Reddit mentions of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - 25th Anniversary Edition

For anyone interested in the early days of home-brew computing, I highly recommend Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.

The following books:

• Hackers by Steven Levy
  
  
• Masters of Doom by David Kushner
  
  
• A history of the Amiga - a series of articles by Ars Technica which are great.
  
  
  Films/documentaries:
  
  
• Tetris: From Russia With Love - About the creation of Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov and the whole market explosion that came after. It's pretty nice.
  
  
• Pirates of Silicon Valley is the best film made to date about Microsoft and Apple.
  
  
• Silicon Valley - New show about the start-up scene. Just finished its first season.
  
  
  If I remember something else I'll edit the comment :)

Actually, hacker means someone who actively likes to design, dig into and understand systems. Which describes hackathon participants (at least the engaged ones).

What you're thinking of is a cracker. Steven Levy's book gives a good description of the difference (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003PDMKIY).

Regardless, your opinion is a little flawed. The reason that most people don't get into technology is because it's considered "difficult". Tools that make understanding simpler, like frameworks, low-cost computers (Raspberry Pi), etc allow those same people to shed any fear they might have. No one should use these tools in enterprise environments. They're primarily for prototyping. It's up to leadership to decide when prototyping ends and production begins.

As for hackathons, I'm sorry PayPal didn't vet their candidates ahead of time. Most companies (like mine) do. A .5% "impressive" rate is actually pretty good. We use hackathons not for the outputted code, but the ideas. We take what's valuable and build an enterprise solution that uses it.

You're not reading the right books. Very few people need to know about buses and registers. Try reading some books about computers that are written for a general audience by journalists. Some examples:

• The Soul of a New Machine
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
  
• Dreaming in Code
  
• The Phoenix Project (this one's fiction)
  
  Hopefully they'll keep you engaged and you'll learn things in the process.

Not sure if you are into security tech but some of my favorites....

• The Cucco's Egg by Cliff Stoll
  
• Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen
  
• Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick
  
• Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter
  
• Zero Day by Mark Russinovich
  
  
  Also thought I'd include some that I have purchased but not finished yet in case you'd be interested.
  
  
• Where the Wizards Stay up Late by Katie Hafner
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
  
• Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet by Joseph Menn

I'm not aware of any books that just like this, but here are some recommendations:

• The Soul of a New Machine - The company is gone. The machine forgotten. What remains, 30 years later, is the story of building and debugging a 32 bit computer. Spends time on hardware and software development and has some excellent descriptions of how the computer works.
  
• Where the Wizards Stay Up Late - This is about the people who put the Internet together. Goes into the work that was needed to build the inital networks.
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - A lovely history of hackers, in the inital sense of the term. People that were enthralled by computers and wanted to do interesting things with them. Starts off with the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club and moves foward from there.

Might I also recommend [Steven Levy's Hackers] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PDMKIY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) and [David Lundstrom's A Few Good Men From UNIVAC] (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/few-good-men-univac&ved=0ahUKEwjpqoDaxM7VAhUCxWMKHTOPBlwQFghnMBE&usg=AFQjCNGc3A5I8kCL4nccBXVEGf8tBqEy1A).

Both very good reads. I have plenty others ([Cliff Stoll's Cukoo's Egg] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083DJXCM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) is an annual read the me).