Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by ahoyhere on Friday May 22, 2009 @07:47AM
(#621879)
Seconded. Cringely is the only one who doesn't make everything seem ooh-ahh-magical-brains! predetermined.
Altho that tell-all on the Segway (Code Name Ginger) was pretty cool for all the flaws it pointed out.
Where the Wizards Stay Up Late was a book I did an interactive presentation on in 7th grade, so it always has a special place in my heart. In retrospect, it's not fun to read, but at the time, I devoured it. It's boring and nothing really happens, which really is a good metaphor for the most exciting technical change.
Ooh, and "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal." Especially if you're into UI and unsung heroes.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by pookleblinky on Thursday May 21, 2009 @07:46PM
(#621305)
Not a novel, or a single book, but I love Richard Feynman's descriptions of Los Alamos. I can read his accounts of mental arithmetic battles with Bohr, safecracking, the programming of dozens of old-school human computers, all day long.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by rbitar on Thursday May 21, 2009 @08:47PM
(#621388)
Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure by Jerry Kaplan. Recounts the true story of GO Corporation and the folks involved including John Doer and Bill Campbell. Been awhile since I picked this up but I remember it was a fun read.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by nomoresecrets on Thursday May 21, 2009 @07:23PM
(#621281)
"A Computer Called LEO" - story of the first commercial computer, used to run Lyons teashops. Fascinating both in terms of computer history, and history in general, especially Lyons' attitude to perfectionism, to the extent of doing many things themselves, that these days would never survive an outsourcing purge.
Drags a bit in places, but is still interesting in a history type way. It's the story of Data General building a 32-bit minicomputer in a year in the 1970s.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by tjr on Thursday May 21, 2009 @08:37PM
(#621374)
The various accounts weaved into The Jargon File. Gave me, early on in my programming life, a pretty good flavor of what being a hacker was really like.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by TomOfTTB on Friday May 22, 2009 @01:00AM
(#621616)
How the Web Was Won: How Bill Gates and His Internet Idealists Transformed the Microsoft Empire
It portrays what I'd call "an idealized" version of events in that it's a fairly positive account of Microsoft's battle to beat Netscape. But it's a great story. What most people don't realize is there's a whole group of Softies inside Microsoft who were and still are fighting for the ideals that the Internet represents. The early days of IE and IIS represents a time when that group was allowed to shine and they produced great things.
It's actually very inspiring especially if you're a person whose found himself arguing for those same values in whatever company you work for.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by xsmasher on Thursday May 21, 2009 @10:27PM
(#621491)
In general, "Revolution in the Valley" about the making of the Macintosh. You cen feel the excitement of the team, and it goes into some fun technical details on how they created a GUI while everyone else outside research labs was still text-based.
For game programmers, "Masters of Doom" and "Dungeons and Dreamers". Both have a real human perspective on the people and companies they cover; they made me feel like regular humans, not gods, made games.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by plinkplonk on Thursday May 21, 2009 @09:14PM
(#621409)
"One Jump Ahead: Computer Perfection at Checkers" - How Dr. Schaeffer's team came up with Chinook, the program that became world champion at checkers. Later the team went on to solve checkers (like tic tac toe is a "solved" game).
Some of the book is about researching new algorithms etc, but a large chunk is about programming, debugging etc. Very enjoyable read.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by dan_the_welder on Thursday May 21, 2009 @09:40PM
(#621450)
The Car That Could: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle by Michael Shnayerson.
If that gives you a taste for how crazy General Motors is, follow up with On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors by John Z. Delorian. Less about tech, more about management anti patterns!
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by paulgb on Thursday May 21, 2009 @07:02PM
(#621256)
I'm still reading "What the Dormouse Said: How 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer", but I'm finding it quite good. Though I guess it's more about tech (counter)culture than tech itself.
To establish his credibility he lists both his "technology credentials" and his "counter culture credentials". If I had a time machine it would be nice to send him a copy of "Worse is Better". If he had read it maybe he wouldn't have failed at inventing the web.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by neilc on Thursday May 21, 2009 @09:03PM
(#621401)
"The New New Thing" by Michael Lewis is great: entertainingly written, and actually quite instructive about SV culture. "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure" by Jerry Kaplan was also very good.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by jf on Thursday May 21, 2009 @11:22PM
(#621547)
Does this book cover the business relationship that Tesla had with Westinghouse?
The impression that I got from Empires of Light is that Tesla's "research" needed a lot of "design" by Westinghouse's engineers before they could be turned into practical, working designs.
That makes sense at some level, but I'd love to read other perspectives.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by grosales on Thursday May 21, 2009 @10:27PM
(#621490)
The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal by M. Mitchell Waldrop. It's a very fun, easy, and interesting read of the origins of modern computing, the people who worked day and night to make their vision a reality, and the passion that carried their dreams to reality (the book, besides mentioning Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, also names people from Grace Hopper to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by indiejade on Thursday May 21, 2009 @08:42PM
(#621383)
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. It's not actually a "tech book" but it is a true story about the highly technical science of how a deadly virus spread.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by phugoid on Friday May 22, 2009 @02:12AM
(#621660)
Free as in Freedom, a story about Stallman. I liked the unusual story of rms driving a car and freaking out as he had to follow someone taking the "scenic route".
