The Soul of A New Machine

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.

This books is a story of building a computer, from start to finish, told in the form of an epic journey. It goes in depth on the people involved, strategy used, the company politics and how they all integrated into and affected the project.
Being in a small software organization for the last 4 years and having experience a tripling in size and about the same in revenue, it was very easy for me to find parallels to my company's growth, the people and the experiences that were at Data General when the computer was built. Here are some of the (summed up briefly) that I found:
1. Speech Period (pep ralley) 2. Leader becoming more and more distant 3. Need to be doing something interesting 4. Mushroom Theory of Management (put them in the dark, feed them s*$# and watch them grow). 5. Everyone burns out 6. All of the sudden, its just a job 7. The gunslinger 8. Management has changed and its no longer the same place ... and many others
I think that anyone reading the book curious of parallels in businesses (regardless of what they do), would find this book a good source of info.

I cannot begin to imagine how TSOANM garnered a Pulitzer in its publication year. I can only guess that it dealt with a subject matter -- a case study in the history of the computer -- so mysterious and cutting-edge in the view of awards committee members, that its incisiveness was simply assumed. How else to explain the praise that has been heaped on this tepid piece of computer science/management science journalism? How else to explain the fact that so little actual history -- of the computer industry or computers themselves -- and so little actual case study is to be found between the covers of this book? I don't doubt the author's earnest interest in his subjects. He strikes this reader as very well-intentioned, and his project had tremendous potential, to be sure. But he also strikes this reader as the unkeenest of observers. TSOANM could have been brilliantly realized by a writer like Steven Levy. Kidder fails to impress in every way possible: as a journalist, a historian, a thinker, and a writer. I must ask, again, whence the Pulitzer?

As an engineer in high-tech, I assumed our culture of evolved as quickly as our livelihood. Not so, I found, reading about the engineering mindset ("It doesn't matter if you're ugly or graceless or even half crazy; if you produce right results in this world, your colleagues must accept you."), the inability to *completely* verify a design ("it would be possible to test fully... but it would take literally forever to do so."), that we all like video games and Star Trek, that the term "gunslinger" (someone who "shoots from the hip") isn't something our generation of engineers coined, and that what drives us today is the same that drove the previous two generations of engineers ("I'll have to work hard, and if we do a good job, we get to do it again."). Instead of writing an account of engineers building a computer chip, Kidder has created an allegory exposing the roots of engineering to genererations beyond. Wish I had read this early in my career to know what I have to look forward to...

"I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time

shorter than a season."

I first read this book when it came out - while I was in college. It's interesting to re-read it 30 years later with the perspective of what became of the Eclipse MV8000, Data General, Digital Equipment, and the other non-human Dramatis Personae. As far as the people - who knows: it's easier to follow the history of an industry than the people who comprise it. But it's the people that Kidder wisely focuses upon.

What comes through is the passion that a group of people have for their work - the long hours, the camaraderie, and the joy of creation. I confess - as an engineer it tweaks me when artists dismiss the profession. Engineering is the act of creation just as much as art is - with one added requirement: the creation must be useful. The technology in the book is archaic, but the process is the same today in Silicon Valley as then in Westboro, Mass. In fact, it's the requirement for utility that consigns most engineering creation to the scrap heap in short order - that's how it's supposed to be. It's still a pleasure to do the work, and that is evident in this book.

I think that reading this book helps explain something: I've never met an engineer unhappy about his or her career choice - try finding an attorney that skips to work. Is it hard to keep sharp at the cutting edge? Absolutely - the MV8000 was a market failure, Data General went under in the 1992 recession, and mighty Digital (once the largest private employer in Massachusetts and New Hampshire) was bought in a fire sale by Compaq for access to the Alpha CPU architecture - which went unused and was scrapped when Compaq was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. The same HP that laid the cornerstone for Silicon Valley and now makes money selling over-priced printer cartridges. You drive in the fast lane, you get in a wreck or two. But it is FUN to drive in the fast lane!

I have a strong computer background. I am an engineer not a writer, but how this could have gotten a Pulitzer Prize is beyond me. It is so poorly written that I had to force myself to finish it as I was sure it would pick up in the end....it did not. I cant even recommend it to a single friend in the industry as it really has nothing to say other that a lot of sweat went in this development, but again if you have been involved in any cutting edge development project they are not 9-5 jobs....so what is new. Sorry I spent my time. Perhaps it needs context to appreciate it. The development was fantastic but the book was equality not up to it.

I bought and read this book shortly after it was published. Tracy Kidder is gifted, and this book is still unique. I won't repeat the other accolades -- the book merits them -- but I will share some of the insights the book provides into technology projects.

I have never heard a better description of the motivation for hardware and software projects than "shipping out a box with your name on the side of it". This arose from the then common practice of the development team all autographing the first production shipment. It's hard to define this motivation...it's not money, although that's what journalists usually attribute it to. "Look what I made" is somewhat closer to the motivation, but not really there. If you are a manager of high-tech projects, read this book and get a feel for what unified the team.

Another unifying factor was the second-best aura. Not only was Data General behind DEC, but the books team was considered a second string group, and the North Carolina team got all the resources and attention from management. But they fell behind, and Kidder's team had a chance to save the day. If you are a manager, you are going to be in this situation someday.

If you are considering computer science as a career...this book resonates with a piece of advice which I frequently give. Don't get into CS or EE because you think you will make money. Get into it because you love what you are doing. That's one more factor behind the insane hours and ludicruous commitments this team undertook.

So...after over 35 years in the computer business...I have not found any other book which captures the milieu like The Soul Of A New Machine. Highly recommended.

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.

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?

This is an exceptionally important work. It tells a story about the development of a computer (machine) during the early days, when the physics of a computer and coding had just become separate disciplines. Truly, a must read for anyone associated with the IT industry.