In the early eighties, Apple II aficionado Steven Levy wrote a history of the early personalities involved in computers. Most of them considered themselves at one time Hackers, that is living by the Hacker Ethic. Roughly speaking, this regards access to computers and information as paramount, judging all by their skills and talents with computers - not their salaries or station in life.

I read this history in the summer after high school, having had a taste of TRS-80 and timeshare computers at school, plus a TI-99 at home. In these pages I found a creed that I could thrive on. This re-read some 30 years later shows me some of the cracks in the foundation - the journalism and editing could have been a smidge better. The lens focuses on Apple, with Commodore, PC and TRS-80 getting only a few mentions. That said, I am still amazed by the breadth of personalities the author picked up on - definitely the majority of the American scene.

This review is of the 25th anniversary edition, and the 2010 end notes do very little for the story. The trade paper format is beautiful and durable, which is good because I am likely to loan this book to friends like I did the first one. A solid 4.5 stars.