Hello! I've read the book several times since it came out. I've met the machine in the museum that inspired it. I've even done phototypesetting composition on its relatives, the regular Eclipse families, and the conventional Nova 3 and Nova 4 machines. I am saddened by this news, as we are all of course. However in the museum the machine is in there with its non-physical head in its non-physical hands and saying, "I can't believe he's gone." ---- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Sun, Apr 5, 2026 at 4:41 PM bernieS via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Some list members surely remember--and may have been profoundly influenced by--reading "The Soul of a New Machine" (1981) by Tracy Kidder. It influenced me. Tracy died this past week at 80. His book won the 1982 National Book Award for Nonfiction and a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and was about two competing Data General 32-bit minicomputer design groups in the 1970's developing machines to challenge DEC's VAX minicomputers. It's an enthralling read. If you're not going to read the book, at least read the Wikipedia entry for it (below.)
https://apnews.com/article/tracy-kidder-death-writer-soul-new-machine-fc0f1d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
-bernieS