Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Steven Levy. Anchor/Doubleday. Copyright © 1984. ISBN 0-385-19195-2.

Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers at the Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer revolution. He never understood Unix or the networksthough, and his enshrinement of Richard Stallman as “the last true hacker” turns out (thankfully) to have been quite misleading. Despite being a bit dated and containing some minor errors (many fixed in the paperback edition), this remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the feel of several important hacker subcultures.

This book has been mentioned in the following pages of the Jargon File: Bibliography.