Last modified on August 23, 2021, at 18:57

The Soul of a New Machine

The Soul of a New Machine (1981) is an award-winning non-fictional book by Tracy Kidder about the development of a new computer by Data General in the Boston area, as it competed against rival Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the 32-bit era.[1] The book won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction as well as the 1982 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

The story tells of two competing groups within Data General: a well-funded team of top senior engineers in North Carolina (during a period when it was rumored that the company may relocate from the North to the South) given the task of creating a product to compete with DEC's VAX units (code named "Fountainhead"), and a hodgepodge team remaining in the Boston area, consisting of a handful of senior engineers not selected for the other team, given the task of merely improving on existing products.

Instead, the Boston team (led by Tom West) embarks on a "skunkworks" project (code named "Eagle") as originally a backup plan in case Fountainhead failed; when it did Eagle became the only option for Data General to survive. West took significant risks: he used new, untested technology and new hires barely graduated from college who had never designed an entire computer, and used what is commonly called the "Mushroom Theory of Management" ("keep [the employees] in the dark, feed them [excrement], and watch them grow") -- generally considered to be a poor form of management. The book features many of the designers as they spend nearly every hour of their lives in designing and debugging the machine; ultimately, the thrown-together Boston team succeeds in producing the then-latest computer for Data General, which kept the company in business over its rival.

This gripping story is considered one of the greatest ever written about technology.[2] At 297 pages, it contains about 70,000 words.[3]

Other books written by Tracy Kidder include House, Mountains Beyond Mountains, My Detachment, Strength in What Remains, Home Town, Among Schoolchildren, and Old Friends.

References

  1. ↑ https://dave.cheney.net/2017/12/04/what-have-we-learned-from-the-pdp-11
  2. ↑ https://www.aboutgreatbooks.com/topics/science-technology/computers-classics/
  3. ↑ "[T]here is an average of 233 words per page in a book on Amazon for nonfiction or 280 for fiction novels." [1]