Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

PrefaceI was first drawn to writing about hackers those computer programmers anddesigners who regard computing as the most important thing in the world becausethey were such fascinating people. Though some in the field used the term"hacker" as a form of derision, implying that hackers were either nerdy socialoutcasts or "unprofessional" programmers who wrote dirty, "nonstandard"computer code, I found them quite different. Beneath their often unimposingexteriors, they were adventurers, visionaries, risk-takers, artists ... and the oneswho most clearly saw why the computer was a truly revolutionary tool. Amongthemselves, they knew how far one could go by immersion into the deepconcentration of the hacking mind-set: one could go infinitely far. I came tounderstand why true hackers consider the term an appellation of honor rather thana pejorative.As I talked to these digital explorers, ranging from those who tamed multimilliondollarmachines in the 1950s to contemporary young wizards who masteredcomputers in their suburban bedrooms, I found a common element, a commonphilosophy which seemed tied to the elegantly flowing logic of the computer itself.It was a philosophy of sharing, openness, decentralization, and getting your handson machines at any cost to improve the machines, and to improve the world. ThisHacker Ethic is their gift to us: something with value even to those of us with nointerest at all in computers.It is an ethic seldom codified, but embodied instead in the behavior of hackersthemselves. I would like to introduce you to these people who not only saw butlived the magic in the computer, and worked to liberate the magic so it couldbenefit us all. The people include the true hackers of the MIT artificial intelligencelab in the fifties and sixties; the populist, less sequestered hardware hackers inCalifornia in the seventies; and the young game hackers who made their mark inthe personal computer age of the eighties.This is in no way a formal history of the computer era, or of the particular arenas Ifocus upon. Indeed, many of the people you will meet here are not the mostfamous names (certainly not the most wealthy) in the annals of computing.Instead, these are the backroom geniuses who understood the machine at its mostprofound levels, and presented us with a new kind of life-style and a new kind of