Who's Who: The Wizards and their Machines
- Bob Albrecht
- Founder of People's Computer Company who took visceral
pleasure in exposing youngsters to computers.
- Altair 8800
- The pioneering microcomputer that galvanized hardware
hackers. Building this kit made you learn hacking. Then you
tried to figure out what to do with it.
- Apple II
- Steve Wozniak's friendly, flaky, good-looking computer,
wildly successful and the spark and soul of a thriving
industry.
- Atari 800
- This home computer gave great graphics to game hackers
like John Harris, though the company that made it was loath to
tell you how it worked.
- Bob and Carolyn Box
- World-record-holding gold prospectors turned software
stars, working for Sierra On-Line.
- Doug Carlston
- Corporate lawyer who chucked it all to form the
Broderbund software company.
- Bob Davis
- Left job in liquor store to become bestselling author of
Sierra On-Line computer game "Ulysses and the Golden Fleece."
Success was his downfall.
- Peter Deutsch
- Bad in sports, brilliant at math, Peter was still in
short pants when he stumbled on the TX-0 at MIT and hacked it
along with the masters.
- Steve Dompier
- Homebrew member who first made Altair sing, and later
wrote the "Target" game on the Sol which entranced Tom
Snyder.
- John Draper
- The notorious "Captain Crunch" who fearlessly explored
phone systems, got jailed, later hacked microcomputers.
Cigarettes made him violent.
- Mark Duchaineau
- The young Dungeonmaster who copy-protected On-Line's
disks at his whim.
- Chris
- Espinosa Fourteen-year-old follower of Steve Wozniak and
early Apple employee.
- Lee Felsenstein
- Former "military editor" of Berkeley Barb, and
hero of an imaginary science-fiction novel, he designed
computers with "junkyard" approach and was central figure in
Bay Area hardware hacking in the seventies.
- Ed Fredkin
- Gentle founder of Information International, thought
himself world's greatest programmer until he met Stew Nelson.
Father figure to hackers.
- Gordon French
- Silver-haired hardware hacker whose garage held not cars
but his homebrewed Chicken Hawk computer, then held the first
Homebrew Computer Club meeting.
- Richard Garriott
- Astronaut's son who, as Lord British, created the Ultima
world on computer disks.
- Bill Gates
- Cocky wizard, Harvard dropout who wrote Altair BASIC, and
complained when hackers copied it.
- Bill Gosper
- Horowitz of computer keyboards, master math and LIFE hacker
at MIT AI lab, guru of the Hacker Ethic and student of Chinese
restaurant menus.
- Richard Greenblatt
- Single-minded, unkempt, prolific, and canonical MIT
hacker who went into night phase so often that he zorched his
academic career. The hacker's hacker.
- John Harris
- The young Atari 800 game hacker who became Sierra
On-Line's star programmer, but yearned for female
companionship.
- IBM PC
- IBM's entry into the personal computer market which
amazingly included a bit of the Hacker Ethic, and took over.
- IBM
- 704 IBM was The Enemy, and this was its machine, the
Hulking Giant computer in MIT's Building 26. Later modified
into the IBM 709, then the IBM 7090. Batch-processed and
intolerable. Jerry Jewell Vietnam vet turned programmer who
founded Sirius Software.
- Steven Jobs
- Visionary, beaded, non-hacking youngster who took
Wozniak's Apple II, made lots of deals, and formed a company
that would make a billion dollars.
- Tom Knight
- At sixteen, an MIT hacker who would name the Incompatible
Time-sharing System. Later, a Greenblatt nemesis over the
LISP machine schism.
- Alan Kotok
- The chubby MIT student from Jersey who worked under the
rail layout at TMRC, learned the phone system at Western
Electric, and became a legendary TX-0 and PDP-1
hacker.
- Efrem Lipkin
- Hacker-activist from New York who loved machines but
hated their uses. Co-founded Community Memory; friend of
Felsenstein.
- LISP Machine
- The ultimate hacker computer, invented mostly by
Greenblatt and subject of a bitter dispute at MIT.
- "Uncle" John McCarthy
- Absent-minded but brilliant MIT (later Stanford)
professor who helped pioneer computer chess, artificial
intelligence, LISP.
- Bob Marsh
- Berkeley-ite and Homebrewer who shared garage with
Felsenstein and founded Processor Technology, which made the
Sol computer.
- Roger Melen
- Homebrewer who co-founded Cromemco company to make
circuit boards for Altair. His "Dazzler" played LIFE program
on his kitchen table.
- Louis Merton
- Pseudonym for the AI chess hacker whose tendency to go
catatonic brought the hacker community together.
- Jude Milhon
- Met Lee Felsenstein through a classified ad in the
Berkeley Barb, and became more than a friend a member
of the Community Memory collective.
