anyone read dealers of lightning?

[Jim Battle]

Evan Koblentz wrote:
>> If you enjoy reading it, also read Soul of a new Machine, its about 
>> the creation of Data General and I think that was an even better read.
> I disagree.  Nobody would have bought Soul if it was titled, "How Data 
> General designed its latest computer."  I found it very dull, whereas 
> Dealers tells a story of a whole new era in computing.

I read it shortly after it came out and I thought it was a great read. 
A few years later, in 1986, I was working for Calera Recognition 
Systems, which at the time was called Palentir.  Two or three months 
after joining, someone told me that the guy in the office next to my 
cube, Carl Alsing, was one of the people in Soul of A New Machine (Carl 
was the leader of the microkids, who wrote the microcode).  I read the 
book again.

The thing that impressed me about Tracy Kidder's writing was that in the 
part where Carl was described, Kidder captured aspects of Carl's 
personality in a paragraph or two that I recognized as being spot on. 
It gave the rest of the book that much more credibility.

As was mention, the book wasn't so much about the DG business, but I'd 
disagree and say it wasn't so much about the engineering either; very 
little actually.  It was mostly about the dynamics of the to bring the 
machine to life, both the internal politics of this skunk-works project 
and the inherent dynamics of the teams of mostly inexperienced engineers 
trying to accomplish something way beyond what they should have been 
able to do.  If it had been a book about the actual engineering, very 
few people would have read it.