To
be a real hacker means to dedicate a substantial part of your life
to the advancement of some application of technology.
It means going behind the backs of stuffed-shirt administrators who
think that, despite their inability to do technical work,
they have royal perogatives to push the technologists this way
and that to satisfy obscure, largely symbolic organisational needs.
To
be a real hacker means to make a magnificent obsession of creating
some effect previously unknown,
especially when others say you cannot or may not do it.
You will impoverish yourself, devote your whole being to the task,
and go far beyond the limits that reasonable people place on
unremunerative effort.
Lee Felsenstein, quoted in
Byte, 1985.
The magic of myth and legend has
come true in our time.
Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
The biggest story of the 1990s was how the
Altair, a $400 kit of parts advertised on the cover of
Popular Electronics, managed to bring down the mighty
houses of IBM, Wang, UNIVAC, Digital, and Control Data Corporation.
Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, MIT Press 1998