Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

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20Wizard vs. WizardsIN December of 1982, Tom Tatum, lanky, dark-haired, mous-tached, and as coolas his lazy Southern drawl implied, stood at the ballroom podium of the Las VegasSands. Behind him, sitting uncomfortably on a row of chairs, were ten hackers.Tom Tatum, former lawyer, lobbyist, and Carter campaign aide, now a leadingpurveyor of video "docusports" programming, thought he had ser-endipitouslylatched on to a jackpot bigger than that of any slot machine in the casino onlyyards away from where he stood."This is the event where Hollywood meets the <strong>Computer</strong> Age," said Tom Tatum tothe crowd of reporters and computer tradespeople in town for the Comdex show."The ultra-contest of the eighties."Tom Tatum's creation was called "Wizard vs. Wizards." It was to be a televisioncontest where game designers play each other's games for a set of prizes. Tatumhad gathered programmers from companies like On-Line and Sirius because hesensed the arrival of a new kind of hero, one who fought with brains instead ofmuscle, one who represented America's bold willingness to stay ahead of the restof the world in the technological battle of supremacy: the hacker.Unlike Tom Tatum's previous sports productions, which included the 1981 MauiWindsurfing Grand Prix and the Telluride Aerobatics Invitational, this "Wizard vs.Wizards" had the potential to draw a new audience to the docusports genre. "Onlya small percentage of the population will own a Super Cross bike," he laterexplained. "But when you look at people computing at home, it's awesome."Obviously, the contests people cared about were now occurring in arcades and infront of Apple computers. Imagine how many would tune in to see pros compete.What's more, as Tatum put it, "the sizzle in this show is the double whammy" ofthe authors themselves those weird, sci-fi computer guys competing against eachother."These are the new stars!" said Tom Tatum in Las Vegas, but the new stars
seemed ill at ease being paraded on a Las Vegas stage like so many misshapenMiss Universe contenders. The beauty in hack-erism was Taoistic and internal,blindingly impressive when one could perceive the daring blend of idealism andcerebration, but less than compelling when presented as a chorus line in a LasVegas ballroom. The hacker smiles were wooden, their suits ill-fitting (though afew were wearing specially made though still ill-fitting athletic warm-up suits).Even the most obtuse observer could divine that most of them would rather behome hacking. But with mixed motivations of curiosity, pressure from theirpublishers, a desire to spend a few days in Vegas, and, yes, vanity, they had cometo the Sands to compete in the hottest thing Tom Tatum had ever done, with thepossible exception, he later conceded, of the Miller High Life Super Cross Finals.The contest would include hackers from seven companies. Jerry Jewell was on thescene with Sirius' two most awesome arcaders. On-Line would arrive tomorrow.After the presentation, Jewell bragged to one of the competitors that one of hismen might well be the world's best videogamer. "I've seen him play Robotron forfour hours," he said.The hacker was not intimidated. "You see this?" he replied in a shrieky voice,holding his hand out. "This is my Robotron blister. I usually stop after an hourbecause my hands are so sensitive."Later, in his hotel room, Jewell watched as his hackers practiced the gamesscheduled for the competition. Jewell was exultant about his company's deal withTwentieth-Century Fox Games. The VCS cartridges his programmers nowdesigned were widely distributed and heavily marketed by Fox; his was the firstcompany of the Brotherhood to have its games advertised on television, anddistributed in mass-market outlets. "It's one thing to see your Apple product on thewall of a computer store," Jerry Jewell was saying, "but when you see a rack ofyour stuff in K-Mart, you know you've arrived."Ken Williams arrived in Las Vegas in time for a pre-contest meeting that Tatumheld for the twelve contestants and their sponsors. Having bounced back quicklyfrom the fire, Williams was ready to be the only competitor in the show who wasactually a publisher. He and the others drew chairs in a semicircle to hear Tatumdescribe the rules."This is a new kind of contest," Tom Tatum addressed the group. "It wouldn'thappen except for television. It is created for television. The rules have beendeveloped for television." He explained that two sets of conflicting values wereinvolved in this new kind of contest: Value One was the urge for an honest, faircompetition, and Value Two was the need to do everything possible to make
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HACKERSHeroes of the Computer Revol
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Contents●●●●●●●●●
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hero.Hackers like Richard Greenblat
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Steve DompierHomebrew member who fi
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"Uncle" John McCarthyAbsent-minded
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Dan SokolLong-haired prankster who
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Part OneTrue HackersCambridge:The F
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these machines to punch holes in th
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The clubroom was dominated by the h
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That spring of 1959, a new course w
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of course, was what those Signals a
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officious priests. The technician i
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Deutsch's comments would turn out t
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At that time, only a few people in
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Carroll's poem with the line "The t
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2The Hacker EthicSOMETHING new was
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that easy flow of information.Mistr
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instruction which contained the num
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focus, made their lives adventurous
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occupying valuable space within the
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3SpacewarIN the summer of 1961, Ala
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was a brand-new firm called Digital
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Dennis had written the original of
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The TMRC hackers were not the only
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exerted on others were totally outl
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All of this was actually a signific
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that often formed in the aftermath
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heavy star would be in the center,
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F. J. Corbate, who would seek some
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changed irrevocably the day in 1954
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doing. Then you can see your offspr
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709, or working routines with a new
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hacking them, he would. He would si
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They went back loaded with Chinese
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Though some hackers led somewhat ac
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Despite these odd personal traits,
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impossible was a useful LISP on a P
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opponent could get out of this was
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Dance, phone lines, dance!And the s
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oxes" hardware devices to make ille
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showed up on the ninth floor to wor
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Gosper's forte, and he did some ear
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the companionship of fellow hackers
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master key was a magic sword to wav
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sanctified objects, things you nurt
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6Winners and LosersBY 1966, when Da
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instead of sailing past the end of
