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HACKERS - HEROES OF THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION -
HACKERS - HEROES OF THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION - 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Gerry Sussman
Young MIT hacker branded "loser" because he smoked a pipe
and "munged" his programs; later became "winner" by algorithmic magic.
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