8 ms·

Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (2017)

135 points by markus_zhang 4y ago

markus_zhang 4y ago
Sharing this as I'm curious about: 1. Is there any similar books about a making of a computer which does not shy away the technical details 2. I'm particularly interested in the Microcode part. I'm taking nand2tetris but I couldn't identify which part I wrote the microcode, or is it non existent in the course?
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  It's not a technical book, but Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft[0] compares favorably to The Soul of a New Machine in my opinion. It was originally published in 1994 and reissued in 2008. I haven't see reissue but I know it has an added "Afterward" section that would probably be interesting to read. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Soul of a New Machine and Showstopper are very much cut from the same cloth. For anyone interested, we did a Command Line Heroes podcast episode on Soul of a New Machine a few years back. https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minicomputers https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minic... I was actually interviewed for the episode but I got left on the cutting room floor because we were able to arrange more interviews with people directly involved whereas I was just second-hand.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Thanks! I'm going to buy this book too as I'm more of a software guy~~(hw is more fascinating though)
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  /Racing The Beam/ isn't exactly about the creation of the Atari VCS (aka the 2600). It's more about the software side, but scratches a similar itch for computing "pop" history that doesn't shy away from the technical details.
- adamc 4y ago
  I asked for recommendations in a recent thread, and was pointed at "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed", which was pretty good (although not remotely as well-written as "The Soul of a New Machine"), and am reading "Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation" currently. I think there are few books that match both the significance and are as well-written.
- jonsen 4y ago
  > ...particularly interested in the Microcode... Structured Computer Organization by Andrew S. Tanenbaum has a good coverage of microcode and in a very friendly writing style.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Thanks! I heard about this book a few times on HN. It is on the shortlist after nand2tetris.
- matt_daemon 4y ago
  Bryan Cantrill (of Oxide Computer) and co did a podcast a couple of months ago recommending books of a similar vein[1]. I’m not sure if it was mentioned in that episode, but they did another one on the book Losing the Signal about the ride and fall of Blackberry[2] which is worth checking out. [1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/book-in-the-box-redux https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/book-in-the... [2] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/losing-the-signal-with-sean-silcoff https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/losing-the-...
- randcraw 4y ago
  If video game creators fit the bill, check out "Masters of Doom" or "Blood Sweat and Pixels". And for a few more in that vein: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/11/07/the-10-best-books-about-video-games https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/11/07/the-10-bes...
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  Some recommendations from a comment a few years back, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- adrian_b 4y ago
  A classic book about how to design a microprogrammed CPU was "Mick & Brick", which was published by AMD in 1980 and now it is freely available at bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/components/amd/bitslice/Mick_Bit-Slice_Microprocessor_Design_1980.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/components/amd/bitslice/Mick_Bit-Sl... This book explains how to design miroprogrammed CPUs with the AMD 2900 series integrated circuits, which was the most popular method for designing PDP-11 clones around 1980, before the monolithic microprocessors from Intel and Motorola became powerful enough to replace the minicomputers. Even if the bit-slice circuits like the AMD 2900 series have been obsolete for many decades, understanding how a CPU could be designed with them can enable anyone to make now a similar CPU design, but implemented in an FPGA. The datasheets of the 2900 series, which can be useful for extra details, can be found in the same AMD directory at bitsavers.org. However, "Mick & Brick" is not for complete beginners. It presupposes familiarity with logical circuit design at the gate level.
  - intrasight 4y ago
