Pulitzer Prize General Non Fiction Winner
The Soul of a New Machine
by Tracy Kidder
Summary
A closely observed narrative of a small team of engineers at Data General as they design and build a new 32 bit minicomputer under crushing deadlines and corporate pressure. Kidder embeds with the project for months, capturing the technical ingenuity, exhausted obsession, and fragile camaraderie behind a piece of hardware most users would never see. The book opened a new vein of longform journalism about technology and the people who make it.
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Historical Context & Significance
A landmark in tech journalism, it captures the intense, obsessive culture of the early computer industry before the rise of the personal PC.