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THE VANISHING HACKER
Do you remember the "hacker,"
also known as the computer hobbyist?
There he sits, late at night, programming,
probing the machine's
inner depths, sometimes cursing softly,
others shouting ecstatically. The
machine does what you tell it to do,
not what you want it to do.
The hacker can easily be picked
out of a crowd; he (or she) is the one
who bought an Apple for its own sake;
who survived the "Whatcha gonna
doowiddit'' inanities, and who gradually
conditioned the machine to serve
human needs. Sometimes by force.
There was pride at the first successful
simple BASIC program, and a growing
competence on the part of the
hacker. Explore Pascal? Maybe even
venture into machine language? Sure,
why not? It's even possible that the
hacker's efforts filled some need in
the marketplace, spawning a "basement"
business or" cottage industry."
It was probably inevitable, but in
today's Apple world, the hacker is said
to be vanishing from sight. He is being
overwhelmed by the "users," who
didn't buy Apples for the fun(!) of it,
but to use the machine like any other
appliance, for a job of work that had to
be done. There is no interest there in
pushing back frontiers; just keep up
the inventory and that will be enough,
thank you.
But the "hacking" process goes
through stages of development too
.. . and there was a creativity born of
necessity in the early days of the
Apple II phenomenon that we see less
of today, because there is more, and
more refined, material available.
Hacking is no longer necessary to
achieve rapport with the Apple II.
Net result: fewer people become
hackers, although more people are
users. Ask the market researchers;
they'll tell you that the hobbyist is not
the marketplace. In fact, "hobbyist" is
almost a dirty word to the corporate
newcomers in their three-piece suits,
come to profit where hackers blazed
the trail.
We owe thanks to the hackers for
the microcomputer. No large or even
medium sized corporation brought it
forth, although these are now stressing
the bandwagon to near its weight
limits. Of the hackers who gave this
industry its start, some have been
rewarded beyond dreams; others have
been forgotten, or have had to endure
seeing. others receive acclaim not
altogether due them. Growth and
corporateness has become inevitable,
and that is not a climate in which
hackers flourish.
Apple The Company is a classic
example of sudden growth and the
human problems that accompany it.
The attempt to impose the institutional
structure of a large corporation
on what conventional business wisdom
calls " Camp Runamok" is, frankly,
a battle, to be won only at great
cost. Meanwhile, the "hackers" who
created Apple The Company are leaving;
most notably co-Founder and
hacker folk hero Steve Wozniak
'Twas ever thus; Watt, Newcomen,
Cooper, the Wrights, Ford, were all
hackers. T. A. Edison was a "hacker"
of the first water, unconcerned by the
politics of the Corporate Research
budget. And he too was cast aside by
the corporate grayness that survives,
"bringing good things to life" today.
From a societal standpoint, it'5
probably better to have more than
500,000 people improving their lives
somewhat as users, than 10,000
hackers, consumed by an electronic
passion but operating in relative obscurity.
So the market is better for
everyone.
And has the "hacker spirit" really
been done in? Fat chance. Just check
out the Apple / / / Group, which displays
those telltale pioneering overtones.
No, if the hackers "vanish" at
all, they vanish like a scouting party;
over the horizon, ahead of the rest of
us.
May -June 1982 11