For the tech background people, the author clearly doesn't have a tech background and his explanations of what hackers were doing are tortured and relies on a heavy use of nerd stereotypes to formulate what the author calls the 'hacker ethic', which never really existed by the very examples of personality diversity and nuance that are given in this very book. This book will disappoint both audiences. I had figured the book would be for either a techy audience, who wanted to learn more about the early days of their industry, or non-technical backgrounds who wanted to understand better the booming industry. Mike Chamberlain lends his incredible voice into this book that gives it the energy that I have come to expect from him.Īs a tech worker myself, I really wanted to like this book. Steven Levy did a superb job at writing this and was as complete in his writing as a subject like this allows. Also the book gives a listener just a dab at how computers came into mainstream through the lives of many young intellects. If you are looking for a great insight into the minds of the early hackers, and what hackers really were before the name was changed by the media then get this book. None were without fault but that is human nature. The world looked down on these men and their magical machines, yet they pushed on bravely. As far as I know, this is a factual recreation of men and the turmoils they faced in 1950s to the 1980s. No, this is a book for someone who is looking for a read that has imperfect characters to match this imperfect world. :)įirst of all this is a book that is not for a person seeking a fictitious storyline that has perfect characters within. Though it doesn't cover exactly the same material, please read the Isaacson book instead. it would rush through in an exhilarating rush.' '., a numerical trait established early on by some random math hacker.' Surely we're not calling Leonardo of Pisa ('Fibonacci'), the medieval mathematician about whom fairly little is known, a 'random math hacker' are we? Incorrect and otherwise cringe-worthy snippets like this abound. I checked the written text to make sure that these were not themselves quotes, but were in fact the author's own words. Someone who knows that the emphasis does not always belong on the last noun phrase of the sentence.īelow are two quotes from this book. Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mike Chamberlain? No, The Innovators by Walter Isaacson is a fantastic contribution in this space, though it focuses more on the hardware. Has Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution turned you off from other books in this genre?

Heroes of the computer revolution