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{{Short description|1981 nonfiction book by Tracy Kidder}}
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{{short description|1981 award-winning non-fiction book by Tracy Kidder}}
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'''''The Soul of a New Machine''''' is a non-fiction book written by [[Tracy Kidder]] and published in 1981. It chronicles the experiences of a [[computer engineering]] team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous pressure. The machine was launched in 1980 as the [[Data General Eclipse MV/8000]].<ref name=SoulKidder.NYT81Sept6>{{cite newspaper
'''''The Soul of a New Machine''''' is a nonfiction book written by [[Tracy Kidder]] and published in 1981. It chronicles the experiences of a [[computer engineering]] team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous pressure. The machine was launched in 1980 as the [[Data General Eclipse MV/8000]].<ref name=SoulKidder.NYT81Sept6>{{cite news
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/06/business/the-cathedral-was-a-computer.html
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/06/business/the-cathedral-was-a-computer.html
|title=The Cathedral was a Computer |date=September 6, 1981}}</ref>
|title=The Cathedral was a Computer |date=September 6, 1981}}</ref>


The book, whose author "elevated it to a high level of narrative art"<ref name=SoulKidder.NYT810823>{{cite newspaper
The book, whose author was described by the ''New York Times'' as having "elevated it to a high level of narrative art"<ref name=SoulKidder.NYT810823>{{cite news
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/books/the-hardy-boys-and-the-microkids-make-a-computer.html
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/books/the-hardy-boys-and-the-microkids-make-a-computer.html
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|author=Samuel C. Florman |date=August 23, 1981}}</ref> is "about real people working on a real computer for a real company,"<ref name=SoulKidder.Datamation81>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Datamation]]
|author=Samuel C. Florman |date=August 23, 1981}}</ref> is "about real people working on a real computer for a real company,"<ref name=SoulKidder.Datamation81>{{cite magazine |magazine=[[Datamation]]
|title=The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
|title=The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder
|author=John W. Verity |date=October 1981 |pages=225-226}}</ref> and it won the 1982 [[National Book Award for Nonfiction]]<ref name=nba1982>
|author=John W. Verity |date=October 1981 |pages=225–226}}</ref> and it won the 1982 [[National Book Award for Nonfiction]]<ref name=nba1982>
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1982 "National Book Awards – 1982"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved February 21, 2012. <br />This was the award for General Nonfiction (hardcover) during a period in [[National Book Awards#History|National Book Awards history]] when there were many nonfiction subcategories.</ref> and a [[Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction]].
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1982 "National Book Awards – 1982"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved February 21, 2012. <br />This was the award for General Nonfiction (hardcover) during a period in [[National Book Awards#History|National Book Awards history]] when there were many nonfiction subcategories.</ref> and a [[Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction]].


==Plot==
==Plot==
Line 41: Line 40:


==Themes==
==Themes==

The work environment described in the book is in many ways opposite of traditional management. Instead of top-down management, many of the innovations are started at the [[grassroots]] level. Instead of management having to coerce labor to work harder, labor volunteers to complete the project on time. The reason for this is that people will give their best when the work itself is challenging and rewarding. Many of the engineers state that "they don't work for the money", meaning they work for the challenge of inventing and creating. The motivational system is akin to the game of [[pinball]], the analogy being that if you win this round, you get to play the game again; that is, build the next generation of computers.
The work environment described in the book is in many ways opposite of traditional management. Instead of top-down management, many of the innovations are started at the [[grassroots]] level. Instead of management having to coerce labor to work harder, labor volunteers to complete the project on time. The reason for this is that people will give their best when the work itself is challenging and rewarding. Many of the engineers state that "they don't work for the money", meaning they work for the challenge of inventing and creating. The motivational system is akin to the game of [[pinball]], the analogy being that if you win this round, you get to play the game again; that is, build the next generation of computers.


