Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

To Roberta Williams, it all represented something: the rehabilitation of the Boxes,Ken's community-minded efforts, her own ascension to the rank of bestsellinggame designer, the big Dark Crystal collaboration with Henson Associates, theartistic efforts of their software superstars, and above all the fantastic way thatcomputers had nurtured what was a mom-and-pop bedroom operation to a $1Omillion-a-yearcompany that would soon be employing over one hundred people.She considered their story inspiring. It said a lot about the power of the computer,and the different, better lives that people would be leading with the computer. Inthe two years of On-Line's growth, Roberta had shed some of her shyness,exchanging a bit of it for a fierce pride in their accomplishments. "Look at us!"she'd sometimes say in conversation, partially in disbelief and partially as an allpurposetrump card. "People ask me," she said that fall of 1982, " 'Don't you justsit around and say "Wow"? Doesn't it do something for you?' The answer is thatwe're just so constantly amazed all the time that it's almost a state of mind."Roberta wanted the message of On-Line spread to the world. She insisted that On-Line hire a New York public relations firm to promote not only the programs, butthe people behind them. "Programmers, authors, are going to be the future newentertainers," she explained. "It might be presumptuous to say they might be newRobert Redfords ... but to a certain extent [they will be] idolized. Tomorrow'sheroes."Dick Sunderland did not share Roberta's enthusiasm for the New York publicrelations firm. He had come out of an industry where programmers wereanonymous. He was worried about On-Line's programmers getting big heads fromall that attention. It's tough enough to deal with a twenty-year-old who's making ahundred thousand a year can you imagine how tough it will be after he's profiled inPeople magazine, as John Harris would be that winter?The spotlight was beginning to find its way to the mysterious software companywhose letterhead still carried the address of the Williamses' A-frame woodenhouse from which they had run the company when it was a two-person operation.Mudge Ranch Road, Coarsegold, California. The world wanted to know: Whatkind of computer madness had taken hold out there in the sticks, and what sorts ofmillions were being made, there on Mudge Ranch Road? There was no subject inthe media hotter than computers in the early 1980s, and with the New York publicrelations firm helping channel the dazzled inquisitors, a steady stream of longdistancephone calls and even long-distance visitors began to arrive in Oakhurstthat autumn.This included an "NBC Magazine" camera crew which flew to Oakhurst fromNew York City to document this thriving computer-age company for its video