The Soul of A New Machine
The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century.
Reviews (352)
An awesome documentary style book on the reality of what drives a project to completion
This book is a non-fiction account of the development of a mini-computer in the 1980s. The book begins by describing the background: Data General, a computer company, has been recently leapfrogged by a competitor who put out a 32-bit mini computer system over their 16-bit system. To keep up with their major competitor (DEC), the company begins a development project for their own 32-bit mini computer. The company HQ is based in Massachusetts. What complicates matters is that the CEO establishes a new R&D center in North Carolina where he hopes the new 32-bit mini computer will be built. The new R&D center however, creates a major rift between the engineers who stayed in Massachusetts and the ones who work in North Carolina - as both groups want to be in charge of development. A major feud begins, but basically the group in North Carolina wins and gets to build the new 32-bit system. However, the story begins in Massachusetts.... Tom West, an engineering manager in Massachusetts, manages to convince the management that it would be worthwhile to have a 'back-up' 32-bit computer system, that was perhaps backwards compatible with their old 16-bit systems. It would be a sort of 'insurance' so to speak in case development efforts in North Carolina took too long. With a handful of experienced engineers as team leaders, he recruits essentially fresh college graduates and works the hell out of them to create a rival 32-bit computer system. Over the course of the book, it becomes apparent that the North Carolina facility - despite having more resources, money, engineers, etc. - will not in fact be able to launch their product in a timely fashion. West's team of new recruits really does need to release their product in order for the company to continue competing in the mini-computer market. The book is not written so much on the technical details of the project, but rather is more of a 'documentary' of the experience of being on the product development team. The level of detail this book captures, and at each level (from West's perspective, the perspective of a number of the fresh college graduates, his experienced Team Leaders who speculated on West's motives in driving everyone so hard, the background situation of the company and management) is perfect. Looking back historically, one could easily just conclude that the Massachusetts team succeeded for all sorts of technical reasons. But there were a lot of interesting human reasons for why the project succeeded. For one, the project should have never been started in Massachusetts in the first place. The company management did not seem to have any clear idea of what to put their engineers to work on (or even really know what they were working on) and a wily manager was able to sneak the project by, masquerading it as something else. As engineer on a product development team for a robotic system, I can 100% relate to this book. The ridiculous management decisions, the company politics, engineers working insane hours on esoteric problems, the strange culture of engineers, the product launch and general lack of appreciation for the engineer's work afterwards - it's amazingly well captured in this book, and I was surprised at how my current company and previous company experiences relate so strongly to the product development described here. What I liked most about it, was that a lot of the decisions made by West, the company, etc were highly irrational, if you looked at them from the company perspective. The company SHOULD have only had one group working on the development project. West SHOULD have explained to his team the importance of what they were working on and perhaps been more involved on the day to day decisions of the project, just as the VP of Engineering SHOULD have been more cognizant of what West's entire team was up to. (The author writes about 'mushroom management' in the book - keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em *edited by Amazon Censors*). But in reality, for often political reasons, feuds, the strange driven personality of a particular manager, the strange management practices of the CEO, all of these mistakes get made, and yet a 32-bit mini computer gets built and saves the company in the end anyway. It's a great book because it is all true. I am not sure how interesting this would be for someone that doesn't work in product development, but for me, I see this mistakes made in my company every day. It's amazing how much individual personalities, and strange coincidences can drive a project. An additional tidbit, Wired magazine did a follow up with all of the engineers years after this book was written: "[...]" Google 'O, Engineers!', 'Soul of a New Machine, Wired' in case Amazon gets rid of the link. A great book.
Thoroughly Entertaining and Amazingly Relevant to Modern Day Engineering!
The Soul of a New Machine is a captivating book that chronicles the creation of Data General's Eclipse MV/8000 computer from the engineers' point of view. Through the narrative, Tracy Kidder adeptly illuminates the engineering psyche: the rush derived from the freedom to create, the sensation of being "lost in the machine", the feeling of power that comes from bringing order to chaos, the personal identity associated with creation. The book elucidates the paradoxical competing motivations that inspire an employee to maintain a daunting schedule that eclipses their personal life. Tracy may understand engineers better than they understand themselves. In fact, as an engineer, I understand myself better after reading this book. Being set in the late 1970s, the book provides the reader with an authentic glimpse into a bygone era when yellow legal pads and pencils were essential engineering tools. What's surprising is the similarities to modern-day. Engineers are still wrestling with the same fundamental questions: can machines think, what are the ethical implications of computing, what's the perfect balance between done and right? Then and now, engineers are attempting to cope with the "long-term tiredness" resulting from the rampant pace of innovation that can render a recent graduate more skilled than an industry veteran. The human component remains the most perplexing. In the end, "people are just reaching out in the dark, touching hands." The book serves as a refreshing reminder that although technology evolves at a breakneck pace, the design process remains much the same. In conclusion, The Soul of a New Machine should be required reading for business and engineering students alike. The enduring lessons are to hire smart people, enable them, and get out of their way. Engineers thrive on agency and the potential to materialize their conceptions. No amount of external motivation can breathe commiserate vitality into a design process. If you are an engineer or a manager, do yourself a favor: read and understand The Soul of a New Machine.