A running theme in the book is the tension between engineering quality and [[time to market]]: the engineers, challenged to bring a minicomputer to market on a very short time-frame, are encouraged to cut corners on design. [[Tom West]] describes his motto as "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well," or "If you can do a quick-and-dirty job and it works, do it."<ref name="Kidder p. 119">
A running theme in the book is the tension between engineering quality and [[time to market]]: the engineers, challenged to bring a minicomputer to market on a very short time-frame, are encouraged to cut corners on design. [[Tom West]] describes his motto as "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well," or "If you can do a quick-and-dirty job and it works, do it."<ref name=SoulKiidder.BookRefISBN>{{cite book |title=The Soul of a New Machine |last=Kidder |first=Tracy |year=1981 |isbn= 0-316-49197-7
⚫
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Jr6RWUZxQAC&q=%22not%20everything%20worth%20doing%20is%20worth%20doing%20well%22&pg=PA119
{{cite book
}}</ref>{{rp|p. 119}}
| title = The Soul of a New Machine

| last = Kidder
⚫
The engineers, in turn, complain that the team's goal is to "put a bag on the side of the Eclipse"<ref name=SoulKiidder.BookRefISBN/>{{rp|p. 68}} – in other words, to turn out an inferior product in order to have it completed more quickly.
| first = Tracy
| year = 1981
| page = 119
⚫
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8Jr6RWUZxQAC&q=%22not%20everything%20worth%20doing%20is%20worth%20doing%20well%22&pg=PA119
| isbn = 0-316-49197-7
}}</ref>
⚫
The engineers, in turn, complain that the team's goal is to "put a bag on the side of the Eclipse"<ref name="Kidder p. 68">
{{cite book
| title = The Soul of a New Machine
| last = Kidder
| first = Tracy
| year = 1981
| page = 68
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8Jr6RWUZxQAC&q=wallach%20bag%20on%20the%20side%20of%20the%20eclipse&pg=PA68
| isbn = 0-316-49197-7
}}</ref>
– in other words, to turn out an inferior product in order to have it completed more quickly.


Tom West practices the "[[Mushroom management|Mushroom Theory of Management]]" – "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow." That is, isolating the design team from outside influences and, instead, using the fear of the unknown to motivate the team.
Tom West practices the "[[Mushroom management|Mushroom Theory of Management]]" – "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow." That is, isolating the design team from outside influences and, instead, using the fear of the unknown to motivate the team.


The "Soul" of the new machine comes from the dedicated engineers who bring it to life with their endless hours of attention and toil. The soul is theirs, stored in silicon and microcode.{{cn|date=December 2019}}
The "Soul" of the new machine comes from the dedicated engineers who bring it to life with their endless hours of attention and toil. The soul is theirs, stored in silicon and microcode.<ref name=SoulKidder.NYT81Sept6/><ref>"part of you is in that machine."</ref>

==Sources==
* Kidder, Tracy. ''The Soul of a New Machine''. Back Bay Books, 2000. {{ISBN|0-316-49197-7}}


==References==
==References==
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|date=December 2000 |title= O, Engineers! |volume=8 |issue=12 |pages=356–367
|date=December 2000 |title= O, Engineers! |volume=8 |issue=12 |pages=356–367
|issn=1059-1028
|issn=1059-1028
|url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/soul.html |access-date=June 30, 2009}} Twenty-year retrospective of the book, with [https://www.wired.com/2000/12/eagleteam/ "where are they now?"] segments on the people involved and on [[Data General]].
|url=https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/ |access-date=October 31, 2024}} Twenty-year retrospective of the book, with [https://www.wired.com/2000/12/eagleteam/ "where are they now?"] segments on the people involved and on [[Data General]].
* {{cite web |first1=John |last1=Faughnan |first2=Sanja |last2=Stevanovic
* {{cite web |first1=John |last1=Faughnan |first2=Sanja |last2=Stevanovic
|title=Flight of the Eagle: The Birthing and Life of a Super-Minicomputer
|title=Flight of the Eagle: The Birthing and Life of a Super-Minicomputer
Line 90: Line 69:
*{{OL work}}
*{{OL work}}
*[https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/330/eagle.html ''The Soul of a New Machine'' course materials], [[Clemson University]]
*[https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/330/eagle.html ''The Soul of a New Machine'' course materials], [[Clemson University]]

