
Ask HN: What are more books like “Masters of Doom” or “Showstoppers”? - enitihas
I recently read &quot;Masters of Doom&quot; and found it to be far more motivating than any self help book. What books do you think are similar to it?
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ArtWomb
The usual recommendations are: "Racing the Beam", "Where Wizards Stay Up
Late", "The Idea Factory", "Soul of a New Machine", "The Tinkerings of Robert
Noyce"

All fine reads. But I just want to remark how singular "Masters of Doom" is.
It struck me just the other day. The entire id Software team was 18-19 years
old. And each individually possessed 4-5 years of (bare-metal) computer game
making experience by the time they joined!

I think about that a lot when I see high schoolers today crafting worlds so
easily in Unity ;)

~~~
m463
In my opinion, Masters of Doom (as an audiobook) went from good to exceptional
because of Will Weaton's narration.

~~~
efiecho
Entirely agree. I have been hearing this while running and I have never been
so motivated to get out and run, just so I could hear another chapter.

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guiambros
Computer history is one of my favorite topics, so I've read a lot over the
years. Here's my list:

>> Classic computer history:

\- " _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_ ", Steven Levy

\- " _The Innovators_ ", Walter Isaacson

\- " _Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley_ ", Adam
Fisher [innovative format, tons of interesting tidbits after you get used to
the style. Read only after the other two above]

\- " _The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story_ ", Michael Lewis

\- " _The Second Coming of Steve Jobs_ ", Alan Deutschman

\- " _Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was
Made_ ", Andy Hertzfeld

\- " _Masters of Doom_ ", David Kushner

\- " _Idea Man_ ", Paul Allen

\- " _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_ ", Katie Hafner

>> Entertaining stories, but less historical value:

\- " _Ghost in the Wires_ ", Kevin Mitnick

\- " _Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley_ ",
Antonio Garcia Martinez

\- " _Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and
Betrayal_ ", Nick Bilton

>> On my to-read queue:

\- " _How the Internet Happened_ ", Brian McCullough [just started; very
promising]

\- " _Troublemakers: Silicon Valley 's Coming of Age_", Leslie Berlin

\- " _Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of
WWII_ ", Liza Mundy

\- " _Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer_ ", Paul
Freiberger / Michael Swaine

>> Others worth mentioning (but just read a few chapters):

\- " _The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray_ ", Charles Murray [about Cray
Computers]

\- " _Racing the Beam_ " [about Atari]

\- " _Commodore: A Company on the Edge_ " [about Commodore]

>> Bonus:

\- " _Art of Atari_ ", Tim Lapetino [great as a coffee table book,
particularly if you grew up in the 80's :) ]

~~~
sien
Accidental Empires by Robert X Cringely is worth a read.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires)

~~~
warpspin
Accidental Empires is probably THE classic, absolutely worth a read.

I also enjoyed "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer
Age" by Michael Hiltzik and "Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows
NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary

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emmanueloga_
Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia journal [1]. I also have "Blood, sweat and
pixels" on my reading list [2].

1: [https://www.jordanmechner.com/store/the-making-of-prince-
of-...](https://www.jordanmechner.com/store/the-making-of-prince-of-persia/)

2: [https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-
and-...](https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-and-pixels/)

~~~
sunny--tech
I read both Blood, Sweat and Pixels and Masters of Doom over the holidays.
Definitely recommend BSP

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elteto
The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll is a great book... Hackers, Cold War intrigue,
the CIA, the KGB, actual shell scripts, it has it all!

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sakian
Is there an audiobook version of this book? I can't seem to find one.

~~~
elteto
I'm not aware of any, but I don't listen to many audiobooks. It seems like
audible doesn't have one, so there's probably not one out there.

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xrd
Edward Snowden's book is so good. It really described my life growing up with
computers and the advent of the Internet. I'm not sure it fits MoD or
showstoppers, but it certainly fits into the category of books listed here.

