Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

He would claim to know computer languages and operating systems he knew nothing about, readinga book about the subject hours before a job interview and bullshitting his way into the position."Well, we're looking for a programmer in BAL," they would tell him, referring to an esotericcomputer language, and he would laugh almost derisively."BAL? I've been programming in BAL for three years!"Then he would immediately rush out to get hold of some books, since he had never even heard ofBAL. But by the time the job started he would have procured documentation, uniformly buried indense, cheaply printed looseleaf manuals, to fake expertise in the "BAL environment," or at leastbuy time until he could get into the machine and divine the secrets of BAL.No matter where he worked, in any number of nameless service companies in the yawning valleyabove Los Angeles, Ken Williams did not meet one person who deserved an iota of his respect. Hewould observe people who'd been programming computers for years and he would say to himself,"Give me a book and in two hours I'll be doing what they're doing." And sure enough, stackloads ofmanuals and a few fourteen-hour days later, he would at least appear to be one hotshot programmer.He'd come into the heavily air-conditioned computer sanctums at weird hours of the night to fix abug, or get the computer back up when one of his programs accidentally fed on itself and tripped themillions of calculations up in such a fury of misunderstanding that nothing the regular crew couldthink of could revive the machine. But Ken, confident that the stupidity of his colleagues wasdwarfed only by the astounding compliance of the Dumb Beast whom he could feed and befriendwith his programming skills, would work three days straight, forgetting to even stop for a meal,until the Dumb Beast was back on the job. Ken Williams, hero of the day, tamer of the Dumb Beast,would go home, sleep for a day and a half, then return to work, ready for another marathon.Employers noticed, and rewarded him.Ken was rising at quantum speed Roberta figured they moved to various locations in the L.A. areaabout twelve times in that go-go decade, always making sure that they turned a profit on the house.They had no time for making friends. They felt like loners and misfits, usually the only white-collarfamily in a blue-collar neighborhood. The consolation was money. "Wouldn't it be nice to makeanother two hundred dollars a week?" Roberta would ask, and Ken would get a new job or take onmore consulting work ... but even before Ken had settled into this new job, he and Roberta would besitting in the tiny living room of whatever house they happened to be living in, and saying,"Wouldn't it be nice to earn two hundred dollars more?" The pressure never stopped, especiallysince Ken Williams had idle dreams of fantastic sums of money, money enough to goof off with forthe rest of his life not only all the cash that he and Roberta could spend but all that his kids couldspend, too (Roberta was pregnant by then with the second Williams son, Chris). Wouldn't it be nice,he thought, to retire at thirty?By then something else was changing: his relationship with the Dumb Beast. When Ken had time,he would often pull out some of those dense, cheaply printed looseleaf manuals, trying to figure outwhat made the big Burroughs or IBM or Control Data machine really tick. As he gained proficiencyin his profession, he began to respect it more, see how it could approach art. There were layers ofexpertise that were way beyond what Williams had previously come to assume. A programmingpantheon did exist, almost like some sort of old-time philosophical brotherhood.