Eran Tromer's Book Reviews
Tracy Kidder
The Soul of a New Machine
Atlantic Monthly Press, 1981
Winner of the Pulitzer prize for non-fiction
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They Say IBM's Entry Into Minicomputers Will Legitimatize The
Market.
The Bastards Say, Welcome.
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The Soul of a New Machine tracks a team of engineers at Data General
Corporation working on an innovative new computer. It follows the life
of the project and those involved in it for over a year, from the background
of the undertaking until its completion. During this time, the social and
professional situations undergo different phases, some quite dramatic.
Kidder does a superb work of capturing their essence, and combining them
into a coherent account. The result is a gripping tale of of hope and anxiety,
of will power and despair, and of immense dedication.
Along the way, various aspects of the engineers' lives are revealed.
Some are characteristic of many engineering projects, while others are
unique to the peculiar circumstances. At times the personal lives of various
members are emphasized, while at others the team-wide social pattern gets
the stage. Some sections dwell into semi-technical situations and anecdotes,
while others deal with management and politics. All of these combine into
a well-orchestrated hymn to the Man behind the Machine.
This is not a technical book. While some terminology and concepts are
needed to fully appreciate the numerous anecdotal cases, Kidder does a
good job of providing the context. On the other hand, those with the relevant
technical background will find these digressions more amusing then annoying,
and will get enough details to realize the immense technical challanges
at hand -- defining and implementing a state-of-the-art computer while
maintaining compatibility with an archaic architecture, and doing so with
an impossible deadline and insufficient resources.
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The bigger game was "pinball". "You win one game, you get to
play another. You win with this machine, you get to build the next." Pinball
was what counted.
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The book could be criticized for being unbalanced in favor of the heroic.
While the factual accounts appear reasonably balanced, the overall emotional
tone is not. Also, some characters recieve a fairly shallow treatment.
Indeed, Tom West, arguably the central character, still remains a mystery
to the reader when the strory is over. But this does little to overshadow
the brilliantly original perspective Kidder presents.
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He went away from the basement and left this note on his terminal:
"I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter
than a season."
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