    "Mick & Brick" - wow! Haven't thought about that one for decades. It was, along with the Apple II schematics, very important in my intro to computers in high school. https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Books/W.%20Gayler%20-%20The%20Apple%20II%20Circuit%20Description.pdf https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...
  - dboreham 4y ago
    Oh wow. Seeing the parent post I started musing about Mick and Brick. Surprised I' only the second person who had the same thought. Still have a copy on my shelf.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    The AMD 2900 was, in fact, how the Xerox Star was built. You'll find quite a bit about that choice in Inventing the Future but certainly not gate-level circuit design. As you implied, they made that decision just before decent microprocessors came along in quantity. Even at the time, there were questions about whether it was the right decision. Mesa was a virtual machine as well as a language, and its opcodes were selected after seeing what Mesa source code was actually written. The goal was to minimize the code size, and then implement the opcodes in microcode. After the book came out, my friend Jerry and I wrote a lengthy piece [1] about what Xerox should have done, and this time hindsight is allowed. [1] https://www.albertcory.io/lets-do-have-hindsight https://www.albertcory.io/lets-do-have-hindsight
- teeray 4y ago
  2. Ben Eater’s 8-bit CPU has some microcode in it for some of the instructions.
- hcrisp 4y ago
  Revolution in the Valley, by Andy Hertzfeld
- dboreham 4y ago
  Not quite SoaNM nail-biter, but you could try "Computer Engineering" by Gordon Bell et al (the blue book).
- andrewf 4y ago
  You might be interested in this Computer History Museum oral history of Gary Davidian, who among other things (1) worked on the "rival project" from Soul (2) was hired by NEC to bolster their lawsuit defense by writing microcode for the Intel 8086 (3) wrote the 680x0 emulator Apple launched their PowerPC line with. Transcript: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/09/102740488-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/09/102781078-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Go9D1kLNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Go9D1kLNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEKt_H3FsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEKt_H3FsI There's lots of interesting stuff from this era in the CHM's oral histories.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Thanks! Looks like a gold mine~~
adamc 4y ago
I read this recently and loved it, certainly one of the better books I've read in the last decade. I will re-read it at some point, which isn't true of most books I read these days.
Matt_Cutts 4y ago
If folks are looking for another Tracy Kidder book, I'd recommend _House_. It's the story of building one house in Massachusetts in 1985 or so. Kidder goes into the life of the buyers and the builders, and the result is surprisingly compelling. I know what you're thinking: why not _A Truck Full of Money_, Kidder's book about Paul English, the founder of Kayak? It's a fine read, but I found _House_ to be more contemplative and open up wider vistas (for me, at least). Kidder is a great writer. I think people might enjoy _House_.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I enjoyed House which I read at the time I had just bought an old farmhouse. He's a very good writer although I have to admit that some of the topics he's chosen for books don't really make me want to dive in.
- randcraw 4y ago
  Or better yet (than Truck), check out "Mountains Beyond Mountains", about Paul Farmer's quest to defeat infectious disease where it's needed most and available least around the world.
  - jhbadger 4y ago
    Yes, reading that book made hearing about Farmer's recent death hit hard. Hopefully the system of clinics he set up in Haiti and elsewhere will survive long term after his death.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    I have to say, I read quite a bit of that but got bored with it. Not that it's not a great story about important work, but at some point I felt like I'd read all I needed to.
- eesmith 4y ago
  I still mull over his comment about the role of "architect": > Between 1830 and the Civil War, architects published scores of pattern and style books. At one point or another, most of those volumes argue that an architect offers the client protection from the builder. The case is often founded on social class, the architect being the client's ally by virtue of education and breeding. The argument plays upon the suspiciousness of clients about builders, a wariness that seems to have been around for so long that it probably deserves to be called natural. I can't help but apply that class interpretation to the roles of "architect" and "developer" in a software project.
gorjusborg 4y ago
