Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

The author of the twelfth bestselling computer game in the country, according toSoftsel's Hot List, spoke into the prison telephone and explained how he'd blownit, how he'd seen the dazzling light the computer gave, basked in it, but could notlive up to it. He was in mid-sentence when the phone went dead and visitors toFresno Jail had to go back into the night. The visitor could make out his words ashe screamed them into the glass before he was led off: "Have Ken call me."Bob Davis' plight exemplified the disarray at Sierra On-Line that winter. On thesurface it seemed a company approaching respectability conglomerates stilltendered buy-out offers, the most recent for $12.5 million plus a $200,000-a-yearcontract for Williams. But underneath the veneer of a growing, thriving enterprisewas nagging doubt. This was heightened by a December 1982 announcement thatAtari's sales figures of videogames had plum-meted. People at On-Line and othercomputer game companies refused to see this as indication that the field was afading fad.Disorganization had only increased with Sierra On-Line's new, unwieldy size. Forinstance, one game which Dick had thought compelling, a multilevel game with amining scenario, had been languishing in the acquisitions department for weeks.The programmer called to make a deal, and by the time Dick managed to trace itspath through the company, the college student who had programmed the game hadgiven up on On-Line and sold the program to Broderbund. Under the name "LodeRunner," the game became a bestseller, named "1983 Game of the Year" by manycritics. The story was an eerie parallel to what had occurred when Ken Williamshad tried to sell Mystery House to Apple less than three years before the youngcomputer company, too muddled in management to move with the lightning-quickresponses that the computer industry demanded, did not get around to expressinginterest until too late. Was Sierra On-Line, still an infant company, already adinosaur?The conflict for control beween Ken Williams and Dick Sunder-land had grownworse. The newer, sales-oriented people supported Dick; most of the earlyemployees and the programmers, though, disliked the president and his secretivemanagement techniques. Feelings toward Ken were mixed. He would speak of On-Line spirit; but then, he would speak of the company "growing up," as if computersoftware was something that required a traditionally run company, replete withbusiness plans and rigid bureaucracy. If this were true, what did this say about thehacker dream of relying on the computer as a model of behavior that wouldimprove and enrich our lives? It was a moral crisis that haunted all of the industry