Synopsis
Hackers: the undisputed masters of code who more than anyone are responsible for making computers widely available, splendidly useful, and fun. They are an astonishingly unique new breed of american hero, and Steven Levy has talked to the wildest brains among them to present the inside story of the computer revolution. What drove Ricky Greenblatt, Bill Gosper, and their friends to seize control of the multimillion-dollar computers at MIT in the fifties and sixties, so they could not only use them night after night but create, explore, and play on them? What drove Lee Felsenstein and his California hardware cohorts in the seventies to liberate the genie in the machine and give it to the people? What drove superstar game designer John Harris from the software company he had enriched in the Sierras in the eighties? It was a set of shared ideas and a vision they held in common – the Hacker Ethic. The Hacker Ethic was an idealistic and obsessive standard that led to weird lifestyles, to hilarious clashes with bureaucracies, and even to potential illegalities: in their urge to explore computers, hackers don’t necessarily care whose computer is being explored. But their hands-on, anti-authority Ethic, along with their technical brilliance, enabled them to triumph – as they do in scene after scene of this twenty-five-year epic of young American wizardry.
Review
Steven Levy's classic book explains why the misuse of the word "hackers" to describe computer criminals does a terrible disservice to many important shapers of the digital revolution. Levy follows members of an MIT model railroad club--a group of brilliant budding electrical engineers and computer innovators--from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. These eccentric characters used the term "hack" to describe a clever way of improving the electronic system that ran their massive railroad. And as they started designing clever ways to improve computer systems, "hack" moved over with them. These maverick characters were often fanatics who did not always restrict themselves to the letter of the law and who devoted themselves to what became known as "The Hacker Ethic." The book traces the history of hackers, from finagling access to clunky computer-card-punching machines to uncovering the inner secrets of what would become the Internet. This story of brilliant, eccentric, flawed, and often funny people devoted to their dream of a better world will appeal to a wide audience.
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