 238 and 239: For most of her life Roberta Willia
Page 240 and 241: was hard to control the writing mec
Page 242 and 243: Ken and Roberta bought the first co
Page 244 and 245: porno books.An excursion to the loc
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Page 250 and 251: of its founders. You almost had to
Page 252 and 253: 16The Third GenerationTHERE were st
Page 254 and 255: where you try to get a guy to the t
Page 256 and 257: screen; "user definable characters"
Page 258 and 259: dozens of new software companies th
Page 260 and 261: Ken had. already been marketing a P
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Page 264 and 265: If Ken Williams released a game tha
Page 266 and 267: law was in a case in which some pri
Page 268 and 269: virtual copy of Pac-Man!But the jud
Page 270 and 271: employees. People played a continuo
Page 272 and 273: peppermint schnapps which was On-Li
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At that time Warren was working at
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opportunity and he should take it.
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Ken Williams took the concerns of h
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was really easy to talk to. We talk
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Line community.Ken was hugely proud
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easily as John Harris had lent his
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The instant that John Harris ended
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and patterned after Billboard's rec
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This was quite a step from the earl
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tweaking a marketing plan here, deb
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A week before Dick arrived, Ken was
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whole company to come to the site o
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Line hackers gathered at places lik
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Guinness Book of World Records cham
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magazine show. NBC shot the requisi
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subsidized by some institution. The
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While still in high school, he land
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Ken basically wanted a fairly relia
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Apple bestseller. But when Lord Bri
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estseller. After flying the young a
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important Applefests. For one thing
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This message managed to find its wa
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They noticed right away because Fro
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that the action was switching to tr
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20Wizard vs. WizardsIN December of
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things look good on television. Tat
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now I just spend my time skiing the
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The author of the twelfth bestselli
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even the furniture, upside down wer
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things to Ken about On-Line that he
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The company's energy became focused
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The techniques, algorithms, and cro
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e more precarious than it had first
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hacker paradise, the Tech Square mo
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around the country all because the
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could easily handle the considerabl
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minimum.Noftsker considered this un
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in with the bad guys here. But I'm
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with concern when he spoke of Stall
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Generation hacker. With many more g
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Afterword: Ten Years After"I think
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to avoid attending future Hacker Co
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(though not gender specific) called
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Joseph We-izenbaum, Randy Wigginton
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* Gosper's memo is part of "Hakmem,
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Delta, 1979).* "The winning isn't a
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