Kindle Price: $12.99

Save $13.00 (50%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

eBook features:
  • Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
  • In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition
Read with our free app
Rent
$6.29

Today through selected date:

Rental price is determined by end date.

Sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
eBook features:
  • Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
  • In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

Steven Levy
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - 25th Anniversary Edition 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Steven Levy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 741 ratings
See all formats and editions

This 25th anniversary edition of Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers -- those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.

Levy profiles the imaginative brainiacs who found clever and unorthodox solutions to computer engineering problems. They had a shared sense of values, known as "the hacker ethic," that still thrives today. Hackers captures a seminal period in recent history when underground activities blazed a trail for today's digital world, from MIT students finagling access to clunky computer-card machines to the DIY culture that spawned the Altair and the Apple II.

Previous page
  1. ISBN-13
    978-1449388393
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    O'Reilly Media
  5. Publication date
    May 19, 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    1702 KB
  8. See all details
Next page
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card

From the brand

Previous page
  2. Learning Java: An Introduction to Real-World Programming with Java
    Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniqu...
    Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures
    Essential Math for Data Science: Take Control of Your Data with Fundamental Linear Algebra, Proba...

    Your partner in learning

    Visit the Store

  3. Oreilly

    Sharing the knowledge of experts

    O'Reilly's mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 40 years, we've inspired companies and individuals to do new things (and do them better) by providing the skills and understanding that are necessary for success.

    Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help them do just that.

Next page

From the Publisher

Hacker Culture A to Z: A Fun Guide to the Fundamentals of Cybersecurity and Hacking Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
Hacker Culture A to Z Hackers Hackers & Painters
Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
1
4.5 out of 5 stars
741
4.5 out of 5 stars
722
Price $20.03 $15.81 $15.49
From O'Reilly Media A Fun Guide to the Fundamentals of Cybersecurity and Hacking Heroes of the Computer Revolution Big Ideas from the Computer Age

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Steven Levy's classic book explains why the misuse of the word "hackers" to describe computer criminals does a terrible disservice to many important shapers of the digital revolution. Levy follows members of an MIT model railroad club--a group of brilliant budding electrical engineers and computer innovators--from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. These eccentric characters used the term "hack" to describe a clever way of improving the electronic system that ran their massive railroad. And as they started designing clever ways to improve computer systems, "hack" moved over with them. These maverick characters were often fanatics who did not always restrict themselves to the letter of the law and who devoted themselves to what became known as "The Hacker Ethic." The book traces the history of hackers, from finagling access to clunky computer-card-punching machines to uncovering the inner secrets of what would become the Internet. This story of brilliant, eccentric, flawed, and often funny people devoted to their dream of a better world will appeal to a wide audience.

Review

"A remarkable collection of characters . . . courageously exploring mindspace, an inner world where nobody had ever been before." -- The New York Times

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003PDMKIY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (May 19, 2010)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 19, 2010
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1702 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 430 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 741 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Steven Levy

Steven Levy

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Levy is editor at large at Wired. Previous positions include editor in chief at Backchannel; and chief technology writer and a senior editor for Newsweek. In early 2020, his book "Facebook: The Inside Story" will appear, the product of over three years studying the company, which granted unprecedented access to its employees and executives. Levy has written previous seven books and has had articles published in Harper's, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Premiere, and Rolling Stone. Steven has won several awards during his 30+ years of writing about technology, including Hackers, which PC Magazine named the best Sci-Tech book written in the last twenty years and, Crypto, which won the grand eBook prize at the 2001 Frankfurt Book festival. "In the Plex," the definitive book on Google, was named the Best Business Book of 2011 on both Amazon and Audible.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
741 global ratings
Canonical history of hackers and their loosing lexicon of kludge
5 Stars
Canonical history of hackers and their loosing lexicon of kludge
If you ever use the word kludge or talk about a hack then this book is REQUIRED READING (unless you were or are involved with electric train sets at MIT -- then please forgive my loosing review that you should have written).* MIT at night*.* Joke of the day:* Apple Modem shipped with extra phreaky features from Captain Crunch.* Homebrew** Zorky game developers break out rich and sit in hot tubs.This book tells a history that is already being rewritten and forgotten.*hackers
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

