Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

LEVY, Steven [Marvin Minsky].

Item Number: 112477

New York: Anchor Press/ Doubelday, 1984.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original half cloth. Lengthily signed by the author on the half-title page, “In keeping with the hacker ethic, no artificial boundaries were maintained. Best Steven Levy.” Additionally signed by Marvin Minsky on the half-title page, whose influence weighs heavily in this volume. Minsky won the Turing Award (the greatest distinction in computer science) in 1969, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1982, the Japan Prize in 1990, the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence for 1991, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute for 2001. In 2006, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum “for co-founding the field of artificial intelligence, creating early neural networks and robots, and developing theories of human and machine cognition.” In 2011, Minsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems’ AI Hall of Fame for the “significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems.” In 2014, Minsky won the Dan David Prize for “Artificial Intelligence, the Digital Mind”. He was also awarded with the 2013 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information and Communication Technologies category. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by David Tamura. A unique example, rare and desirable signed by Minsky, the founder of AI.

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. 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.