My mom goes to dialysis 3-4 times a week, so she's stuck for 4 hours at a time with nothing to do but listen to audiobooks. I usually fill her phone w/ Obama books or Woodward, which she enjoys, but this time around I gave her Steven Levy's "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution."
I just got off a 45 min phone call w/ her discussing the 8-bit era, the origins of MS (boo, hiss!), how #JackTramiel was the only guy to out-negotiate/swindle Bill Gates, and more. Fun times.
@RL_Dane Sounds like a good book recommendation, I assume. Maybe I should have a look myself. 🙂
It's quite an old book now (1984), but a very enjoyable read.
I probably read it in 1996 or so ;)
@RL_Dane that looks interesting; I might give it a read. I liked Where Wizards Stay Up Late and The Cuckoo's Egg, so it seems like a reasonably good fit.
Also, did you see the PBS Nova special on it from 1990? It's called "The KGB, the Computer, and Me."
It's on youtube, but there's a better (480p) copy on archive.org :)
@khird
It might be a fun watch just for historical reasons at this point.
"Watching a guy run out of the shower dripping wet to hurriedly log into a UNIX machine with his modem on his Mac Plus to try to catch the KGB hacker" is about the most 1990 sentence I think I can utter. lol