The Soul of a New Machine

Author - Tracy Kidder ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Back Bay Books was reviewed on 11-Dec-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. Although Tracy Kidder´s Pulitzer Prize winner, The Soul Of A New Machine, was written 28 years ago, it has withstood the test of time. It speaks to early days of the computer industry and the culture that was booming in the 1970s, when companies such as Digital Equipment, Wang and Data General were spreading out from Boston and into its suburbs along the Mass Turnpike and Route 9 - the old post road to Worcester, where I went to engineering school - and on the original Route 128 corridor and out to Marlboro, Westborough and the outer beltway of Interstate 495.

Focusing in on Data General and their Eagle project, this book captures the pulse and personality of a period of time in my life, along with a regional history that I had been associated with and had somehow completely forgotten about. I, like most who had been exposed to this time and place, had been overtaken by the extraordinary dynamics that defined the computer revolution until a doctor friend of mine, who had also lived in the area during this period, recently shared this fascinating bit of nostalgia with me. It reminded me of the engineers and technicians that I had initially worked with within the government, who were tracking the competing minicomputer and microcomputer developments that led to modern desktop computers. I´d forgotten about learning how to read paper tapes and how to perform square roots using a Frieden electromechanical calculator.

Kidder´s intimacy with the team and its members offers us a sense of their motivation, dedication and enthusiasm that´s not typically what we see in our industries today. It was quite exciting and it brought to mind two other computer books that I recommend that also gave me insight into the people dimensions of these technologies during the course of my career, Weizenbaum´s Computer Power and Human Reason from Judgment to Calculation in 1976 and Levy´s Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything in 2000. I found only passing comments among the Data General engineers with regard to the ultimate uses of these general purpose machines and more of the optimism of youth in their quests to build the machines. It is also interesting to note that while technology trends eventually saw the mighty Data General fall by the wayside, Ray Ozzie, a product of that period and a former software developer at Data General during this timeframe, is now the chief software architect for Microsoft.

Maybe because I´m an engineer from the era, I saw this as an interesting people story and a good picture of the technology then... so I really liked it, but so did Dr. Tom! Hopefully, that same type of youthful energy will insure a better future for all of us.

Bob Magnant writes about politics and technology and is the author of ´The Last Transition...´, a fact-based Internet tale.


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2) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. I enjoyed the book. I´m an electrical engineer with a lot of software development experience, so I was not overwhelmed with the technical level of the book. Actually, I was hoping for more detail, especially the microcode decoder section, but the book was written for the non-technical audience, so I´m sure any more technical detail and their eyes would glaze over.

I could have been part of that group. I was part of the graduating class from college the year that Data General was hiring engineers to build the computer, but I know I never saw any job ads for Data General. I´m not sure I would have wanted to work so many hours in a row, anyway.

I´ve given it to my wife to read so she might understand a little better about engineers and our passion for the fields we are in. Then, it goes to my in-laws for the same reason.¤

3) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. Tracy Kidder´s "Soul of a New Machine" is over 20 years old now, and for a book about the creation of a new microcomputer and the engineers that worked on it, that´s a very long time. Not necessarily about technology - a computers are by and large still Von Nuemann machines, and the principles are the same - but the engineer and the computer geek have become part of the culture in a way they weren´t in 1980. The book, as a result, lacks some freshness to a modern reader - the bleary-eyed devotion of the engineer is an old story by now.

It´s rarely told as well as it is here, though; Kidder has a knack for prose and handles everything well. The passages on computer technology slow down a little, but are still fairly impressive considering the ground he has to cover. The engineers, their quirks and motivations and doubts are depicted well, and he captures the drive and obsession with the machine and the long drag of testing as well as anything I´ve read. So even if the driven engineer is old hat by now, Kidder´s book is still a great tome of the curious creation of a new machine.¤

4) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. Page turning nonfiction about the development of one of the first computers, and the work environment that made it possible.

Extremely well-written. If you don´t have an interest in computers, you´ll probably be bored by some of the technical descriptions, but you can get a lot out of the book and learn a lot about management styles even if you skim or skip those parts.

It gave me a lot of insight into the way that start up companies are able to overwork their employees.

Bitter about working long hours? You´ll probably find this interesting, insightful, and therapeutic.¤

5) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. Nicely written. A good, quick read. I´d recommend it for anyone interested in the history of the computer industry.¤

6) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. Computers have changed since 1981, when Tracy Kidder memorably recorded the drama, comedy, and excitement of one companys efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations. The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century.¤

7) Paperback Book The Soul of a New Machine by Back Bay Books. The computer revolution brought with it new methods of getting work done--just look at today´s news for reports of hard-driven, highly-motivated young software and online commerce developers who sacrifice evenings and weekends to meet impossible deadlines. Tracy Kidder got a preview of this world in the late 1970s when he observed the engineers of Data General design and build a new 32-bit minicomputer in just one year. His thoughtful, prescient book, The Soul of a New Machine, tells stories of 35-year-old "veteran" engineers hiring recent college graduates and encouraging them to work harder and faster on complex and difficult projects, exploiting the youngsters´ ignorance of normal scheduling processes while engendering a new kind of work ethic.

These days, we are used to the "total commitment" philosophy of managing technical creation, but Kidder was surprised and even a little alarmed at the obsessions and compulsions he found. From in-house political struggles to workers being permitted to tease management to marathon 24-hour work sessions, The Soul of a New Machine explores concepts that already seem familiar, even old-hat, less than 20 years later. Kidder plainly admires his subjects; while he admits to hopeless confusion about their work, he finds their dedication heroic. The reader wonders, though, what will become of it all, now and in the future. --Rob Lightner¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, , 110-590-110-050-711-881-411-B6B-8

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