Quarterly Book Review - The Soul of a New Machine

Welcome to the first instalment in this new series of articles titled “Quarterly Book Review”. In this series I’ll (randomly) pick a book I’ve read either recently or I’m very fond of and try my best to review it.

Please note that the “Quarterly” part may or may not be truthful.

This quarter’s book is: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder.

Published in 1981, The Soul of a New Machine is a deep dive into the minds of key people behind the design and implementation of the Data General Eclipse MV series of computers, detailing both the unique and excruciating aspects of working at one of the most important minicomputer companies of the 1970s.

Background

While Data General has suffered a quick and steady demise after the microcomputer wars of the 1980s, disappearing almost completely by the turn of the millennium, in the 70s they were one of DEC’s main competitors and used to bring compelling solutions to market while often undercutting their rivals’ prices.

Kidder is a journalist who had the opportunity to spend several months in close contact with figures such as Tom West, the architecture’s chief designer and Al Alsing, the manager of the microcode division: this experience lead him to write this book, with which he won several awards, including a Pulitzer, throughout the 1980s.

Eagle

Eagle is the codename that’s been given to the MV/8000’s architecture, which was essentially a backburner project for Data General, that had just backed the development of a supposedly next-generation 32-bit architecture at the time.

As a precaution, DG gave West the task to develop an evolution of the existing Eclipse line, that could be used to fill the gaps in the product line and offered to those customers who needed backwards compatibility: knowing that there was a significant possibility that the other product would never see the light of day, and fuelled by his own ambition, West took it upon himself to design and build not a simple “bag on the side of Eclipse”, but a true state-of-the-art 32-bit minicomputer.

Kidder then cleverly intertwines the description of each phase of the development of Eagle with the outlining of each key individual in that phase, portraying their character and emotions in a masterful way. This combination, presented in a crisp and fluent writing style, leads to an immersing read that’s very enjoyable, but gets a bit stressing at times due to the author’s insane ability that will literally makes you feel like you’re walking along with him in the sweaty basement of Data Generals’ headquarters.

Wrapping Up

In his endeavour, the author excellently portrays each key individual by highlighting their character, habits, and vices, ultimately giving us a clear (albeit not complete) picture of how the individuality of the people who worked on Eagle affected the design itself.

Ultimately, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in computers, history and a compelling story in general, as Kidder does not indulge in overly technical details, and is able to present even the most engineering-oriented parts of the story in human-readable terms.