The Soul of a New Machine

The Soul of a New Machine
Tracy Kidder
Little, Brown, 1981
(paperback: Avon, 1982
ISBN 0-380-59931-7)

This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of
the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle.  It is
an amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset -- although
largely the hardware hacker -- done by a complete outsider.  It is a
bit thin in spots, but with enough technical information to be
entertaining to the serious hacker while providing non-technical
people a view of what day-to-day life can be like -- the fun, the
excitement, the disasters.  During one period, when the microcode and
logic were glitching at the nanosecond level, one of the overworked
engineers departed the company, leaving behind a note on his terminal
as his letter of resignation: "I am going to a commune in Vermont and
will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season."