I really enjoyed 'The Soul of a New Machine' as a work of art. But.... Having worked in semiconductors and software, I can't help but wonder if life imitated art or art imitated life. The grind and machismo around it rang so true to me, but I also disliked how it glorified something that I felt was pretty dysfunctional. I love creating things, but not everything has to be a death march, and surviving it isn't necessarily some badge of honor. While I see the glory in the engineers rising to the occasion, I also see that the management of that company was clearly to blame for the awful situation in the first place. With that type of management, it's no wonder Data General isn't around any more. Anyway, I would highly recommend reading 'The Soul of a New Machine'. Just don't take it as an instruction manual on how to run a tech business.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Perhaps it is to computing what the Fountainhead is to architecture. The feeling from the inside of a great moment or historical period that encapsulates an idea(l) can't be told factually. The space race. The Manhattan project. Cracking Enigma at Bletchley Park. We all read those boks and watch the movies, and wish we had been inside those moments. Reality was probably heat, dust, coffee, burned fingers with soldering irons, paperwork, money arguments, getting cranky working late hours... much the same as your ordinary workday.
  - hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
    Yep, even for military projects such as SAGE and Bombe, I'd say the a normal day is not too different from an engineer's normal day. After all we are all humans, and bureaucracy inevitably grows within all such large projects.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      I'm not sure. I've been through some interesting ones. Some pioneering work on courseware for Apple II computers, one of the first Brazilian news portals, the third-gen Brazilian voting machines (the one with Windows CE - not my fault)... All these had the feeling that we were on to something big, not that we were writing history, but that history was writing itself, as if all we could do was to surf that huge wave. And surf them we did. I understand the value of work-life balance, and I wouldn't compromise it on a normal day-to-day operation, but when you feel like you are doing something really great, it's almost like the art takes control and you need to chanel it into the world. That the thing you are building is begging to exist and you are the one who can deliver it. It's a great feeling.
deleted 4y ago
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bhrgunatha 4y ago
I read this long ago, prompted when my dad landed a job lecturing on the later MV/4000 and MV/6000 models. He'd sometimes work late and we'd go on a short family trip to pick him up. He'd set us up at a terminal to play games, my first journey into colossal caves. What really blew my mind, and I think cemented my love of computers and computing, was space invaders - an arcade game! OK text based sprites, but still the same gameplay as the real arcade machines, just less noisy. I'm going to find a copy and re-read it as I remember it being compelling and a page-turner.
W-Stool 4y ago
If you enjoy Tracy Kidder's writing (and I very much do) I would also suggest just about anything by Michael Lewis - his "Liars Poker", "Moneyball", and "The Big Short", to name a few, are really exceptionally well researched and written.
- jzawodn 4y ago
  Seconded!
- sharksauce 4y ago
  And his next book will be about the FTX madness! https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/michael-lewis-eyes-ftxs-sam-bankman-fried-as-subject-of-next-book/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/michael-lewis-eyes-ftxs-sam-ba...
kabdib 4y ago
I used the MV/8000 (what the machines were eventually called by DG marketing) for cross development of games when I was at Atari. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the OS and tooling on the MV/8000. It had a very capable screen editor (definitely not Emacs class, but still quite usable) and its file system and command language were pretty decent. It felt like someone had mashed together VAX/VMS and Unix. Perhaps that sounds horrible, but it could have been far, far, worse.
- ghaff 4y ago
  There was a lot of cross-pollination among the Massachusetts minicomputer companies and Data General would later have a very well-regarded flavor of Unix (DG/UX). There was an MV version but it didn't really come into its own until DG shifted its focus to systems based on 3rd party microprocessors--initially Motorola and later Intel.
  - kabdib 4y ago
