Hackers Heroes of the Computer Revolution.pdf

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy

Chapters 1 and 2 of

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

by Steven Levy

Who's Who

The Wizards and their Machines

Bob Albrecht

Found of People's Computer Company who took visceral pleasure

in exposing youngsters to computers.

Altair 8800

The pioneering microcomputer that galvanized hardware hackers.

Building this kit made you learn hacking. Then you tried to

figure out what to DO with it.

Apple II ][

Steve Wozniak's friendly, flaky, good-looking computer,

wildly successful and the spark and soul of a thriving industry.

Atari 800

This home computer gave great graphics to game hackers like John Harris,

though the company that made it was loath to tell you how it worked.

Bob and Carolyn Box

World-record-holding gold prospectors turned software stars,

working for Sierra On-Line.

Doug Carlston

Corporate lawyer who chucked it all to form the Broderbund

software company.

Bob Davis

Left job in liquor store to become best-selling author

of Sierra On-Line computer game "Ulysses and the Golden Fleece."

Success was his downfall.

Peter Deutsch

Bad in sports, brilliant at math, Peter was still in short pants

when he stubled on the TX-0 at MIT--and hacked it

along with the masters.

Steve Dompier

Homebrew member who first made the Altair sing,

and later wrote the "Targe" game on the Sol

which entranced Tom Snyder.

John Draper

The notorious "Captain Crunch" who fearlessly explored

the phone systems, got jailed, hacked microprocessors.

Cigarettes made his violent.

Mark Duchaineau

The young Dungeonmaster who copy-protected On-Lines disks

at his whim.

Side 1

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Chris Esponosa

Fourteen-year-old follower of Steve Wozniak

and early Apple employee.

Lee Felsenstein

Former "military editor" of Berkeley Barb,

and hero of an imaginary science-fiction novel,

he designed computers with "junkyard" approach

and was central figure in Bay Area hardware

hacking in the seventies.

Ed Fredkin

Gentle founder of Information International,

thought himself world's greates programmer

until he met Stew Nelson. Father figure to hackers.

Gordon French

Silver-haired hardware hacker whose garage held not cars

but his homebrewed Chicken Hawk comptuer, then held the

first Homebrew Computer Club meeting.

Richard Garriott

Astronaut's son who, as Lord British,

created Ultima world on computer disks.

Bill Gates

Cocky wizard, Harvard dropout who wrote Altair BASIC,

and complained when hackers copied it.

Bill Gosper

Horwitz of computer keyboards, master math and LIFE hacker

at MIT AI lab, guru of the Hacker Ethic and student of

Chinese restaurant menus.

Richard Greenblatt

Single-minded, unkempt, prolific, and canonical MIT hacker

who went into night phase so often that he zorched

his academic career. The hacker's hacker.

John Harris

The young Atari 800 game hacker who became Sierra On-Line's

star programmer, but yearned for female companionship.

IBM-PC

IBM's entry into the personal computer market

which amazingly included a bit of the Hacker Ethic,

and took over. [H.E. as open architecture.]

IBM 704

IBM was The Enemy, and this was its machine,

the Hulking Giant computer in MIT's Building 26.

Later modified into the IBM 709, then the IBM 7090.

Batch-processed and intolerable.

Jerry Jewell

Vietnam vet turned programmer who founded Sirius Software.

Steven Jobs

Visionary, beaded, non-hacking youngster who took

Wozniak's Apple II ][, made a lot of deals,

and formed a company that would make a billion dollars.

Tom Knight

At sixteen, an MIT hacker who would name the

Incompatible Time-sharing System. Later a

Greenblatt nemesis over the LISP machine schism.

Side 2

Alan Kotok

The chubby MIT student from Jersey who worked

under the rail layout at TMRC, learned the phone system

at Western Electric, and became a legendary TX-0 and PDP-1 hacker.

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Effrem Lipkin

Hacker-activist from New York who loved machines

but hated their uses. Co-Founded Community Memory;

friend of Felsenstein.

LISP Machine

The ultimate hacker computer, invented mosly by Greenblatt

and subject of a bitter dispute at MIT.

"Uncle" John McCarthy

Absent-minded but brilliant MIT [later Stanford] professor

who helped pioneer computer chess, artificial intelligence, LISP.

Bob Marsh

Berkeley-ite and Homebrewer who shared garage with Felsenstein

and founded Processor Technology, which made the Sol computer.

Roger Melen

Homebrewer who co-founded Cromemco company to make

circuit boards for Altair. His "Dazzler" played LIFE

programs on his kitchen table.

Louis Merton

Pseudonym for the AI chess hacker whose tendency

to go catatonic brought the hacker community together.

Jude Milhon

Met Lee Felsenstein through a classified ad in the

Berkeley Barb, and became more than a friend--

a member of the Community Memory collective.

Marvin Minsky

Playful and brilliant MIT prof who headed the AI lave

and allowed the hackers to run free.

Fred Moore

Vagabond pacifist who hated money, loved technology,

and co-founded Homebrew Club.

Stewart Nelson

Buck-toothed, diminutive, but fiery AI lab hacker

who connected the PDP-1 comptuer to hack the phone system.