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smiljo
"Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy. I found this one
very motivating, covering MIT hacker heroes of old, early game developers, and
the Homebrew Computer Club.

~~~
quickthrowman
Seconding this recommendation, great book.

The Cuckoo’s Egg is not quite similar to Masters of Doom, Where Wizards Stay
Up Late, or Hackers, but it’s an extremely good book about tracking hackers
and Berkeley Unix (BSD). It’s motivating in a similar way though :)

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jhbadger
A rather obscure (but I think worthy) entry is Bob Pape's "It's Behind You".

Pape was a programmer who wrote games on the 1980s British 8-bit Sinclair
Spectrum computer and in this book he talks about his experiences both with
the gaming industry at the time and how to program on such a limited machine.
It's free on his website
([http://itsbehindyou.atwebpages.com/download.html](http://itsbehindyou.atwebpages.com/download.html))

~~~
petemc_
The Spectrum version of R-Type was legendary. This book is well worth a read.
Especially for the insights as to how badly young game devs were treated by
some of the companies back in the day.

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lubujackson
Game Over by David Sheff. An older book about the early days of Nintendo and
specifically focused on how Nintendo came to the U.S. with the N.E.S. Lots of
interesting anecdotes and well told. I am always surprised more people haven't
read this one!

~~~
Japhy_Ryder
Wow. I read that when I was like 16-18. I'll never forget the green cover with
Mario on it.

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efiecho
Great timing for this question, I just completed the audiobook and was also
looking for something similar.

Masters of Doom is probably the best book I have ever consumed. It was
extremely motivating, the description of everything made me wish I could go
back in time and be there so badly.

Think of having a goal you are so passionate about reaching, that you don't
care about food, baths or anything else, you just want to work on this 20
hours a day. Must have been amazing.

Myself, I definitely will have a look at the Wolfenstein 3D and Doom "Game
Engine Black Book" by Fabien Sanglard.

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jawnv6
"What the Dormouse Said" is a classic, highly recommended.

Much more niche is "Race for a New Game Machine," highlighting the IBM design
team responsible for the chips powering the Xbox 360 and PS3.

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m463
Some interesting (audio) books that sort of deal with the story and people
behind technology that I liked:

 _" King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart
Surgery"_ \- Medicine is a technology too, but how innovation happens there is
fascinating (and a little mind boggling)

 _" Schiit Happened"_ \- small hardware startup by a few guys (they make their
own headphone amps/dacs in the US)

 _" Elon Musk"_

 _" iWoz"_

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quack01
Really enjoyed "The Idea Factory". I'm currently reading "Sandworm" \- more
cybersecurity related, but it's really good so far.

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signal11
Does 'Showstoppers' refer to 'Show-Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create
Windows NT' by G. Pascal Zachary? I did enjoy that.

~~~
enitihas
Yes yes. I remember the book by the name Showstoppers only, as the word
somehow has got stuck in my brain.

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monocasa
I have a category on my bookshelf of semi humourous memoirs of engineering
projects.

The two classics are:

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, about the Manhattan project and other places
he ended up.

And Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine, about the engineering effort
behind the Data General Nova. This one literally has a Pulitzer.

I also enjoyed The Race for a New Game Machine, but not as much as the above
books.

~~~
m463
I second Surely You're Joking. There's a second Feynmann book - "What do you
care what other people think"

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riordan
Not gaming related but if you want to know the origins of where everything in
computation came from, George Dyson’s “Turing’s Cathedral” is a revelation.
It’s the story of computer, told by interviews of the folks who created the
architecture of it all. It’s incredible history

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sideb0ard
All good recs so far. Here's a few I haven't seen mentioned yet -

Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983 - Severo
Ornstein

Early British Computers - Simon Lavington

Geeks Bearing Gifts - Ted Nelson (and also Computer Lib/Dream Machines)

more recently - UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan

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booleandilemma
_Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One
Quest for Transcendent Software_

This book really captures what software development is like. Highly
recommended for non-tech folks who want to understand what programmers do all
day.

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bluedino
Not game-related, but "Almost Perfect", the story of WordPerfect the company.

[https://www.wordplace.com/ap/](https://www.wordplace.com/ap/)

As well as "The Perfect Store", the story of eBay

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kevin_morrill
"Stay Awhile and Listen" is a great book covering the founding story of
Blizzard North, creators of Diablo 1 & 2\. While not as great as Masters of
Doom, it reminded me quite a bit of it.

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CoffeePython
Flash Boys by Michael Lewis is tangentially related.

It has some programming related themes. Listened to it while I was working for
a FinTech client in the online trading industry.

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wensi
Not about the gaming/IT industry but "Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of
Nike" is another incredibly motivating founding story

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phillco
Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley is good and covers the years of phone
phreaking.

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showbufire
Stay awhile and listen. It's a book about Blizzard.

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CalChris
The Codebreakers, David Kahn.

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mrbonner
Dreaming in code!

