

RIP: Tom West (Data General, "Soul of a New Machine") - joe_bleau
http://articles.boston.com/2011-05-22/bostonglobe/29571805_1_tracy-kidder-computer-engineer

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jcardente
I worked at DG during its last four years. I briefly encountered Mr. West a
couple of times. His aura was palpable in the hallways. He remains a legend
among DG alumni.

Around 1998, West started a new internet focused business unit called
THiiNLINE. One of the unit's products was an embedded Linux based wireless
router for the home. As a lucky beta-tester, I enjoyed wireless laptop access
to my dialup internet connection well before such devices became common. At
the time, THiiNLINE was considered a crazy venture. The past thirteen years
have proven that West's vision was on the right track.

I had the extreme good fortune of having a Microkid as my mentor for seven
years. I learned a ton from him and like to think that I picked up some of the
"The Soul of a New Machine" ethos. For that, I will always be thankful to Mr.
West and the Eagle group he created.

RIP, Mr. West.

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mindcrime
RIP, Mr. West. I read the Kidder book in high-school, and it was definitely a
factor that motivated me to get involved with computers and this industry.
Feeling a tinge of nostalgia, I went back and re-read it a few months ago...
and found that it stands the test of time well. It's a very interesting read,
even if the technology has moved on considerably since the Data General days.
And I still wish I'd had the chance to meet Tom West, but sadly, 'twas not to
be.

~~~
barkingcat
For me, that book will always mark the standard for technical journalism.
Compare the depth of research of the Kidder book to today's techcrunch, or any
of the dozens of books written about Google and you can see how far this
generation of journalists have yet to go.

~~~
michael_dorfman
This Wired article (from about 10 years ago) tells a bit about Tracy Kidder's
working methods (and quite a bit more about Tom West):

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/soul.html>

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bpeebles
In the Metafilter thread (actually on MetaTalk) thread about it, Jessamyn (his
daughter) posted a few links about Tim West:
<http://metatalk.metafilter.com/20664/RIP-Tom-West#889672>

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tokenadult
"'What he told them was that if you win at this level, then your reward is
that you get to play again at the next level, but guess what: The next level
is more difficult,' said Don McDougall of Palo Alto, Calif., a former vice
president of technical products at Data General."

That's great insight into how to motivate people to do their best.

I read the book The Soul of a New Machine many years ago, but already long
enough after it was published that the technology sounded a bit primitive. It
was a grippingly good read, a glimpse into how different personalities mesh to
solve a tough technical problem.

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gonzo
"Soul of a New Machine" was practically required reading when I was at Convex
(where Steve Wallach, interviewed for the article, went to be CTO post-DG.)

To say that the culture of Mostek and DG influenced Convex would be gross
understatement.

I learned a lot at my first "real job" in the industry. I've never found
anyplace as "good" to work since. (Nor am I alone in expressing this.)

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michael_dorfman
I posted this a few days ago, but it sunk like a stone. I'm glad to see it
getting the attention here it deserves.

I met Tom a number of times-- I'm friends with his daughter-- and he was a
hell of a guy. I'm glad the obit mentioned a few of his non-IT related
adventures...

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kylemaxwell
Sorry to hear this. I read this book as a kid and it has had a pronounced
influence on my life and career. Never had a chance to work on any of the
systems, but the ideas and excitement around the technical guts of the system
inspired me.

/me raises a glass in toast.

------
sanj
Tom West captured the essence of what motivates me to work, and what I find
motivates most of the incredible people I've had the opportunity to work with:

 _An engineer's essential desire, after all, is to design and build a machine
and see it through to completion, but completion itself is therefore not the
ultimate reward. In the Eagle days, West called this paradox "pinball." In
pinball, he reasoned, the prize for winning is getting to play again. The
story of the Eagle engineers since Soul is one of a career-length version of
pinball._

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jamesbritt
This was posted earlier: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573716>

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mikecane
One of those books I never got around to reading. So I went to check Amazon.
And it's still not available as an eBook! What a travesty.

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logjam
From "Soul":

 _There’s no such thing as a perfect design. Most experienced computer
engineers I talked to agreed that absorbing this simple lesson constitutes the
first step in learning how to get machines out the door. Often, they said, it
is the most talented engineers who have the hardest time learning when to stop
striving for perfection. West was the voice from the cave, supplying that
information: “Ok. It’s right. Ship it.”_

 _He would bind his team with mutual trust, he had decided. When a person
signed up to do a job for him, he would in turn trust that person to
accomplish it; he wouldn’t break it down into little pieces and make the task
small, easy and dull._

 _With Tom, it’s the last two percent that counts. What I now call ‘the
ability to ship product’ — to get it out the door._

------
shareme
Damn,

I had the opportunity to use some Data General Machines in the 1980s..fine
machines, reliable, etc...

I am the only older one here that remembers using the machines?

~~~
kabdib
I used an MV/8000 ("Eagle") when I was writing video game cartridges for
Atari. I never really programmed it -- maybe a little scripting in their shell
-- but just used it for cross-development to some home computers. The system
rarely crashed.

I was used to 4.2 bsd, but the DG was still a nice system. It got bogged down
during the day with 40-50 users running an awful little email and office
automation app, but it was fine at night (just like the mainframe at my
university).

The shell struck me as a cross between VAX/VMS and Unix. The file system was
pretty decent. The screen editor that DG provided worked well, and though I
missed Emacs, it was adequate for writing largish programs. (There was a DG
equivalent of TECO that I tried to learn, but it was about as opaque and terse
("badly designed") as the original TECO and I just gave it up after a while).

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it worked.

~~~
cafard
The equivalent of TECO was "speed", no? I actually used it in an elaborate CLI
macro ("cockamamie" may be juster than "elaborate" here) because I had no
better way to do what I needed.

