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Conference noted::hackers_v1

Title:	-={ H A C K E R S }=-
Notice:	Write locked - see NOTED::HACKERS
Moderator:	DIEHRD::MORRIS

Created:	Thu Feb 20 1986
Last Modified:	Mon Aug 03 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	680
Total number of notes:	5456

72.0. "HEROES OF THE REVOLUTION" by NY1MM::KURZMAN () Fri Nov 02 1984 20:42

I don't have a chance tonite to catch up to see if I'm redundant, but:

Theres a new book called

   HACKERS:  Heroes of the Computer Revolution

by Steven Levy, "an award winning journalist, covers technology for
Rolling Stone and writes a column for Popular Computing".

Published by Anchor Press/Doubleday.
Definitely worth reading.

This notes could be comments, and a who's who now or something.

(I'm not mentioned, but that just goes to show you should always use the
same name when hacking on different systems.)

By the way, Computerworld mentioned a kid who got sent to London to demo
how he cracked Nasa's system.  Pretty good reward, huh?

T.R	Title	User	Date	Lines
72.1		ULTRA::KARGER	`Sun Nov 04 1984 14:05`	4
	I saw a copy of this book last night and paged through it briefly. I saw enough errors of fact about the environment at MIT's Project MAC during the late 1960's and early 1970's that i promptly put it back on the shelf and did not buy it. Sigh!
72.2		NY1MM::KURZMAN	`Fri Nov 30 1984 00:24`	16
	Well, I'm an Infomaniac, so I bought it. After all, I am pelted with so much information and misinformation from the magazines and notes that I read, that I figured an extra book wouldn't hurt. I'd be interested to know what was so drastically wrong, but then again, if anyone else had written a book about a topic like this, there will always be people who really saw something from a more inner and accurate perspective. I just wish we could all write books. Perhaps notes is a better way to express ourselves though....at least there is more immediate feedback, among other reasons. Perhaps it's too much to hope for that some of our notes files will someday be printed, at least internally, so that people who's jobs relate to a particular topic will have a copy. Or is the age of electronics so totally upon us?
72.3		REX::MINOW	`Mon Dec 03 1984 12:45`	17
	I've finished Hackers and enjoyed it from start to finish. While there were a bunch of errors (there was an editor called TICO), it seemed to give a good picture of life in those early days. Paul might be complaining since the Hacker's in the book came out of the MIT-AI labs, which weren't too happy with CTSS/Project Mac. If you check the book out, do read the Epilog "The Last True Hacker" on Richard Stallman -- some comments in AI-Digest suggest that Levy got that story down pretty accurately. A book to give to mom? I wonder what Alan Kotok (who is featured in the book) has to say about it? Martin.
72.4		HARE::STAN	`Mon Dec 03 1984 22:24`	4
	I know several people in the book and have been to TMRC and the AI lab a few times; so for the pieces I'm familiar with - it seemed fairly accurate. In my opinion, it definitely captured the Hacker Ethic correctly.
72.5		SMAUG::MITTON	`Mon Jan 21 1985 21:04`	13
	I have read HACKER's and am familiar with a lot of TMRC lore, being a member myself. Most of the problems with the book seem to stem from the author conducting a lot of tape recorded interviews and not rechecking the material with the originators. Some mistakes are in spelling (TECO is misspelled as TICO regularly!) and he mixed up some second hand stories. [At TMRC we have discussed hacking the author, by trying to find and reporting on an error per page!] All in all, I would recommend the book. Dave Mitton.