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like a pair of antlers. It looked,
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made the same stupid mistake. Only
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"Well, it has them, it's just that
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their PDP-6, and you had one loser
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on a data disk accessible by the co
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system, Greenblatt and the rest exe
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create useful concepts and tools to
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7LIFETHEY would later call it a Gol
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seriously. These were the days of t
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Sometimes the hacker failure to be
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later: "It was sort of necessary fo
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explored in the Adventure world wer
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and weird patterns established in t
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etter program. Greenblatt howled in
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The world.As much as the hackers tr
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mainframe machine in the basement o
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He loved the idea of electronics. H
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But the war was just beginning. For
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month he rented a room. It was belo
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expose people, especially kids, to
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Harbor, about thirty miles south of
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liberal arts colleges. Nelson was a
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I like to think(it has to be!)of a
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9Every Man a GodJ.N June 1974, Lee
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microprocessor.Lee Felsenstein, in
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if he wanted to get involved in bui
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elieve it an acronym for "Man In Th
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kinds of gratification that a human
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would come out of these systems was
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company to help out in the crunch,
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dreaming of things to put in it to
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things done.Bob Albrecht did not li
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Fred Moore had set up a table in th
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charted the musical scale and writt
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Bob Marsh understood that this was
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Homebrew reviewers would examine ca
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could run some real programs on the
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Moore explicitly identified the pur
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SLAC, he talked of video displays,
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of the concept at work. One person'
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themselves to the hacker pursuit of
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after the meeting, Solomon was tell
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eaders), you would have a way to wr
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held at Albuquerque a year after th
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you steal your software. Hardware m
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fun," he later explained. Knowing s
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But by then the possibility of maki
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The computer is more interesting th
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The convivial approach I suggest wo
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amok. Marsh would often interrupt L
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profile, its typewriter-style built
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to get on various time-sharing comp
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oards); a 30-chip TV display. Skill
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He turned to computer programming,
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that use one less chip than the las
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Years later, the people attending t
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favorable to the prices HP was payi
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computers. Now that hackers like Wo
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"Silicon Gulch," as he called it. O
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So the Apple people were prepared t
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proper stream and go with it until
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13SecretsTED Nelson's speech was no
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The former "Captain Crunch" was in
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consuming passion was the resurrect
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energies were divided between that,
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Osbome while he and the others were
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Part ThreeGame HackersThe Sierras:T
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faded blue T-shirt. He had driven u
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A more important relationship to Ke
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Ken had gotten a taste of this more
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nonetheless ... and then extemporan
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For most of her life Roberta Willia
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was hard to control the writing mec
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Ken and Roberta bought the first co
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porno books.An excursion to the loc
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player's little tank. Jewell sugges
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Margot and Al, in her words, "becam
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of its founders. You almost had to
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16The Third GenerationTHERE were st
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where you try to get a guy to the t
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screen; "user definable characters"
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dozens of new software companies th
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Ken had. already been marketing a P
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home and reprogrammed the graphics.
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If Ken Williams released a game tha
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law was in a case in which some pri
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virtual copy of Pac-Man!But the jud
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employees. People played a continuo
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peppermint schnapps which was On-Li
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Page 276 and 277: At that time Warren was working at
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Page 296 and 297: A week before Dick arrived, Ken was
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Page 310 and 311: Ken basically wanted a fairly relia
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Page 318 and 319: This message managed to find its wa
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Page 340 and 341: e more precarious than it had first
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Page 348 and 349: minimum.Noftsker considered this un
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Page 354 and 355: Generation hacker. With many more g
Page 356 and 357: Afterword: Ten Years After"I think
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Page 362 and 363: Joseph We-izenbaum, Randy Wigginton
Page 364 and 365: * Gosper's memo is part of "Hakmem,
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