Steven Levy's book covers hacker history from the late fifties to the early eighties. Levy captures the passion of these young men for the computer. He distills for the layman the adventure of programming as few have. Particularly in parts 1 and 2.

This book is however marred by Levy's lack of computer knowledge coupled with apparently shoddy research (several key program names are misspelled). This is not serious, but his tendency to loose track of the subject matter, spending too much time writing about various CS types or suits detracts from an otherwise excellent book.

This is a wonderful book on hacking and hackers, be they the TMRC TX-0 Aficionados, wirehead hardware junkies, or the home-computer game hackers of the eighties. I would strongly recommend this title to computer wonks and laymen alike.

 

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