As someone else commented, paraphrased: "This should be required reading for any computer architecture course."

A fascinating insight into the work it took to launch an entirely new computer back in the days of hand-soldering and oscilloscopes, as well as a pseudo-biography of the strange and charismatic leader of this particular team, Tom West.

The soul turns out to be unpaid overtime

A fine story sprinkled lightly with insight. I have no idea what the thesis would be other than nerds like building things and will maintain unhealthy work/life balance to do so if properly encouraged.

I will put in a placeholder review for this amazing book for now. I wish I read this book when I was in college (2013), instead, I was learning about 8085 microcontroller which was also developed in 1981! Think of reading about an outdated chip in a dry format when I could have been reading about how computers are made. As a software engineer, I have taken it for granted the very machine which runs my code. Always power-hungry, I shift from a 16gb machine to 32gb machine without giving a second thought.

This book tells a story about the development of a "secret" machine developed in the span of one and half years. Built by a team comprising mostly of college graduates, along with some industry veterans, you will learn about the tradeoffs and some ingenious ideas employed to release the machine in such a short duration. The author explains technical terms in such a way that no previous hardware knowledge is required. Recommended for engineers of any domain (especially hardware/software)

Must read if you have anything to do with computer industry. You could see patterns that keeps repeating.

Excellent read. It is the late 70s and DEC already has a new 32 bit mini computer out in the market. Data General is in a race against time to develop one of their own. What follows is an intriguing tale of how a small group of twenty somethings are assembled and made to work on a novel machine, in an incredibly short time frame.

One of the recurring themes in the book is, how these young engineers, despite working insane 60-80 hour weeks, found a lot of meaning in their work. Not everything is about money and stock options. It also made me the appreciate the enormous impact a strong and inspiring manager could have on his/her team.

This was a great read. Very relatable. Has aged really well. Captures the true essence of what goes into engineering a high tech product - stakes, challenges, rewards, politics, heroic efforts, the often unnoticed behind the scenes work .. Some wonderful characters as well..

It is hard to believe that this was written 40 years ago.. before PCs

Highly recommended.

Brilliant!

This was a fantastic read. Tracy Kidder captures a period in computing history that I'd only ever vaguely heard about. The race to build (or in this case retrofit) the first 32-bit microcomputers!
This a fundamentally human exploration of how to inspire and lead people to tilt at windmills. You see how technical credibility is earned, and how teams come to inhabit a realm of their own as they approach launch.
Lots of crazy debugging stories, some fantastic character sketches make a book that is well worth your time.

Simply not for me

The Soul of A New Machine is an engineers soap opera following a rag-tag team of neophytes driven by their own Captain Ahab to build a revolutionary 32-bit computer for the now-defunct Data General in the late 1970s. Tracey Kiddler, the author, was given a rare opportunity as a journalist to follow the team's progress from within and his story shows an insiders knowledge. He breaks down the complex technical nature of the task through a series of straightforward analogies and by doing so enables us to follow the human struggle of these mistreated engineers, who, driven by manipulation and pride work mad hours with little benefit to themselves to breathe life into a machine of their very own. But we are not made to feel bad for the men who sacrifice 2 years of their lives to this white-whale. Instead we come to realize the insane genius and compassion of their caption, Tom West, who has sheltered them from the menacing bureaucracy that surrounds them and given them a sense of purpose and ownership, an opportunity not often bestowed on fresh out of school college grads. Together they band together, go to war, and ultimately emerge bloody, beat-up, and victorious.

Important Lessons:
t1. Important projects are easy to recruit for.
t2. Work runs on peer pressure.
t3. Everyone wants to feel an ownership of their project.

I read this book when I was starting grad school. It is an extraordinary story of an innovative team that developed a new 16 bit minicomputer at Data General, who was in competition with DEC and IBM at the time. The story is especially good for its examination of an innovative work team and is just as relevant today as it was then. The only problem, however, is that it is focused on companies that are no longer as relevant in the computer business (DEC and Data General) and on a product that has likely been surpassed in computer power by most smart phones. Top of the line laptops these days are 64 bit machines whose owners have to worry about how efficiently their computers run programs for 32 bit machines. 16 bit machines are museum pieces. The technology has moved on. The human story is still relevant, although Apple is a much sexier story for a firm these days.

History of the build of a new computer - does a good job getting underneath what drives nerds, overwork/burnout, etc...

"Transistors are superior. They are solid. They have no cogs and wheels, no separate pieces to be soldered together; it is as if they are stones performing useful work.

"it seemed to me that computers have been used in ways that are salutary, in ways that are dangerous, banal and cruel, and in ways that seem harmless if a little silly. But what fun making them can be!"

“That’s the bear trap, the greatest vice. Your job. You can justify just about any behavior with it. Maybe that’s why you do it, so you don’t have to deal with all those other problems.”