Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

Jeff Stephenson, who liked Bob a lot that Bob Davis was going around callinghimself a programmer, when a real programmer, anyone with hacker credentials,should have been able to perform a lot more concentrated wizardry than Davis had.Once Davis learned Ken's ADL tools, though, he had the key to writing aprofessional-level Adventure game. He'd always been interested in mythology, andhe read up on some Greek classics, particularly those dealing with Jason, andworked the ancient tales into an adventure game. He programmed the game, heclaimed, in his spare time (though some at On-Line thought that he neglected hisTime Zone duties for his own project) and with some help from Ken, he finished it.Less than a year after being rescued from clerkdom in a liquor store he was asoftware star. On-Line's lawyer guessed there might be a problem in calling thegame "Jason and the Golden Fleece" because that was a movie title which might becopyrighted, so On-Line released the game as "Ulysses and the Golden Fleece."It was an instant hit, placing comfortably in Softalk's Top Thirty. VideogameIllustrated magazine called it "one of the most important and challengingvideogames ever created," though it really did not represent any significant advanceover previous hi-res adventures except that it was longer and its graphics lookedconsiderably more artful than the Mystery House pictures with their stick-figurelook. The magazine also interviewed Davis, who sounded quite the pundit, talkingabout what gaming consumers might expect in the next five years ("computershooked up to every phone and every television ... voice synthesis ... voicerecognition ... special effects generated by videodisks..."). A Utopian scenario, andwhy not? Look what computers had done for Bob Davis.The changes that personal computers were making in people's lives were by nomeans limited to California. All over the country, the computer was opening upnew areas of creativity. Part of the hacker dream was that people who hadunfulfilled creative tendencies would be liberated by the computer. They mighteven ascend to a level of wizardry where they might earn the appellation of hacker.Ken Williams now could see this happening. Almost as if predestined, some of hisprogrammers, once immersed in communion with the machine, had confidentlyblossomed. No transformation was more dramatic than that of Warren Schwader.Perhaps the most significant event in Wan-en Schwader's life occurred in 1977,when Warren was eighteen: his brother purchased one of the first Apple IIcomputers. His brother had been paralyzed in a car accident, and wanted the Appleto relieve his boredom. It was up to tall, blond, thick-featured and slow-talkingWarren to help his brother key commands into the Apple. And it was Warren whobecame the hacker.