gene
5.0 out of 5 stars Focus on the people
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2024
Verified Purchase
Great history of early computing
Helpful
 Report
Brian
5.0 out of 5 stars A must for computer enthusiasts and Computer Science Majors.
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2017
Verified Purchase
I was recommended this book by a colleague. I love it too. It is about the initial stages of the computer revolution, yet reads more like a collection of entertaining short stories. It is far from a dry read. Included in the front are short descriptions about people and devices mentioned or interviewed. If you're a software developer this actually explains why IDEs mark errors with red. If you're a gamer, you'll learn about the first video game. (It wasn't Pong). I haven't red the entire thing yet, but it's still a good read. External links give you further details and some are entertaining. The book may be titled hackers, but there isn't anything illegal or even ill-intented. It was about the pursuit for knowledge and efficiency. This is a must for serious software engineers and computer science. If for nothing else then leisurely reading. There is a fair amount of discussion of assembly language, which is seldom covered in even college classes, usually one class for a single assignment or chapter. Not much is explained in detail so the education level to understand the book completely is fairly high. There are a bunch of inside jokes, but I do think that an average college student could understand 90-95% of the book.
11 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Eugene N. Miya
4.0 out of 5 stars Well, not quite heros in my book, but good friends
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2011
Verified Purchase
Steven's book has become a social phenomena in its own right. One moment, I am reading this book in the 80s and the next I am on a porch having a nice quiet conservation with Rick Greenblatt ("An honor to meet you"). Following that I'm on the Steering Committee for the Conference started by Stewart Brand. Stewart deserves a lot of credit, but Steven (whom I've met but don't know quite as well, since I am into high end computing not microcomputing but with some experience on Xerox workstations {life changing}). I shared an office with Jack Dennis the year prior while Jack was on sabbatical in California (we were both tea drinkers in a sea of coffee drinkers). I had not realized that he was into model trains. So I give copies of this book to East Coast friends trying to understand Santa Clara Valley. So I have lived a lot of the periphery of this book.

The new edition has more chapter divisions from the first edition's three sections. Annually for the past 25+ years, several hundred geeks gather to continue the ideas in this book. The book has changed the world in subtle not well documented attempts: Cloud 9, Interval Research, Foo Camp, etc. The general non-computing public will never hear of these. Thousands of others in some know will lust for invitations to be "flies on the wall."

Important things Steven got right missed by others: while the Apollo 17 story is all well and good, Steven picked up on the contrast between Northern and Southern California. Why did Lee's Homebrew Computer Club "succeed" while the Southern California Computer Society (SCCS) fail? This was an important lesson (I grew up in So Cal and attended the anniversary of the founding of Homebrew (HCC). More engineers up North and fewer better marketeers up North. It's a lesson from aerospace bureaucracy. Even Markoff's  What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry  book (good in it's own right) missed the chance to elaborate on this. This is missed by every analysis of Silicon Valley. It's even missing on wikipedia. A lot of water has passed under the bridge and this edition has 2 additional afterwards by Steven. Brand also had a short documentary (30 min) made PBS.

Steven did miss 1..2 important points. Markoff has slightly more of the experimental drug culture. The one big subtopic local to the SF Bay area which was raised by the Conference of our same name are the small but significant percentage (typically cited at about 10% as a handle) of gay and Lesbian attendees working in the computer industry. They find political/jock-ular attempts to move the computer industry else where laughable for this reason (they would want me to note this). The culture of the MIT student selection process is also left out. Honor systems had a greater influence because of this.

Steven is not a programmer. He's a journalist. He's got colleagues whom other former roommates of mine married. He did not expect this story to have the legs it has. He gets things mostly right, so read some of the other books besides his and John:  Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer (Second Edition) , Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date , Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet , Nerds 2.0.1 , The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal , Triumph of the Nerds , Triumph of the Nerds , and likely many, many other books and dissertations.

They are likely all flawed in some way or another. Bob Taylor thinks Mitch Waldthrop got history right in The Dream Machine. Some people equate Hackers (the book) to Kidder's  The Soul of A New Machine . Kidder has 2..3 good points, but Data General and the MV/8000 are gone. Levy's book is head and shoulders Kidder's book.

