The Soul of a New Machine

De: Tracy Kidder

Narrado por: Ben Sullivan

Computers have changed since 1981, when Tracy Kidder memorably recorded the drama, comedy, and excitement of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations. The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the 20th century.

©2011 Tracy Kidder (P)2016 Hachette Audio

About one machine

This tells what happens in the creation of ONE computer. It was complete, it gave a thorough breakdown of how it happened, and it was interesting. It didn't describe other computer development.

It is hard to extrapolate any useful lessons from this account. I liked it, but I would have LOVED if it had posited how this story could be used to guide new development or teams. That would have been more compelling.

Great read in 2022

I can see why the book won awards back in the day. The writing is compelling and the narrative and is engaging. I especially liked how the author is able to get into integrated circuit design in a way that’s approachable. We don’t really learn too much about integrated circuits in modern computer science unless you focus on that.

Wanting to read for years, but disappointed

I was first introduced to this book in the 1980's while working at a computer development department at a major aerospace company. And I had always intended to read this book because it was obviously something I could relate to.
The thing is, what it really describes is typical politics of just about any electronics/software development company. The management, the tyrants, the superstars, the lackeys. Truly this describes most of the companies and project teams I have worked on. So you might interpret this as being near and dear, or to familiar to be interesting.
I recognize this was written years ago, but many of the technical concepts and innovations described weren't really that revolutionary and were kind of typical. Moral of the story, data general wasn't really all that revolutionary or innovative..
I can see the interest in the book, but maybe it is a bit too removed from current technology to be that interesting anymore.

What I didn't like was the narrator. Just awful, butchering the pronunciation of engineering and technology terms continually to the point of distraction and cringe.

Gives a close up feel of a computers genesis

Gives a close up feel of a computers genesis . Dont need to be technical to enjoy this.

Fascinating!

A few years old now, it is still absorbing and intriguing to follow the triumphs and travails of creating a new computer!

Entertaining listen

This was a really interesting book to listen to. It's old, but didn't feel irrelevant. The author did a great job of taking something very technical (the design of a new micro computer) and weaving it into a story.
I enjoyed getting a view into the world of computer hardware.
The narrator did a great job and kept me interested and held my attention.

If you're at all interested in technology or computers, this should be on your reading list.

Interesting deep dive into computer entrepreneurship with

I never used a CDC machine but I knew they were “hot” about 1970. I found it interesting- fixing bugs in a new machine. I also enjoyed “When Wizards Stay up Late..” which is making of the first internet (Arpanet).

I read this book years ago ..

I read this book years ago when it was first published. As I am an electrical engineer that has worked in teams releasing complex machines, it is interesting to draw parallels between the Eclipse team and the teams where I have been a key player.
Great enjoying it on Audible. I listen to an Audible book every morning while taking a walk through my neighborhood.

We grew the technology of our day as awesome.

The best things in life are the those that passed the tests of time. 1010101

Reading this book changed my life

I read this book shortly after it was published, and have re-read it every few years since. In fact, it was the first Kindle book I purchased. So I was really excited to get it as an audiobook. Unfortunately, I was a little bit disappointed.

Let's start with the story itself: It is definitely a bit of a hagiography to the 32-bit Eclipse team at Data General. While the author tries to tell the story in an unbiased way, nowhere in the book is it mentioned that Tracy Kidder was college roommate's with Tom West, which is how he came to be writing that story. Still, all of that being said, Mr. Kidder does an excellent job of explaining the technical issues clearly to an educated layman. As a long time professional software developer myself, I must credit him for (for example) his terrific explanation of double-page faults. He definitely took the time to get the technical details simplified but correct. So from the point of view of content, the book is a good read, whether in dead tree form, Kindle ebook, or audiobook.

However, the audiobook performance leaves some things to be desired. For example, the reader has clearly never heard certain words pronounced correctly, and rather than looking them up, guessed, and guessed wrong. Two in particular are "adjutant" and "wan." When a reader mispronounces a word, it yanks me out of the flow, hard. So a note to readers: If you are doing either a technical non-fiction book, or a science-fiction/fantasy book, grab a dictionary, and look up any word you don't personally know and use on a daily basis. These kinds of books tend to use a lot more uncommon English words, and the listeners tend to know those words and use them, themselves. So hearing the reader get it wrong really spoils the listen.

Second, the reader really didn't do any voice characterisations. I know that it's harder when these are real people, not characters. But many of the people have their voices described well enough that a good reader could get close enough to how they should sound. Instead, the reader just read it. And barring the vocabulary problems mentioned above, he did an okay job. But okay isn't what I've come to expect from audiobooks here. I've heard a number of books where, after listening, I thought, "This is what those characters sound like." This read could almost have been done by a decent TTS system. So paying good money for a mediocre reading smarts.

Any road, if you are old enough to remember the mini-computer and personal computer revolutions, this book will be quite nostalgic. And if you are too young to remember, you might find this an interesting insight into the industry. Honestly, the working environment at Data General on the 32-bit Eclipse project will seem very familiar to anyone who has worked in a startup, or for a high-tech company that is still run like a startup (I'm looking at you, Amazon). So I would recommend it over all, but bear in my objections and you'll hear a great story, well written, if only averagely well read.