‘The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

‘The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

An underlying message

There is I believe a single quote from this book that encapsulates almost entirely its underlying message:

"No one ever pats anyone on the back around here. If de Castro ever patted me on the back, I'd probably quit"

Herein lies the soul, not a soul of silicon or of steel yet no less tangible. It is human soul that manifests itself through the endeavors of a team of computer designers working at the frontiers of human knowledge and engineering.

A vision of high-tech America

Celebrated for its insight into the world of corporate, high-technology America, the book earned the author a Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1982. But this book holds far more for its reader, so much more than a mere insight, superficial, into the world of high-tech. Its pages are full of an insight that goes far deeper than that. I would venture that most of its insights are not about corporations, nor business, nor high-tech, but about people.

On the surface it gives the reader a factual and extremely detailed account of a team of engineers who between them create a new mini-computer (those machines you more often than not find in businesses and which have now in the most part been surpassed in power by the now ubiquitous desktop PC), a machine, advanced for its day (the story begins back in the late 1970's), but in many ways just another machine that, set against the developments in computing technology that have taken place since then, pales into insignificance performance-wise.

Interwoven throughout its pages are extremely accessible descriptions of the technology that these early machines encompassed, the tangible hardware comprising: the CPU (Cen...

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...ragile bonds that tie the team together as a single unit.

After the race is won

Success eventually comes. There is that ‘coming down' process that often accompanies the ending of a project. From where now will come that goal that can motivate? From where that overarching visionary aim that will drive individuals forward, working beyond their known capacities in order to excel. No matter, something has been learned, something greater than all of them. Kidder try's to define those indefinable's, some may even say spiritual, lessons that are often assimilated when one takes part in a process that demands of us total commitment and dedication that goes beyond personal gain, no matter how high we may perceive our own individual level of importance to be.

‘The Soul of a New Machine' by Tracy Kidder

1981. New York: Avon Publishing