A Tale of Technology and the Engineers which Drive its Innovation
This work, written about four decades ago, tells the true tale of how a team of computer engineers built a new computer. In an era contemporaneous to Apple Computer’s founding, Data General computers built affordable new computers for the masses. A group of engineers built a new circuit board that eventually pushed itself to the forefront of the market. This book is about engineers and the culture of engineering more than anything else. It’s about smart young men who pour their lives into projects in order to see them succeed. It’s about their lack of social skill, their strange coping mechanisms, and their bonds of brotherhood and friendship. Such displays are familiar to anyone who has spent much time around engineers. In Kidder’s telling, these engineers give this product supreme meaning for a couple years of their life. Kidder’s journalistic act won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s amazing how he transforms mundane engineering practices into a fast-paced drama. His ability to empathize with average engineers (especially as a non-engineer) confounds me. He describes this scene as exciting for the masses when most non-engineers would consider such adventures as boring. This work still interesting to read almost forty years later. So what is the soul of a computer? To Kidder, it’s about working hard on a project to which one has given supreme importance. It’s about a team coming together despite their social hang-ups. It’s about pushing a product out only to have marketers and business-people claim its inventive force as their own. It’s about not just the circuit boards and software but the people who create the computer for us.
Outstanding Portrayal of Exceptional Engineers in Action
This book should be on the desk of every manager of technical projects in the US. More than any other work in history, it shows how innovation occurs, and how a few near-genius and hard-working individuals can get things done. It also shows modern organizational theory to be badly flawed, and that the much vaunted group-dynamics and teamwork cannot replace a few bright minds who are dedicated to inventing a new product. The Apple Computer is an example of the concept I'm describing: Steve Wozniac invented the Apple in his garage, and Steve Jobs marketed it. Amazing, isn't it -- one man essentially created the personal computer all by himself. All alone, not even with a team made of diverse talents and representing various viewpoints. All they do is create kludges that require incessant maintenance and updates. Sound familiar?
Interesting and I would say a classic
I read this Pol based on few recommendations, it took me a while to finish it though. I find certain part of the book to detailed and boring eventually I had to put effort t finish it all. I cannot say it is bad written, on the contrary it reads well however the subject and the way to tell the story is not my way. Overall a classical book strongly recommended if you are a manager as it explains how to build a group of achiever and potentially shows the aftermath of great success.
Good reading for this old hardware nerd.
I liked this book. The development of the MV/8000 was taking place about the time I was becoming involved in computers, and by the time it hit the market I was a field service engineer working on IBM mainframes, and playing around with a PDP-11 when I could. It was very interesting to read the account of how the hardware and microcode were developed, especially in light of the training I had in essentially similar microcoded machines around the same time frame. On the other hand, even after having read the entire book I still don't really get the feeling I understand what made a couple of the central players tick. Maybe the author never really figured it out either. Anyway, it's well written and well worth reading, especially if you can relate to the way things were "way back" at the tail end of the 70s and the early 80s.
A nourishing memoir for talented technical people
A bunch of people haphazardly come together to build a new computer and with trust from their managers and earnest desire to excel in their craft manage to bring the damn thing to life. I personally found this relatable on so many levels; not only the pastiche of people working on the project but also the range of company politics and bickering. This book punched me in the stomach purely from the fact that the project's leader, Tom West, blatantly describes the power of trust to lead teams. An easy 10/10 recommendation from me to any technical person who will inevitably hit some kind of existential crisis in their career and find this book enlightening as it did for me.
Very interesting piece of computer history!
I got started in computer technology after the era of mainframe computers, so I had no idea of the technology involved. This book covers the design process, high-level technical details, and the community of people involved in designing these computers. It's particularly interesting to read about the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit, long before personal computers made a similar transition. Many of the challenges faced during the events covered by this book had to be solved all over again in the personal computer world, so having this earlier perspective is very educational. The most impressive aspect of this book is that the author was allowed inside the company to document details that must have been secret and under non-disclosure at the time. Getting the story after the fact, from people's recollection of the events, would not nearly have been as accurate as this author's ongoing documentation. I think that may be the most important contribution. I've been involved in serious computer operating system design teams, and subsequently read books by authors who attempted to piece together the facts years later - and they inevitably got many facts wrong. I get the impression that this book is an order of magnitude more accurate than competing retrospectives on computer design projects. You should read this book!
Good but could have been more.
That this book won the Pulitzer is no surprise. It combines a deft hand at journalism with a subject that at the time was probably little known, though now, 30+ years later, it is very well known. It is chic now to be geek. In the early 80s such was not the case. Data General, left the stage in 1999 when it was acquired by another company. But when it was making new computers, and the men assigned to make new computers, that was a time little grasped by the world. Kidder is able to inform us of that time, but then he also goes to extremes such as always describing like a terrible dime store mystery, each member of the team when he introduces them. What he thinks might be infusing these sketches with depth actually reads like details from an index card that have to be injected in a particular order. Then, he does not seem to have a computer persons understanding of a computer. He breaks up the distinction between hardware and software and thinks he gives us and overview of what the two are doing but as a geek, as a writer of software and a electronics lab guy in high school, I am at a loss to understand what he was trying to say. That disconnect just does not hold up. We want to understand more about the boards constructed and how system language was so important on a new 32 bit project. Kidder captures that a team went in and built a computer that had not been built before, but there were other 32 bit computers out there already and profiling the first, the challenges to overcome from 16 bit to 32 bit, or really focusing on why this 32 bit was so much better, was needed. This is not anywhere near the iconic Insanely Great. And for that it suffers.
I work on computers (not build them from the ground up)
What an great and interesting book. I understood (to a point) what they were taking about goes way back to my college days with assembler and working at that very low level. The bits where they are using oscilloscopes to take pictures to see what the machines are doing I would have liked to have been there. If you can take the side off a computer and identify each piece you will enjoy this book. If you can look at the chips on a MOBO and know their function you will REALLY like this book.
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