{{PulitzerPrize GeneralNon-Fiction 1976–2000}}
{{Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Soul of a New Machine, The}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soul of a New Machine, The}}
[[Category:1981 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:1981 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Computer books]]
[[Category:Books about computer and internet companies]]
[[Category:Data General]]
[[Category:Data General]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction-winning works]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction–winning works]]
[[Category:National Book Award for Nonfiction winning works]]
[[Category:National Book Award for Nonfiction–winning works]]
[[Category:Little, Brown and Company books]]
[[Category:Little, Brown and Company books]]

Latest revision as of 05:47, 15 November 2024

For the album by Fear Factory, see Soul of a New Machine.
The Soul of a New Machine
The Soul of a New Machine
AuthorTracy Kidder
LanguageEnglish
SubjectComputer engineering
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
Publication date
July 1981
Publication placeUnited States
Media typeHardcover
Pages293 pp
ISBN978-0-316-49170-9
OCLC7551785
621.3819/582 19
LC ClassTK7885.4 .K53

The Soul of a New Machine is a nonfiction book written by Tracy Kidder and published in 1981. It chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous pressure. The machine was launched in 1980 as the Data General Eclipse MV/8000.[1]

The book, whose author was described by the New York Times as having "elevated it to a high level of narrative art"[2] is "about real people working on a real computer for a real company,"[3] and it won the 1982 National Book Award for Nonfiction[4] and a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Plot

[edit]

The book opens with a turf war between two computer design groups within Data General Corporation, a minicomputer vendor in the 1970s. Most of the senior designers are assigned the "sexy" job of designing the next-generation machine in North Carolina. Their project, code-named "Fountainhead", is to give Data General a machine to compete with the VAX computer from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which is starting to take over the new 32-bit minicomputer market. Meanwhile, at the corporate headquarters at Westborough, Massachusetts, the few remaining senior designers there are assigned the much more humble job of improving Data General's existing products. Tom West, the leader of the Westborough designers, starts a skunkworks project. Code-named "Eagle", it becomes a backup plan in case Fountainhead fails, and then the company's only hope in catching up with DEC. In order to complete the project on time, West takes risks: he elects to use new technology, and he relies on new college graduates (who have never designed anything so complex) as the bulk of his design team. The book follows many of the designers as they give almost every waking moment of their lives to design and debug the new machine.[3][5]

Themes

[edit]

The work environment described in the book is in many ways opposite of traditional management. Instead of top-down management, many of the innovations are started at the grassroots level. Instead of management having to coerce labor to work harder, labor volunteers to complete the project on time. The reason for this is that people will give their best when the work itself is challenging and rewarding. Many of the engineers state that "they don't work for the money", meaning they work for the challenge of inventing and creating. The motivational system is akin to the game of pinball, the analogy being that if you win this round, you get to play the game again; that is, build the next generation of computers.

A running theme in the book is the tension between engineering quality and time to market: the engineers, challenged to bring a minicomputer to market on a very short time-frame, are encouraged to cut corners on design. Tom West describes his motto as "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well," or "If you can do a quick-and-dirty job and it works, do it."[6]: p. 119 

The engineers, in turn, complain that the team's goal is to "put a bag on the side of the Eclipse"[6]: p. 68  – in other words, to turn out an inferior product in order to have it completed more quickly.

Tom West practices the "Mushroom Theory of Management" – "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow." That is, isolating the design team from outside influences and, instead, using the fear of the unknown to motivate the team.

The "Soul" of the new machine comes from the dedicated engineers who bring it to life with their endless hours of attention and toil. The soul is theirs, stored in silicon and microcode.[1][7]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "The Cathedral was a Computer". The New York Times. September 6, 1981.
  2. ^ Samuel C. Florman (August 23, 1981). "The Hardy Boys And The Microkids Make A Computer". The New York Times.
  3. ^ a b John W. Verity (October 1981). "The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder". Datamation. pp. 225–226.
  4. ^ "National Book Awards – 1982". National Book Foundation. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
    This was the award for General Nonfiction (hardcover) during a period in National Book Awards history when there were many nonfiction subcategories.
  5. ^ "all night sessions in front of a logic analyzer"
  6. ^ a b Kidder, Tracy (1981). The Soul of a New Machine. ISBN 0-316-49197-7.
  7. ^ "part of you is in that machine."

Further reading

[edit]
[edit]
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