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krpalmerYears ago, I picked up from a library used book sale a copy of Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine," a book about an advanced minicomputer being built in the late 1970s, and never quite read most of it. That wasn't quite the end of it, though, as at a more recent book sale I saw another copy of the book, and for some reason or another I decided to take another try at it. This time, I finished it with no trouble. What the difference between then and now is, I don't quite know.
One thing I did find myself thinking about the book at first, though, was that it amounted to a "vanished time": Data General, the company the "Eagle" computer was being built for, is no longer in business, and neither is the Digital Equipment Corporation, established early in the book as the company Data General seemed to be challenging. There are only the slightest of references to "computers at home"; of course, I can imagine that someone working with a terminal to a powerful minicomputer wouldn't be that interested in a microcomputer, however "personal" it was, that had to save programs on cassette tape. As far as other "vanished time" thoughts go, I wondered if the book was trying to describe "cubicles" to people who'd never seen them.
As I worked my way through the book, though, I did find myself thinking of a different group of "heroic engineers," the people who built the first Apple Macintosh, and in the process wondered a little if the book, by picking one "current event," is free of the weight that would be applied to something of historical significance. (For that matter, too, the end of the book comments that the "Eagle's" release as the Eclipse MV/8000 didn't quite wipe out every challenge to Data General, and I was reminded of how Apple faced its own set of challenges in the first years of the Macintosh...)
What I did remember about the book the first time I tried reading it was a section about the computer game "Adventure," although now I can't remember if I happened on it on my own or was pointed to it by comments in articles on interactive fiction at some point. I can see it as being someone at Data General pointing out to Kidder "something fun to do with a computer." So far as other references to pop culture go, both Data General and someone at it are compared to Darth Vader, and the names of the Eagle prototypes reference both The Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who (although "TARDIS" is misspelled, and I do wonder if the book is mixing up "the Doctor's time machine" and "the Doctor's home world"...)
On the back cover of the early paperback version I found this time, there's the blurb "Soon a Major Motion Picture." Unaware there had even been a minor motion picture, that caught my attention, but I did find an article mentioning how, not that long after the movie rights were sold, everyone realised it wouldn't work out anyway.
One thing I did find myself thinking about the book at first, though, was that it amounted to a "vanished time": Data General, the company the "Eagle" computer was being built for, is no longer in business, and neither is the Digital Equipment Corporation, established early in the book as the company Data General seemed to be challenging. There are only the slightest of references to "computers at home"; of course, I can imagine that someone working with a terminal to a powerful minicomputer wouldn't be that interested in a microcomputer, however "personal" it was, that had to save programs on cassette tape. As far as other "vanished time" thoughts go, I wondered if the book was trying to describe "cubicles" to people who'd never seen them.
As I worked my way through the book, though, I did find myself thinking of a different group of "heroic engineers," the people who built the first Apple Macintosh, and in the process wondered a little if the book, by picking one "current event," is free of the weight that would be applied to something of historical significance. (For that matter, too, the end of the book comments that the "Eagle's" release as the Eclipse MV/8000 didn't quite wipe out every challenge to Data General, and I was reminded of how Apple faced its own set of challenges in the first years of the Macintosh...)
What I did remember about the book the first time I tried reading it was a section about the computer game "Adventure," although now I can't remember if I happened on it on my own or was pointed to it by comments in articles on interactive fiction at some point. I can see it as being someone at Data General pointing out to Kidder "something fun to do with a computer." So far as other references to pop culture go, both Data General and someone at it are compared to Darth Vader, and the names of the Eagle prototypes reference both The Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who (although "TARDIS" is misspelled, and I do wonder if the book is mixing up "the Doctor's time machine" and "the Doctor's home world"...)
On the back cover of the early paperback version I found this time, there's the blurb "Soon a Major Motion Picture." Unaware there had even been a minor motion picture, that caught my attention, but I did find an article mentioning how, not that long after the movie rights were sold, everyone realised it wouldn't work out anyway.