Soul of a New Machine »

Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. The author of The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, and Home Town, Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

First published in the 1980s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning story of 30 whiz kids at Data General and their herculean efforts to create a groundbreaking supercomputer still holds tremendous pertinence in today's e-dominated society.

The New York Times - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

All of Mr. Kidder's hopes for his book have been fulfilled. It does give us a vivid picture of the computer business. . . . But I have to emphasize that what I admired most about such parts of The Soul of a New Machine was the simply but gratifying fact that I understood them.

Introduction to the Modern Library Edition
Prologue A: Good Man in a Storm
Chapter 1: How to Make a Lot of Money
Chapter 2: The Wars
Chapter 3: Building a Team
Chapter 4: Wallach's Golden Moment
Chapter 5: Midnight Programmer
Chapter 6: Flying Upside Down
Chapter 7: La Machine
Chapter 8: The Wonderful Micromachines
Chapter 9: A Workshop
Chapter 10: The Case of the Missing NAND Gate
Chapter 11: Shorter Than a Season
Chapter 12: Pinball
Chapter 13: Going to the Fair
Chapter 14: The Last Crunch
Chapter 15: Canards
Chapter 16: Dinosaurs
Epilogue
Acknowledgments