Later co-founded the Systems Concepts company.

Ted Nelson

Self-described "innovator" and noted curmudgeon

who self-published the influential Computer Lib book.

Russel Noftsker

Harried administrator of MIT AI lab in the late sixties;

later president of Symbolics company.

Adam Osborne

Bangkok-born publisher-turned-computer-manufacturer

who considered himself a philsopher. Founded Osborne

Computer Company to make "adequate" machines.

PDP-1

Digital Equipment's first minicomputer, and in 1961

an interactive godsend to the MIT hackers and a

slap in the face to IBM fascism.

PDP-6

Side 3

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Designed in part by Kotok, this mainframe computer

was cornerstone of AI lab, with its gorgeious instruction set

and sixteen sexy registers.

Tom Pittman

The religious Homebrew hacker who lost his wife

but kept the faith with his Tiny Basic.

Ed Roberts

Enigmatic founder of MITS company who shook the world

with his Altair computer. He wanted to help people

build mental pyramids.

Steve [Slug] Russell

McCarthy's "coolie," who hacked the Spacewar program,

first videogame, on the PDP-1. Never made a dime from it.

Peter Samson

MIT hacker, one of the first, who loved systems, trains,

TX-0, music, parliamentary procedure, pranks, and hacking.

Bob Saunders

Jolly, balding TMRC hacker who married early,

hacked till late at night eating "lemon gunkies,"

and mastered the "CBS Strategy on Spacewar.

Warren Schwader

Big blond hacker from rural Wisconsin who went from

the assembly line to software stardom but couldn't

reconcile the shift with his devotion to Jehovah's Witnesses.

David Silver

Left school at fourteen to be mascot of AI lab;

maker of illicit keys and builder of a tiny robot

that did the impossible.

Dan Sokol

Long-haired prankster who reveled in revealing technological

secrets at Homebrew Club. Helped "liberate" Alair BASIC

on paper tape.

Les Solomon

Editor of Popular Electroics, the puller of strings

who set the computer revolution into motion.

Marty Spergel

The Junk Man, the Homebrew member who supplied circuits

and cables and could make you a deal for anything.

Richard Stallman

The Last of the Hackers, who vowed to defend

the principles of Hackerism to the bitter end.

Remained at MIT until there was no one to eat

Chinese food with.

Jeff Stephenson

Thirty-year-old martial arts veteran and hacker

who was astounded that joining Sierra On-Line

meant enrolling in Summer Camp.

Jay Sullivan

MAddeningly clam wizard-level programmer at Informatics who

impressed Ken Williams by knowing the meaning of the word "any."

Dick Sunderland

Chalk-complexioned MBA who believed that firm managerial

bureaucracy was a worth goal, but as president of Sierra On-Line

found that hackers didn't think that way.

Side 4

Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Gerry Sussman

Young MIT hacker branded "loser" because he smoked a pipe

and "munged" his programs; later became "winner" by algorithmic magic.

Margot Tommervik

With her husband Al, long-haired Margot parlayed her

game show winnings into a magazine that deified the Apple Computer.

Tom Swift Terminal

Lee Felsenstein's legendary, never-to-be-built computer terminal

which would give the user ultimate leave to get his hands on the world.

TX-0

Filled a small room, but in the late fifties this $3 million machine

was the world's first personal computer--for the community of

MIT hackers that formed around it.

Jim Warren

Portly purveyor of "techno-gossip" at Homebrew,

he was first editor of hippie-styled Dr. Dobbs Journal,

later started the lucrative Computer Faire.

Randy Wigginton

Fifteen-year-old member of Steve Wozniak's kiddie corps,

he help Woz trundle the Apple II to Homebrew.

Still in high school when he became Apple's first software employee.

Ken Williams

Arrogant and brilliant young programmer who saw the writing on the CRT

and started Sierra On-Line to make a killing and improve society

by selling games for the Apple computer.

Roberta Williams

Ken Williams' timid wife who rediscovered her own creativity

by writing "Mystery House," the first of her many bestselling

computer games.

Steven "Woz" Wozniak

Openhearted, technologically daring hardware hacker

from San Jose suburbs. Woz built the Apple Computer

for the pleasure of himself and friends.

PART ONE True Hackers

CAMBRIDGE: The Fifties and Sixties

CHAPTER 1 THE TECH MODEL RAILROAD CLUB

Just why Peter Samson was wandering around in Building 26 in the

middle of the night is a matter that he would find difficult to

explain. Some things are not spoken. If you were like the

people whom Peter Samson was coming to know and befriend in this,

his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in

the winter of 1958-59, no explanation would be required.

Wandering around the labyrinth of laboratories and storerooms,

searching for the secrets of telephone switching in machine

rooms, tracing paths of wires or relays in subterranean steam

tunnels . . . for some, it was common behavior, and there was

no need to justify the impulse, when confronted with a closed

door with an unbearably intriguing noise behind it, to open the

door uninvited. And then, if there was no one to physically bar

access to whatever was making that intriguing noise, to touch the

machine, start flicking switches and noting responses, and

eventually to loosen a screw, unhook a template, jiggle some

Side 5

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