Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

This book is not about computer crime, despite the impression you may get from the title. In fact, the whole thrust of the book is to study those people who called themselves hackers before the first computer crime had ever been commited, together with their successors who clung to the name even after it had picked up darker connotations. The story starts with the original hackers at the AI lab at MIT. Whilst the Computer Science department at MIT had a typical hierarchical chain of command, something slipped at the nearby AI lab where somehow the lunatics had control of the asylum. Levy details the glorious early years at the AI lab where hacking was all, elegance won out every time against pragmatism and bedtime was always the wee small hours. Not content with inventing many fundamentals of computer science such as Lisp and time-sharing systems, one hacker even added new machine instructions armed only with a soldering iron. Don't try this at home folks. Leaving the East Coast, Levy surveys the early West Coast computer scene, including computer hardware hackers such as Steve Wozniak, father of the Apple II, and this leads on to the third wave of hackers, the games writers. It's at this point in the story that big business arives on the scene. Some hackers made the transition successfully, others didn't. I was not surprised to find one of the earliest and most obnoxious "breadheads" of the original home computer scene in this book to be none other than Bill Gates. As far as I can tell from this book, he was always in it for the money. Yeah you're rich Bill, and I'm not, but people just don't like you OR your company, ok? Having completed a thorough survey of a period of decades in the computer industry, Levy then justifiably stopped and published the book. My edition however is a reissue, and Levy has added an afterword, "The Last Hacker" where he returns to MIT just in time to witness the destruction of the Hackers Citadel by commercial greed. In this final chapter, Levy is really in his element as he relates the story of the last lone defender on the ramparts, single-handedly holding back the dark barbarian hordes. The defender knew it was a lost cause, but was determined to make his point, and only gave up after exacting fearsome retribution when he had decided to abandon anger and revenge and instead found a new city which would, this time, have unbreachable defences. The name of the lone defender? Richard Stallman. The new project? The GNU project - the same project that produced the text editor I wrote this review with (Emacs), that facilitated this operating system (Linux) and that is still going strong this very day, thus the book takes us right to the present day - Hackers are alive and well and living near you :-) Highly Recommended.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary: A well written read - especially for a simple enthusiast
Comment: If you're considering reading Hackers, by Steven Levy you're either a hacker wannabe, or maybe the real deal looking for a trip down random-access memory lane. Either way, Hackers is a well-written narrative version of the history of "hacking" - that is, figuring out how to make computers perform tasks, often by simple trial and error; from the early days at MIT in the late 50's through the microcomputer revolution in the eighties. Not only is it well-written and organized, it gives you just enough technical data to increase your understanding of the hackers' achievements, and doesn't drown you in jargon. I read this as research for a writing project; I use computers, I like computers, but by the end of the book I was wrapped up in a world of people who are consumed by the curiosity of what a computer is capable of. All the of real people that Levy writes about are interesting and vibrant in their own peculiar ways. And all the description of ingenuity and innovation in the sake of a good hack really gets you inspired.
I'm sure there are people who will take issue with Levy's selective coverage of the machines covered, debatably skewed emphasis on the bookish quality of the MIT group versus the crazy, do-it-yourselfers at Stanford, etc., and all of the people covered are not shown in a uniform light. But if you love computers, and would like to read about some really interesting people who accomplish some pretty amazing things, then this is a book for you.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Summary: Several Books in One
Comment: This book can be read in several ways.
Taking it head-on, it is a true story of some real heroes of the Computer Revolution. People who got into the guts of the machine to truly understand (or "grok") how it works and why. From the Tech Model Railroad Club to Apple, these are the people who we can thank for the Internet, for personal computers and for just about any automated system we take for granted today. Taken another way, this book demonstrates an often-overlooked way of teaching and learning. The Hackers have one thing in common: An innate desire to learn. Sometimes all it takes is putting a person in a room with something interesting, and letting them explore. That person will learn more than any book or lecture could have taught.
Finally, this book is can be a great gift for a student of computers. Just the thing to inspire someone to greater things.