Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

15The BrotherhoodTHE Hacker Ethic was changing, even as it spread throughout the country. Itsemissaries were the small, low-cost computers sold by Apple, Radio Shack,Commodore (the PET), and Atari. Each was a real computer; the sheerproliferation created a demand for more innovative programs that previousdistribution methods could not address. A hacker could no longer distribute cleverprograms by leaving them in a drawer, as he had at MIT, nor could he rely on aHomebrew Computer Club system of swapping programs at club meetings. Manypeople who bought these new computers never bothered to join clubs. Instead theyrelied on computer stores, where they happily paid for programs. When you weredesperate for something to fulfill the promise of this thrilling new machine,spending twenty-five dollars for Mystery House seemed almost a privilege. Thesepioneering computer owners in the early eighties might learn enough about theirmachines to appreciate the beauty of an unencumbered flow of information, butthe Hacker Ethic, microcomputer-style, no longer necessarily implied thatinformation was free.As companies like On-Line wrote and sold more programs, people who had nodesire to become programmers, let alone hackers, began to buy computers,intending only to run packaged software on them. In a way, this represented afulfillment of the hacker dream computers for the masses, computers like recordplayers: you'd go to the software store, choose the latest releases, and spin away.But did you really benefit from your computer if you did not program it?Still, in the early eighties, everyone with a computer had to delve into the hackermentality to some degree. Doing the simplest things on your machine required alearning process, a search for gurus who could tell you how to copy a disk or findthe proper connecting cables to hook up the printer. Even the process of buyingready-to-run software had a funky, hacker feel to it. The programs were packagedin Ziploc bags, the graphics on the so-called documentation were mostly on thelevel of Roberta Williams' stick-figure primitives, and more often than not thelabels on the disk would be typewritten and stuck on by hand ... there was an auraof the illegitimate about the product, only slightly more respectable than hard-core