I would hate to see some Intro to computing class force students to read this book. It's not for every one, it's flawed, it's geeky. But Levy's book contains little gems that many people outside computing will never understand about hacker culture.
10 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Gabriel
5.0 out of 5 stars If you like computers, this book will tell you where they came from. A fun read!
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2016
Verified Purchase
Ok, I admit, I'm old. I actually remember most of the things talked about in this history of the computer age's genesis. Got my first home computer in 1982, a Timex Sinclair ZX81. 8K of ram and no keyboard, just a flat panel like on microwaves. Try typing in programming code on that! hah! Moved "up" to an Atari 800XL, which I hated and then to a Commodore 64, which I expected to hate, but loved. After that I reluctantly moved to a PC clone, although I wanted a $3600 Macintosh. Just couldn't afford it. At that point I got my first job as a self taught computer tech, in 1988. And I am still doing the same work now, although it's just about time to retire. So I've seen a lot over the years The rise of Microsoft, the surprising success of Apple, the fall of CP/M and about 50 different computer languages, such as Logo, Lisp, Fortran and Cobol. I saw the first computer expos, long before there was CES. People wandering around big halls, buying stacks of floppies and glossy computer mags. I played the games from Sierra (before it was Sierra Online) and Electronic Arts, (before it was "EA") and I was there when AOL became a monster app and spanked CompuServe. I had a BBS in 1990 that was one of the first to offer Internet email access. But it was all text as the WWW hadn't been invented yet! All these milestones and much more is covered in this book and I found it fascinating, even though I was never "in the In Crowd" where the Home Brew Computer Club was located. A really well done and informative look at how we got from $500 TI calculators to smart watches more powerful than the computers that put a man on the moon. Wowsers.
11 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
gc
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2023
Verified Purchase
Very detailed story of hackers and haking
Helpful
 Report
dachelpo
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read, Well Written.
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2016
Verified Purchase
In watching, The New Screen Savers, a video broadcast by the TWIT Leo LaPorte network, I heard that multiple on-line personalities had not just one copy but multiple copies of this book (new editions with added appendices updated where the 'heroes' are today in their careers and life). Although I believe it is now in its 25 year of publication, it was a great read. It is as much a philosophy of a 'way of life' and how the nerds of the world have had a tremendous impact on technology and how their 'hacking philosophy has in most cases led to an ethical and rewarding life (even if they choose to not sell their software). I well probably buy additional copies to share with one of my sons who is a mechanical and civil engineer and a nerd. It will be on optimistic read for him!

By the way, I am a retire school band teacher, h.s. principal, and superintendent. I enjoyed it both as a nerd and as a former public organization CEO. Highly recommend. Levy did a great job researching and writing as well as updating recent editions! Thanks Steven!
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
Jorge Aguiar
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente livro
Reviewed in Brazil on April 4, 2023
Verified Purchase
Muito detalhado. Apresenta histórias do início da computação muito bem contextualizadas. Recomendo.
Report
ivigo business space
5.0 out of 5 stars un clásico imprescindible!!
Reviewed in Spain on September 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
Un clásico imprescindible actualizado en su 25 aniversario.
Es necesario para comprender el origen de la transformación digital del mundo.
Report
Sachin Tumbre
1.0 out of 5 stars Feels like reading a fantacy novel. Skip this one...
Reviewed in India on July 26, 2019
Verified Purchase
This book is about techies .
Author has made it like a novel by adding too much poetic phrases.
I read “iWoz”in three days straight. This one i dont think i ll be able to finish.
Report
Francois
5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best book on the early days of the computer revolution ...
Reviewed in Canada on December 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
Probably the best book on the early days of the computer revolution from the late 50's to the early 80's.
I have read many essay and books on this topic and this is one of the most complete account.

While not an easy read if you are not a Tech oriented person it is well writen and gives a clear high level overview of the most significants milestones. From the software hacker laboring on huge mainframe and mini (in the 60's and 70's) to the hobbyist building the first peronnal PC in the 80's.

For me it was the best read since "The soul of a new machine" has open my mind to computing in the early 80's
Report
Adam
3.0 out of 5 stars Good but too short
Reviewed in Australia on April 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
Very enjoyable little book to read. But it stops just as it feels like it should be getting started! Guess I will need to find more books on computer history elsewhere.

Kindle edition has some serious formatting issues.
Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report