    That explains a lot about MV/OS (or whatever it was called). It definitely felt like they had Unix envy, and were trying for a fairly nice environment for writing software.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      AOS/VS. I don't know the whole Unix history at DG and I came in a bit later. But even when I joined in the mid-80s, I'm pretty sure there was a somewhat skunkworks Unix contingent (with both DG/UX and a hosted on AOS/VS MV/UX variant) which I'm pretty sure were running on MVs at the time. Not sure if the Unix folks were down in RTP in NC by then but there were definitely Unix fans among the OS group(s). DG didn't push Unix until later--it was just one of the things we offered--but I think there was probably more overt hostility from Ken Olsen at DEC. (And I'm not sure Edson wouldn't have at least tacitly supported something at least in part because Olsen opposed it, even if DG did plenty of things patterned after DEC.)
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >There was a lot of cross-pollination among the Massachusetts minicomputer companies When would you say was the point that people in Route 128 realized that the Valley had definitively taken over as "the place" for tech, with Route 128 and everywhere else falling behind? Was it the minicomputer bust, or had the center of gravity definitively shifted west before then? (For young people's benefit, well into the 1980s Silicon Valley was just one of multiple centers of the computer economy in the US. Route 128 around Boston was anchored by minicomputer companies like DEC and DG, supercomputer/AI outfits like Thinking Machines, and software companies like Lotus and Infocom. Texas had TI, Tandy, Compaq, and Dell. Westchester and upstate NY was IBM land. Minneapolis had Control Data, Cray, and Honeywell. Of the four most important PC companies of the mid-1970s, only Apple was founded in the SF Bay area; MITS was in New Mexico (which is why Microsoft was founded there), Commodore was in PA, and Tandy was in Fort Worth.)
intrasight 4y ago
I read both 'The Soul of a New Machine' and 'House' back in college in the '80s. Both had a lasting influence on me personally, and I still reflect on them nearly 40 years later.
- jes 4y ago
  Same.
programd 4y ago
Back in the 80s I worked for a computer manufacturer in the Valley designing chips and doing all the other fun stuff involved with creating and bringing up a new machine. When people asked me what I did for a living I told them to read "The Soul of a New Machine" - that was my job. Kidder really captured exactly what it was like to create those beasts, with all the ups and downs of computer engineering in that era. Different coast, different (much bigger) computer, but the process was exactly the same. Perfect historical snapshot.
chrsw 4y ago
This book was one of the reasons I studied Computer Engeering. I wanted to build things that make people's lives better.
nurblieh 4y ago
Ahh, I just reread _Soul_! One thing I noticed this time through was the politics and (mostly absent?) leadership from the executives. E.g., the input from the CEO was basically "no mode bit". I couldn't appreciate those things on the first pass as a young engineer. To quote "Novell CEO Eric Schmidt" (heh) from the linked Wired article[0], > [...] and it did a good job of getting into the psychology of leadership. The corporate maneuvering was both fascinating and abhorrent to me. The joy of rereading a good book, it hasn't changed but I have. [0] https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/ https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/
2sk21 4y ago
I read the book The Soul of a New Machine in 1982 when I was an undergraduate in India. I was so impressed that I became determined to get into software development as a career. Then I came to America for grad school and got a programming job on campus in a science lab and the first thing I saw in the computer room was a Data General MV8000. I was awestruck that I was seeing the actual machine described in the book. I still remember learning to program in C on that machine - many happy hours on weekends.
DrTung 4y ago
Also read that book when it came out, among other things it taught me about "mushroom management" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_management
audubishir 4y ago
I want to builder
cafard 4y ago
I find the cluster of recent postings about Data General curious: this, plus https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33798316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33793837 I also find it gratifying: I worked on 16- and 32-bit Eclipses, and perhaps even a Nova or two in the late 1980s. Once at a customer's site I saw an old blue-and-white MV/8000, on which the sysadmin/programmer said they had run production on one shift while recompiling the older programs on another. (Blue-and-white: the old 16-bit line of DG computers had a blue-and-white color scheme, the 32-bit line had brown cabinets.)
themadturk 4y ago
I read TSOANM and Stephen Levy's "Hackers" at about the same time, and they are both foundational to my interest in computer history, which seems to have done nothing but grow recently. Good call-out for a great book!