- Marvin Minsky
- Playful and brilliant MIT prof who headed AI lab and
allowed the hackers to run free.
- Fred Moore
- Vagabond pacifist who hated money, loved technology, and
co-founded Homebrew Club.
- Stewart Nelson
- Buck-toothed, diminutive, but fiery AI lab hacker who
connected the PDP-1 computer to hack the phone system. Later
co-founded Systems Concepts company.
- Ted Nelson
- Self-described "innovator" and noted curmudgeon who
self-published the influential Computer Lib book.
- Russell Noftsker
- Harried administrator of MIT AI lab in late sixties;
later president of Symbolics company.
- Adam Osborne
- Bangkok-born publisher-turned-computer-manufacturer who
considered himself a philosopher. Founded Osborne Computer
Company to make "adequate" machines.
- PDP-1
- Digital Equipment's first minicomputer, and in 1961 an
interactive godsend to the MIT hackers and a slap in the face
to IBM fascism.
- PDP-6
- Designed in part by Kotok, this mainframe computer was
cornerstone of AI lab, with its gorgeous instruction set and
sixteen sexy registers.
- Tom Pittman
- The religious Homebrew hacker who lost his wife but
kept the faith with his Tiny BASIC.
- Ed Roberts
- Enigmatic founder of MITS company who shook the world
with his Altair computer. He wanted to help people build
mental pyramids.
- Steve (Slug) Russell
- McCarthy's "coolie," who hacked the Spacewar program,
first videogame, on the PDP-1. Never made a dime from it.
- Peter Samson
- MIT hacker, one of the first, who loved systems, trains,
TX-0, music, parliamentary procedure, pranks, and hacking.
- Bob Saunders Jolly
- balding TMRC hacker who married early, hacked till late at
night eating "lemon gunkies," and mastered the "CBS strategy"
on Spacewar.
- Warren Schwader
- Big blond hacker from rural Wisconsin who went from the
assembly line to software stardom but couldn't reconcile the
shift with his devotion to Jehovah's Witnesses.
- David Silver
- Left school at fourteen to be mascot of AI lab; maker of
illicit keys and builder of a tiny robot that did the
impossible.
- Dan Sokol
- Long-haired prankster who reveled in revealing
technological secrets at Homebrew Club. Helped "liberate"
Altair BASIC program on paper tape.
- Sol Computer
- Lee Felsenstein's terminal-and-computer, built in two
frantic months, almost the computer that turned things around.
Almost wasn't enough.
- Les Solomon
- Editor of Popular Eletronics, the puller
of strings who set the computer revolution into motion.
- Marty Spergel
- The Junk Man, the Homebrew member who supplied circuits
and cables and could make you a deal for anything.
- Richard Stallman
- The Last of the Hackers, who vowed to defend the
principles of hackerism to the bitter end. Remained at MIT
until there was no one to eat Chinese food with.
- Jeff Stephenson
- Thirty-year-old martial arts veteran and hacker who was
astounded that joining Sierra On-Line meant enrolling in
Summer Camp.
- Jay Sullivan
- Maddeningly calm wizard-level programmer at Informatics
who impressed Ken Williams by knowing the meaning of the word
"any."
- Dick Sunderland
- Chalk-complexioned MBA who believed that firm managerial
bureaucracy was a worthy goal, but as president of Sierra
On-Line found that hackers didn't think that way. Gerry
Sussman Young MIT hacker branded "loser" because he smoked a
pipe and "munged" his programs; later became "winner" by
algorithmic magic.
- Margot Tommervik
- With her husband Al, long-haired Margot parlayed her game
show winnings into a magazine that deified the Apple Computer.
- Tom Swift Terminal
- Lee Felsenstein's legendary, never-to-be-built computer
terminal which would give the user ultimate leave to get his
hands on the world.
- TX-0
- Filled a small room, but in the late fifties this $3
million machine was world's first personal computer for the
community of MIT hackers that formed around it.
- Jim Warren
- Portly purveyor of "techno-gossip" at Homebrew, he was
first editor of hippie-styled Dr. Dobbs Journal, later
started the lucrative Computer Faire.
- Randy Wigginton
- Fifteen-year-old member of Steve Wozniak's kiddie corps,
he helped Woz trundle the Apple II to Homebrew. Still in high
school when he became Apple's first software employee.
- Ken Williams
- Arrogant and brilliant young programmer who saw the
writing on the CRT and started Sierra On-Line to make a
killing and improve society by selling games for the Apple
computer.
- Roberta Williams
- Ken Williams' timid wife who rediscovered her own
creativity by writing "Mystery House," the first of her many
bestselling computer games.
- Stephen "Woz" Wozniak
- Openhearted, technologically daring hardware hacker from
San Jose suburbs, Woz built the Apple Computer for the
pleasure of himself and friends.