Steve Lohr - Go to: the story of the math majors, bridge players, engineers, chess wizards, maverick scientists, and iconoclasts, the programmers who created the software revolution

A seed for this book was planted when Jim Gray passed through New York in the spring of 1999 on his way to pick up his Turing Award, an accolade that has been called the Nobel prize of computer science. A California native, Gray was educated at Berkeley in the 1960s and has worked nearly all his life in Silicon Valley. Gray is a veteran of many a business cycle in the Valley, and he shook his head with bemused disdain at the Internet investment mania of the time all elevator pitches and IPOs. People seemed to be a lot more excited about money than about technology a world askew, by Grays standards.

Sure, he said, people with skills make a good living in the field. But its not about money, Gray observed. The joy and the real appeal is to be able to play and build things with this cool technology of software.

I thought it might be fun to take a deeper look at the history of computer programming, and talk to the architects and builders of the software world that we increasingly live in. An added benefit was that because computing has moved so rapidly and is such a comparatively recent field most of the pioneers of programming are still alive.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Some others thought it might be an intriguing project as well,and they deserve my thanks. Without the encouragement of the agents at Brockman Inc. John Brockman and Katinka Matson I would not have gotten started in the first place. Basic Books made a commitment, and Elizabeth Maguire, the editorial director of Basic, and William Morrison were deft and thoughtful editors. TheNew York Times, and especially the executive editor, Joseph Lelyveld, generously gave me a leave of absence an absence that lasted longer than advertised.

Tom Goldstein, the dean of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, kindly offered me a place to work from while I was away from the Times.

I am most grateful to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Doron Weber, director of the foundations program for the public understanding of science and technology, for a grant to help me complete the book.

I want to thank the professional and educational organizations that helped me in my research. The Association for Computing Machinery gave me access to its digital library, which was invaluable. The Charles Babbage Institutes oral history project was another important resource. The videotaped lectures sponsored by the Computer Museum History Center were also extremely useful.

I am especially thankful to the people who extended their time, patience, and wisdom in interviews. These people suffered all manner of inquisition and harassment in lengthy interviews in person sometimes repeatedly and by phone and e-mail. Some even reviewed portions of the manuscript. They include:Alex Aiken, Fran Allen, Dennis Allison, Marc Andreessen, John Backus, Jean Bartik, Brian Behlendorf, Robert Bemer,Tim Berners-Lee, Dan Bricklin, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., Tom Button, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Peter Capek, Steve Capps, Don Chamberlin, Alan Cooper, George Coulouris, Richard Dawkins, Doug Engelbart, Bob Frankston, John Gage, Bill Gates, Richard Goldberg, James Gosling, Jim Gray, Satish Gupta, Lois Haibt, Andy Hertzfeld, Anders Hejlsberg,Tony Hoare, and Watts Humphrey.

They also include Bill Joy, Philippe Kahn, Howard Katz, Alan Kay, Ken Kennedy, Brian Kernighan, Don Knuth, Thomas Kurtz, J. A. N. Lee, Butler Lampson, John McCarthy, Pamela McCorduck, Dan McCracken, Douglas McIlroy, Roger Needham, John H. Palmer, Raj Reddy, Dennis Ritchie, Jean Sammet, David Sayre, Eric Schmidt, Carl Shapiro, Fred Shapiro, Mike Sheridan, John Shoch, Charles Simonyi, Richard Stallman, Guy Steele, Bjarne Stroustrup, Randy Terbush, Charles Thacker, Ken Thompson, Linus Torvalds, Joseph Traub, Guy Tribble, Arthur Van Hoff, Maurice Wilkes, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Richard Saul Wurman, and Irving Ziller.