135 points by markus_zhang 4y ago

Sharing this as I'm curious about: 1. Is there any similar books about a making of a computer which does not shy away the technical details 2. I'm particularly interested in the Microcode part. I'm taking nand2tetris but I couldn't identify which part I wrote the microcode, or is it non existent in the course?

EvanAnderson 4y ago
It's not a technical book, but Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft[0] compares favorably to The Soul of a New Machine in my opinion. It was originally published in 1994 and reissued in 2008. I haven't see reissue but I know it has an added "Afterward" section that would probably be interesting to read. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_
- ghaff 4y ago
  Soul of a New Machine and Showstopper are very much cut from the same cloth. For anyone interested, we did a Command Line Heroes podcast episode on Soul of a New Machine a few years back. https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minicomputers https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-4/minic... I was actually interviewed for the episode but I got left on the cutting room floor because we were able to arrange more interviews with people directly involved whereas I was just second-hand.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Thanks! I'm going to buy this book too as I'm more of a software guy~~(hw is more fascinating though)
ElevenLathe 4y ago
/Racing The Beam/ isn't exactly about the creation of the Atari VCS (aka the 2600). It's more about the software side, but scratches a similar itch for computing "pop" history that doesn't shy away from the technical details.
adamc 4y ago
I asked for recommendations in a recent thread, and was pointed at "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed", which was pretty good (although not remotely as well-written as "The Soul of a New Machine"), and am reading "Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation" currently. I think there are few books that match both the significance and are as well-written.
jonsen 4y ago
> ...particularly interested in the Microcode... Structured Computer Organization by Andrew S. Tanenbaum has a good coverage of microcode and in a very friendly writing style.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Thanks! I heard about this book a few times on HN. It is on the shortlist after nand2tetris.
matt_daemon 4y ago
Bryan Cantrill (of Oxide Computer) and co did a podcast a couple of months ago recommending books of a similar vein[1]. I’m not sure if it was mentioned in that episode, but they did another one on the book Losing the Signal about the ride and fall of Blackberry[2] which is worth checking out. [1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/book-in-the-box-redux https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/book-in-the... [2] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/losing-the-signal-with-sean-silcoff https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/losing-the-...
randcraw 4y ago
If video game creators fit the bill, check out "Masters of Doom" or "Blood Sweat and Pixels". And for a few more in that vein: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/11/07/the-10-best-books-about-video-games https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/11/07/the-10-bes...
EvanAnderson 4y ago
Some recommendations from a comment a few years back, too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285
deleted 4y ago
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adrian_b 4y ago
A classic book about how to design a microprogrammed CPU was "Mick & Brick", which was published by AMD in 1980 and now it is freely available at bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/components/amd/bitslice/Mick_Bit-Slice_Microprocessor_Design_1980.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/components/amd/bitslice/Mick_Bit-Sl... This book explains how to design miroprogrammed CPUs with the AMD 2900 series integrated circuits, which was the most popular method for designing PDP-11 clones around 1980, before the monolithic microprocessors from Intel and Motorola became powerful enough to replace the minicomputers. Even if the bit-slice circuits like the AMD 2900 series have been obsolete for many decades, understanding how a CPU could be designed with them can enable anyone to make now a similar CPU design, but implemented in an FPGA. The datasheets of the 2900 series, which can be useful for extra details, can be found in the same AMD directory at bitsavers.org. However, "Mick & Brick" is not for complete beginners. It presupposes familiarity with logical circuit design at the gate level.
- intrasight 4y ago
  "Mick & Brick" - wow! Haven't thought about that one for decades. It was, along with the Apple II schematics, very important in my intro to computers in high school. https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Books/W.%20Gayler%20-%20The%20Apple%20II%20Circuit%20Description.pdf https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...
- dboreham 4y ago
  Oh wow. Seeing the parent post I started musing about Mick and Brick. Surprised I' only the second person who had the same thought. Still have a copy on my shelf.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  The AMD 2900 was, in fact, how the Xerox Star was built. You'll find quite a bit about that choice in Inventing the Future but certainly not gate-level circuit design. As you implied, they made that decision just before decent microprocessors came along in quantity. Even at the time, there were questions about whether it was the right decision. Mesa was a virtual machine as well as a language, and its opcodes were selected after seeing what Mesa source code was actually written. The goal was to minimize the code size, and then implement the opcodes in microcode. After the book came out, my friend Jerry and I wrote a lengthy piece [1] about what Xerox should have done, and this time hindsight is allowed. [1] https://www.albertcory.io/lets-do-have-hindsight https://www.albertcory.io/lets-do-have-hindsight
teeray 4y ago
2. Ben Eater’s 8-bit CPU has some microcode in it for some of the instructions.
hcrisp 4y ago
Revolution in the Valley, by Andy Hertzfeld
dboreham 4y ago
Not quite SoaNM nail-biter, but you could try "Computer Engineering" by Gordon Bell et al (the blue book).
andrewf 4y ago
You might be interested in this Computer History Museum oral history of Gary Davidian, who among other things (1) worked on the "rival project" from Soul (2) was hired by NEC to bolster their lawsuit defense by writing microcode for the Intel 8086 (3) wrote the 680x0 emulator Apple launched their PowerPC line with. Transcript: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/09/102740488-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/09/102781078-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Go9D1kLNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Go9D1kLNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEKt_H3FsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEKt_H3FsI There's lots of interesting stuff from this era in the CHM's oral histories.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Thanks! Looks like a gold mine~~

adamc 4y ago

I read this recently and loved it, certainly one of the better books I've read in the last decade. I will re-read it at some point, which isn't true of most books I read these days.

Matt_Cutts 4y ago

If folks are looking for another Tracy Kidder book, I'd recommend _House_. It's the story of building one house in Massachusetts in 1985 or so. Kidder goes into the life of the buyers and the builders, and the result is surprisingly compelling. I know what you're thinking: why not _A Truck Full of Money_, Kidder's book about Paul English, the founder of Kayak? It's a fine read, but I found _House_ to be more contemplative and open up wider vistas (for me, at least). Kidder is a great writer. I think people might enjoy _House_.

