Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

The company's energy became focused into converting product into other product.It was an approach which stifled the hacker joy of creating new worlds. Ratherthan building on past successes in a quest for brilliant programs, On-Line wastrying to maximize sales by duplicating even moderate successes, often-onrelatively limited machines on which the games looked worse than the originals.Nowhere in the flurry to convert was there provision for rewarding an effort likeHarris' Frogger, which was so artistically accomplished that it hit the market withthe force of an original work.Back at his unkempt electronic split-level, John Harris was philosophizing that"professional" programmers any programmers who didn't have a love for gamingin their hearts and hacker perfectionism in their souls were destined to makesoulless, imperfect games. But Ken Williams was not talking to John Harris, whoafter all was programming for Synapse now. Ken Williams was about to hold ameeting that would put On-Line in contact with a new enterprise one that woulddeliver an entire assembly line of professional programmers to do conversions. Atdirt-cheap prices!It sounded too good to be true, and Ken entered into the meeting with suspicion.His contact in this new venture was a shoulder-length-haired, Peter Lorre-eyedbusinessman named Barry Friedman. Friedman's fortunes had risen along with thecrazily swelling tide of the home computer industry. Originally, he hadrepresented artists who did illustrations for the advertisements and packaging ofOn-Line products, then had branched out to eventually handle all the art work for afew computer companies. From there, he began to service software companieswith all sorts of needs. If you wanted to know where to find the best price forROM cartridges, he could act as middleman to get you cheap ROMs, perhaps fromsome obscure Hong Kong supplier.Lately, he had been hinting of access to tremendous sums of capital to those whoneeded it. The other day, Ken said, Barry had called him up and asked how muchan outsider would need to buy On-Line. Ken pulled a $20 million figure out of theair and hung up. Barry called back that day saying $20 million was fine. Ken, stillnot taking it too seriously, said, "Well, I'd need control, too." Barry called back notlong after, saying that was OK, too. The crazy thing about it was that as dubious asKen was about Barry Friedman and his growing stable of companies (you nevercould be sure which corporate name would be on the business card Barry or hiscolleagues handed you), he always seemed to deliver on his promises. It was as ifBarry Priedman were the beneficiary of some Faustian bargain, Silicon Valleystyle.This new deal sounded the most astonishing of all. Friedman was escorting to the