Hold on to your hats, kids! We're taking a trip back to the late 70s, where there were more than 2 or 3 types of computer to choose between, but they cost half a million dollars and were the size of refrigerators. This book relates the development of a new computer at Data General, a highly successful manufacturer of the time, though forgotten today.

This is really one of those plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose things. While it is so much of its era - maybe the bronze age of the computer industry - so many things have barely changed. Seeing which things are identical and which are unrecognizable is one of the fascinating things about this extremely interesting book.

Having worked in the broad field of computing for 15 years, the processes of developing and delivering a technical project were at the same time familiar and alien to me. The speccing, creating, iterating, integrating, debugging are described very convincingly and were very recognizable. But the way those things were achieved - the equipment used, the amount of documentation, the way issues were tracked - was all very different to practices today (and for good reasons at the time). I would have enjoyed a bit more technical detail, but then I imagine that I'm a bit more technically proficient than the target audience.

The characters of the engineers, their goals, and the counter-intuitively dysfunctional ways of getting the most out of them is remarkably similar to what one might encounter in the field of computing today (to be honest, I'm only familiar with development on the software side, but I assume the same broadly hold true on the hardware side). This project tended to use much younger engineers than standard in the industry, and motivated them by giving them a high level of responsibility for their particular areas - which meant they felt that they had to work ridiculous hours. This was good for those involved, but also meant that the creation of the machine was much cheaper than it would have been with more experienced people working regular hours (that said, it also came with a higher risk of failure).

Additionally, the office politics of a large tech company are well depicted, and should be instantly recognisable to anyone who's ever worked in such an organisation.

The story of the creation of the machine has some strong parallels with Revolution in the Valley - about the develpoment of the first Mac (remarkably only about 5 years later). In both, the computer was thought of (at most) secondary importance within the companies building them. And both had a team of highly-motivated, young engineers driving them forward, with ridiculous workloads, and thriving on their "outsider" status. Data General's computer was not revolutionary like Apple's, but that is not really what this book is about. It is a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the computer industry - a field which affects all our lives and yet is somewhat opaque. It is remarkable both as a historical account, and also for how relevant it is today.
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I read this many years ago, probably in the early 1980's (as I was working in the IT field it was very relevant). I became a Kidder fan, and have read several of his books since. ( )

This was interesting for its own merits, a snapshot back into a specific time (and a specific project) of the computer industry.

But I found it *really* interesting for the description of personalities, work-life balance issues, issues of burn-out, feelings (and description) of people becoming 'battle-hardened' veterans, constant in-fighting... it captures beautifully many of the issues that (in large part, though not solely) lead me to leave (aka, run screaming away from) the software/tech industry 30 years after the events described here. It was in fact shocking to read those descriptions and to realize just how 'cultural' the tech culture is (for better or for worse.) ( )

Good descriptions of complex decisions about hardware and software and organization. ( )

This book is a classic. If you're interested in the history of the computer business, you'll really enjoy it.
Kidder follows a team of engineers at Data General as they design, build, and debug a new machine for the company. At the time (late 1970s), the biggest deal in computer tech was the mini computer. This was the stepping stone from the large IBM-style mainframes to the Apple and IBM personal computers that came after.
The book profiles Tom West and several members of his team as they compete against not only other computer manufacturers, like DEC and IBM, but also against another team within Data General to build a 32-bit "supermini." It makes for a very compelling story. ( )