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The peak hour itself was tremendously intense, but during the hours before, and even during the hours afterward, a hacker attained a state of pure concentration. When you programmed a computer, you had to be aware of where all the thousands of bits of information were going from one instruction to the next, and be able to predict -- and exploit -- the effect of all that movement. When you had all that information glued to your cerebral being, it was almost as if your own mind had merged into the environment or the computer. Sometimes it took hours to build up to the point where your thoughts could contain that total picture, and when you did get to that point, it was such a shame to waste it that you tried to sustain it by marathon bursts.

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Even before discovering the TX-0, Deutsch had developed a fascination for computers. It began one day when he picked up a manual that someone had discarded--a manual for an obscure form of computer language for doing calculations. Something about the orderliness of the computer instructions appealed to him: he would later describe the feeling as the same kind of eerily transcendent recognition that an artist experiences when he discovers the medium that is absolutely right for him. _This is where I belong._

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In general, the ITS system can be said to have been designer implemented and user designed. The problem of unrealistic software design is greatly diminished when the designer is the implementor. The implementor's ease in programming and pride in the result is increased when he, in an essential sense, is the designer. Features are less likely to turn out to be of low utility if users are their designers and less likely to turn out to be difficult to use if their designers are their users.

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When you completed a systems program, be it a major effort like an assembler or debugger or something quick and (you hoped) elegant, like an interface output multiplexer, you were simultaneously creating a tool, unveiling a creation, and fashioning something to advance the level of your own future hacking. It was a particularly circular process, almost a spiritual one, in which the systems programmer was a habitual user of the system he was improving.

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The winning isn't as important as the running after the ball.

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It was the fertile atmosphere of Homebrew that guided Steve Wozniak through the incubation of the Apple II. The exchange of information, the access to esoteric technical hints, the swirling creative energy, and the chance to blow everybody's mind with a well-hacked design or program ... these were the incentives which only increased the intense desire Steve Wozniak already had: to build the kind of computer he wanted to play with. Computing was the boundary of his desires; he was not haunted by visions of riches and fame. ... So he worked on the Apple II, often until 4 A.M.

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When someone brought a computer to a Homebrew meeting that had video included, he knew that his computer would have to have video built in, too. He liked the idea of a computer you could play a videogame on. ... Wozniak was not thinking of building a computer to sell. He was building a computer to have fun with, to show his friends. He would mention what he was doing to his friend Steve Jobs at Atari, who was interested in terminals.

Tags: apple x | atari x | homebrew x | steve jobs x | wozniak x |

What it took other people two chips to do, Woz did in one. That was not only fiscally prudent, but a sort of technical machismo reminiscent of the code-bumming of TMRC days, when Samson, Saunders, and Kotok would attempt to whittle a subroutine down to the fewest instructions. Wozniak later explained why the board used so few chips: "I'm into it for esthetic purposes ... If [it's] considered a good job using six instructions, I try it in five or three, or two if I want to win [big]. ... The discoveries did increase my motivation because I would have something to show off and I hoped that other people would see them and say, 'Thank God, that's how I would want to do it,' and that's what I got from the Homebrew Club."

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Systems software was much more interesting. You didn't have to worry about mundane things like applications or payrolls. It was much more _real programming_ to me; you dealt more in the essence of what programming was about. The actual techniques of programming are ore important than the specifics of the job at a specific time.

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