ghaff 4y ago
I enjoyed House which I read at the time I had just bought an old farmhouse. He's a very good writer although I have to admit that some of the topics he's chosen for books don't really make me want to dive in.
randcraw 4y ago
Or better yet (than Truck), check out "Mountains Beyond Mountains", about Paul Farmer's quest to defeat infectious disease where it's needed most and available least around the world.
- jhbadger 4y ago
  Yes, reading that book made hearing about Farmer's recent death hit hard. Hopefully the system of clinics he set up in Haiti and elsewhere will survive long term after his death.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  I have to say, I read quite a bit of that but got bored with it. Not that it's not a great story about important work, but at some point I felt like I'd read all I needed to.
eesmith 4y ago
I still mull over his comment about the role of "architect": > Between 1830 and the Civil War, architects published scores of pattern and style books. At one point or another, most of those volumes argue that an architect offers the client protection from the builder. The case is often founded on social class, the architect being the client's ally by virtue of education and breeding. The argument plays upon the suspiciousness of clients about builders, a wariness that seems to have been around for so long that it probably deserves to be called natural. I can't help but apply that class interpretation to the roles of "architect" and "developer" in a software project.

gorjusborg 4y ago

I really enjoyed 'The Soul of a New Machine' as a work of art. But.... Having worked in semiconductors and software, I can't help but wonder if life imitated art or art imitated life. The grind and machismo around it rang so true to me, but I also disliked how it glorified something that I felt was pretty dysfunctional. I love creating things, but not everything has to be a death march, and surviving it isn't necessarily some badge of honor. While I see the glory in the engineers rising to the occasion, I also see that the management of that company was clearly to blame for the awful situation in the first place. With that type of management, it's no wonder Data General isn't around any more. Anyway, I would highly recommend reading 'The Soul of a New Machine'. Just don't take it as an instruction manual on how to run a tech business.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Perhaps it is to computing what the Fountainhead is to architecture. The feeling from the inside of a great moment or historical period that encapsulates an idea(l) can't be told factually. The space race. The Manhattan project. Cracking Enigma at Bletchley Park. We all read those boks and watch the movies, and wish we had been inside those moments. Reality was probably heat, dust, coffee, burned fingers with soldering irons, paperwork, money arguments, getting cranky working late hours... much the same as your ordinary workday.
- hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
  Yep, even for military projects such as SAGE and Bombe, I'd say the a normal day is not too different from an engineer's normal day. After all we are all humans, and bureaucracy inevitably grows within all such large projects.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    I'm not sure. I've been through some interesting ones. Some pioneering work on courseware for Apple II computers, one of the first Brazilian news portals, the third-gen Brazilian voting machines (the one with Windows CE - not my fault)... All these had the feeling that we were on to something big, not that we were writing history, but that history was writing itself, as if all we could do was to surf that huge wave. And surf them we did. I understand the value of work-life balance, and I wouldn't compromise it on a normal day-to-day operation, but when you feel like you are doing something really great, it's almost like the art takes control and you need to chanel it into the world. That the thing you are building is begging to exist and you are the one who can deliver it. It's a great feeling.

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bhrgunatha 4y ago

I read this long ago, prompted when my dad landed a job lecturing on the later MV/4000 and MV/6000 models. He'd sometimes work late and we'd go on a short family trip to pick him up. He'd set us up at a terminal to play games, my first journey into colossal caves. What really blew my mind, and I think cemented my love of computers and computing, was space invaders - an arcade game! OK text based sprites, but still the same gameplay as the real arcade machines, just less noisy. I'm going to find a copy and re-read it as I remember it being compelling and a page-turner.

W-Stool 4y ago

If you enjoy Tracy Kidder's writing (and I very much do) I would also suggest just about anything by Michael Lewis - his "Liars Poker", "Moneyball", and "The Big Short", to name a few, are really exceptionally well researched and written.

jzawodn 4y ago
Seconded!
sharksauce 4y ago
And his next book will be about the FTX madness! https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/michael-lewis-eyes-ftxs-sam-bankman-fried-as-subject-of-next-book/ https://nypost.com/2022/11/15/michael-lewis-eyes-ftxs-sam-ba...

kabdib 4y ago

I used the MV/8000 (what the machines were eventually called by DG marketing) for cross development of games when I was at Atari. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the OS and tooling on the MV/8000. It had a very capable screen editor (definitely not Emacs class, but still quite usable) and its file system and command language were pretty decent. It felt like someone had mashed together VAX/VMS and Unix. Perhaps that sounds horrible, but it could have been far, far, worse.

