Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

e more precarious than it had first appeared.One only had to talk to Jerry Jewell to find out why: Jewell of Sinus did comedown from Sacramento, and he was lamenting the disastrous end to his Twentieth-Century Fox Games deal the cartridge games that his company had written hadbeen lost in the 1983 videogame glut, and he had received almost no money inexchange for focusing his entire market thrust on the Atari VCS machine. Hiscompany was hanging by a thread, and he doubted whether any of theBrotherhood would be able to survive in the next few years. His top programmershad left him, days before he was about to lay them off.Ken Williams was still having programmer problems, too. There was the hackerwho was running the IBM project, far behind schedule. There were some of the"professional" programmers who, not familiar with the pleasures of immersioninto a computer-game universe, were unable to synthesize those pleasuresthemselves. There was even a dispute with Bob and Carolyn Box: the two goldpanners-tumed-programmershad rejected Ken's criticisms of the game theyshowed him, and had left the company to be independent software authors.And then there was John Harris. Lately, he and Ken had been feuding over aroyalty disagreement on Frogger, still On-Line's bestselling program. ParkerBrothers wanted to buy the program to convert to cartridge, and Ken offered John20 percent of the two-hundred-thousand-dollar buy-out. To John that was notenough. They discussed it in Ken's office. It had ended with Ken Williams lookingat his former software superstar and saying, "Get out of my office, John Harris.You're wasting my time."That was the last time they had spoken before the housewarm-ing, to which Kenhad not invited John. Nonetheless, Harris had showed up with his girlfriend, whowas wearing a large diamond engagement ring he had given her. Ken greeted thehacker cordially. It was not a day for animosity, it was a day for celebration. Kenand Roberta Williams had their new, eight-hundred-thousand-dollar house, and nodark clouds hung over the Sierras, at least. The computer had delivered them all toriches and fame they had never dared dream of, and as dusk peeked over MountDead-wood, Ken Williams, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, danced happily to thetunes of a bluegrass band he had shipped in from Southern California. Later on,just as he always dreamed, he sat in the hot tub with friends, a millionaire in histwenties with a hot tub in the mountains. As the friends sat in the hot tub, theirarms ringing the side, they could hear the faint electronic sounds of the arcadegames in the nearby game room, mingling incongruously with the rustling Sierraforest.