Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

easily as John Harris had lent his early copy of Jawbreaker to the guys at theFresno computer store. But rarely would people ask for public domain programsby name: they wanted the ones they saw advertised and discussed in magazines,demonstrated in computer stores. It was not so important to have amazingly cleveralgorithms. Users would put up with more commonplace ones.The Hacker Ethic, of course, held that every program should be as good as youcould make it (or better), infinitely flexible, admired for its brilliance of conceptand execution, and designed to extend the user's powers. Selling computerprograms like toothpaste was heresy. But it was happening. Consider theprescription for success offered by one of a panel of high-tech venture capitalists,gathered at a 1982 software show: "I can summarize what it takes in three words:marketing, marketing, marketing." When computers are sold like toasters,programs will be sold like toothpaste. The Hacker Ethic notwithstanding.Ken Williams yearned for the bestsellers, games whose very names had the impactof brand names. So when his star programmer, John Harris, mentioned that hewould like to try converting a popular coin-op arcade game called "Frogger" to theAtari Home Computer, Ken liked the idea. Frogger was a simple yet bewitchinggame in which the player tried to manipulate a cute little frog over a heavilytrafficked highway and across a stream by making it hop on the backs of logs andturtles; the game was popular, and, if well hacked, might well be a bestsellingcomputer game. "John Harris saw it and said it was really neat. He told me hecould program it in a week. I agreed it looked trivial," Ken later recalled.Instead of having Harris copy the program and give it another name, Ken Williamsplayed by corporation rules. He called the owner of the game's rights, the Segadivision of the Gulf& Western conglomerate. Sega did not seem to understand thevalue of their property, and Ken managed to acquire computer-disk and cassetterights for a paltry 10 percent royalty fee. (Sega licensed cartridge rights to theParicer Brothers game company; the marketers of "Monopoly" were breaking intothe videogame market.) He set John Harris to work immediately on the conversionof the game to the Atari computer. He also assigned a programmer to do an Appleversion, but since the Apple graphics were not well suited to the game, it would bethe Atari which would showcase the excellence of Ken's company.John Harris guessed that it would be a quick and dirty three-week project (hisoriginal one-week boast had been an idle one) to do a perfectly admirable Atariversion of Frogger. This was the kind of illusion with which hackers often beginprojects. Working in the office he had set up in the smallest of three bedrooms inhis rambling orange-wood house a room cluttered with papers, discardedhardware, and potato-chip bags John put the graphics on the screen in short order;during that period, he later recalled, "I glued my hands to the keyboard. One time I