''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.
The book, whose author was described by the ''New York Times'' as having "elevated it to a high level of narrative art"
is "about real people working on a real computer for a real company,"
and it won the 1982
National Book Award for Nonfiction["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. and a
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
Plot
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
North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
. Their project, code-named "Fountainhead", is to give Data General a machine to compete with the
VAX computer from
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...
(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.
[
]
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.
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."[ – 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.]["part of you is in that machine."]
References
Further reading
* Twenty-year retrospective of the book, wit
"where are they now?"
segments on the people involved and on Data General.
* Case study of the Eagle project from a project management
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. T ...
perspective, written for a course given by Al Shenhar at the University of Minnesota.
External links
*
''The Soul of a New Machine'' course materials
Clemson University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soul of a New Machine, The
1981 non-fiction books
Books about computer and internet companies
Data General
Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction-winning works
National Book Award for Nonfiction winning works
Little, Brown and Company books