My least favorite was The Google Story - I couldn't stomach more than a chapter or two of it. It read like the sort of ass-kissing "He's a hero" crap that I encounter from living in an oil dictatorship.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by ojbyrne on Thursday May 21, 2009 @11:02PM
(#621525)
Not quite a book, but I recently read and enjoyed the first essay from Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up - the essay is called "Two Young Men Who Went West" and is about Robert Noyce and William Shockley and the founding of Fairchild Semiconductor.
Tossing it out there because most people wouldn't buy that book looking for a true story tech book, but a little of it is.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by ambulatorybird on Friday May 22, 2009 @03:11AM
(#621703)
The Official Book of Ultima. About how Richard Garriot started the Ultima series of computer role-playing games, and founded Origin Systems. Alas, it's sad when you consider the fate which befell both the game series and the company.
Re:Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?
by earl on Friday May 22, 2009 @12:35AM
(#621601)
I can't recommend "High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars" by Charles Ferguson highly enough. He basically had the idea for the internet then, after Netscape launched just as he was creating a startup, morphed into making the first set of dev tools for the web -- Frontpage. Microsoft ended up buying them. He writes an utterly fascinating look at Microsoft, Gates, Netscape, Clarksdale, and the people who built the internet. He illustrates the strategies you use to build a platform and begs Netscape to follow them in the face of Microsoft "getting" the internet. In any case, it's well worth your time if you like startups; he also writes at length about the problems with non technical CEOs, etc.
Bob Cringely
(This book gets mentioned in Founders At Work... I think one of the Lycos guys had read it?)
Book -> Cringely -> Digitizing job -> VC -> VC -> funding or something like that.
Altho that tell-all on the Segway (Code Name Ginger) was pretty cool for all the flaws it pointed out.
Where the Wizards Stay Up Late was a book I did an interactive presentation on in 7th grade, so it always has a special place in my heart. In retrospect, it's not fun to read, but at the time, I devoured it. It's boring and nothing really happens, which really is a good metaphor for the most exciting technical change.
Ooh, and "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal." Especially if you're into UI and unsung heroes.
It is about the phreaking/BBS era, specifically the Australian scene.
The deadtree version is impossible to find, but the author has released it as an ebook.
Download here: http://www.underground-book.net/download.php3
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-Worlds-Office/dp...
"The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder
Drags a bit in places, but is still interesting in a history type way. It's the story of Data General building a 32-bit minicomputer in a year in the 1970s.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder/dp/031...
It portrays what I'd call "an idealized" version of events in that it's a fairly positive account of Microsoft's battle to beat Netscape. But it's a great story. What most people don't realize is there's a whole group of Softies inside Microsoft who were and still are fighting for the ideals that the Internet represents. The early days of IE and IIS represents a time when that group was allowed to shine and they produced great things.
It's actually very inspiring especially if you're a person whose found himself arguing for those same values in whatever company you work for.
For game programmers, "Masters of Doom" and "Dungeons and Dreamers". Both have a real human perspective on the people and companies they cover; they made me feel like regular humans, not gods, made games.
Story is circa 1990.
Edit: Oops, already mentioned in this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=621273
Some of the book is about researching new algorithms etc, but a large chunk is about programming, debugging etc. Very enjoyable read.
Chandler Project.
If that gives you a taste for how crazy General Motors is, follow up with On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors by John Z. Delorian. Less about tech, more about management anti patterns!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_Heroes_of_the_Computer_...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0914845497/
To establish his credibility he lists both his "technology credentials" and his "counter culture credentials". If I had a time machine it would be nice to send him a copy of "Worse is Better". If he had read it maybe he wouldn't have failed at inventing the web.
An extremely detailed and engaging book on how electricity was brought to the United States.
The impression that I got from Empires of Light is that Tesla's "research" needed a lot of "design" by Westinghouse's engineers before they could be turned into practical, working designs.
That makes sense at some level, but I'd love to read other perspectives.
My least favorite was The Google Story - I couldn't stomach more than a chapter or two of it. It read like the sort of ass-kissing "He's a hero" crap that I encounter from living in an oil dictatorship.
Tossing it out there because most people wouldn't buy that book looking for a true story tech book, but a little of it is.
Made me want to go to school for real, and study EE.
I ended up switching to CS (software == opinionated reality; way more fun!) but that book really inspired me.
Especially the ad for Data General employees, described early in the book: "Have fun and make money."
Seems like the correct priority there.
The story behind the building of the Deep Blue chess playing computer.
Great read. Inspirational.
http://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteen...
http://www.amazon.com/High-Stakes-No-Prisoners-Internet/dp/1...