ghaff 4y ago
There was a lot of cross-pollination among the Massachusetts minicomputer companies and Data General would later have a very well-regarded flavor of Unix (DG/UX). There was an MV version but it didn't really come into its own until DG shifted its focus to systems based on 3rd party microprocessors--initially Motorola and later Intel.
- kabdib 4y ago
  That explains a lot about MV/OS (or whatever it was called). It definitely felt like they had Unix envy, and were trying for a fairly nice environment for writing software.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    AOS/VS. I don't know the whole Unix history at DG and I came in a bit later. But even when I joined in the mid-80s, I'm pretty sure there was a somewhat skunkworks Unix contingent (with both DG/UX and a hosted on AOS/VS MV/UX variant) which I'm pretty sure were running on MVs at the time. Not sure if the Unix folks were down in RTP in NC by then but there were definitely Unix fans among the OS group(s). DG didn't push Unix until later--it was just one of the things we offered--but I think there was probably more overt hostility from Ken Olsen at DEC. (And I'm not sure Edson wouldn't have at least tacitly supported something at least in part because Olsen opposed it, even if DG did plenty of things patterned after DEC.)
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >There was a lot of cross-pollination among the Massachusetts minicomputer companies When would you say was the point that people in Route 128 realized that the Valley had definitively taken over as "the place" for tech, with Route 128 and everywhere else falling behind? Was it the minicomputer bust, or had the center of gravity definitively shifted west before then? (For young people's benefit, well into the 1980s Silicon Valley was just one of multiple centers of the computer economy in the US. Route 128 around Boston was anchored by minicomputer companies like DEC and DG, supercomputer/AI outfits like Thinking Machines, and software companies like Lotus and Infocom. Texas had TI, Tandy, Compaq, and Dell. Westchester and upstate NY was IBM land. Minneapolis had Control Data, Cray, and Honeywell. Of the four most important PC companies of the mid-1970s, only Apple was founded in the SF Bay area; MITS was in New Mexico (which is why Microsoft was founded there), Commodore was in PA, and Tandy was in Fort Worth.)

intrasight 4y ago

I read both 'The Soul of a New Machine' and 'House' back in college in the '80s. Both had a lasting influence on me personally, and I still reflect on them nearly 40 years later.

jes 4y ago
Same.

programd 4y ago

Back in the 80s I worked for a computer manufacturer in the Valley designing chips and doing all the other fun stuff involved with creating and bringing up a new machine. When people asked me what I did for a living I told them to read "The Soul of a New Machine" - that was my job. Kidder really captured exactly what it was like to create those beasts, with all the ups and downs of computer engineering in that era. Different coast, different (much bigger) computer, but the process was exactly the same. Perfect historical snapshot.

chrsw 4y ago

This book was one of the reasons I studied Computer Engeering. I wanted to build things that make people's lives better.

nurblieh 4y ago

Ahh, I just reread _Soul_! One thing I noticed this time through was the politics and (mostly absent?) leadership from the executives. E.g., the input from the CEO was basically "no mode bit". I couldn't appreciate those things on the first pass as a young engineer. To quote "Novell CEO Eric Schmidt" (heh) from the linked Wired article[0], > [...] and it did a good job of getting into the psychology of leadership. The corporate maneuvering was both fascinating and abhorrent to me. The joy of rereading a good book, it hasn't changed but I have. [0] https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/ https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/

2sk21 4y ago

I read the book The Soul of a New Machine in 1982 when I was an undergraduate in India. I was so impressed that I became determined to get into software development as a career. Then I came to America for grad school and got a programming job on campus in a science lab and the first thing I saw in the computer room was a Data General MV8000. I was awestruck that I was seeing the actual machine described in the book. I still remember learning to program in C on that machine - many happy hours on weekends.

DrTung 4y ago

Also read that book when it came out, among other things it taught me about "mushroom management" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_management

audubishir 4y ago

I want to builder

cafard 4y ago

I find the cluster of recent postings about Data General curious: this, plus https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33798316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33793837 I also find it gratifying: I worked on 16- and 32-bit Eclipses, and perhaps even a Nova or two in the late 1980s. Once at a customer's site I saw an old blue-and-white MV/8000, on which the sysadmin/programmer said they had run production on one shift while recompiling the older programs on another. (Blue-and-white: the old 16-bit line of DG computers had a blue-and-white color scheme, the 32-bit line had brown cabinets.)

themadturk 4y ago

I read TSOANM and Stephen Levy's "Hackers" at about the same time, and they are both foundational to my interest in computer history, which seems to have done nothing but grow recently. Good call-out for a great book!