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Wired by Steven Levy | Apr. 20, 2010 (Special Report)
Steven Levy Revisits Tech Titans, Hackers, Idealists

When I embarked on my project, I thought of hackers as little more than an interesting subculture. But as I researched them, I found that their playfulness, as well as their blithe disregard for what others said was impossible, led to the breakthroughs that would define the computing experience for millions of people. Early MIT hackers realized it was possible to use computers for what we now call word processing. (Their initial program was called ... Full Story »

Posted by Fabrice Florin - via Scott Rosenberg, Give Me Something To Read, Jon Mitchell (t), Wil Kristin (t), Phylora Uppman (f), Joey Baker (f), Gian Antelles (f), Jon Mitchell (f), David Fox (f), Jeremy Caplan (f), Fabrice Florin (f), Kaizar Campwala (f)

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Subjects: Business, Sci/Tech
Topics: Innovation, Technology, Apple, Microsoft, Computers
Member Tags: hackers
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# Tweets: 345 (as of 2010-04-20)
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Posted by: Posted by Fabrice Florin - Apr 19, 2010 - 8:05 PM PDT
Reviewed by: Fabrice Florin (review), Danielle Chen (review)
Content Type: Article
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Edited by: Fabrice Florin - Apr 20, 2010 - 4:38 PM PDT

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Fabrice Florin
4.0
 by Fabrice Florin - Apr. 20, 2010

Excellent article about the hacker culture by Wired's Steven Levy. On the 25-year anniversary of his acclaimed book, Hackers, the author revisits some of the midnight programmers who created the personal computer revolution. For this special report, he went back to interview many of the people profiled in his book, from software tycoon Bill Gates to lesser-known pioneers such as the Homebrew Computer Club's Lee Felsenstein. The result is as a fascinating retrospective of this cultural phenomenon and its impact on society.

In 1984, I produced a public TV documentary based on Steven Levy's book, which changed my life in more ways than one (see link). It led to a friendship with Bill Atkinson, one of the original designers of the Macintosh -- and my eight year stint at Apple Computer, where I helped launch a range of multimedia projects. Shot at the First Hackers Conference organized by Stewart Brand and Kevin Kelly, this half-hour special is now available on DVD: http://www.hackersvideo.com/ [My rating ... More »

Disclosure: Fabrice is involved in this story as a co-worker (review not included in overall rating). Help
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Danielle Chen
2.3
 by Danielle Chen - Apr. 21, 2010
See Full Review » (5 answers)

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    Unknown Source | Apr. 4, 2010
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