As the computer revolution grew in a dizzying upward spiral of silicon, money, hype, and idealism, the Hacker Ethic became perhaps less pure, an inevitable result of its conflict with the values of the outside world. But its ideas spread throughout the culture each time some user flicked the machine on, and the screen came alive with words, thoughts, pictures, and sometimes elaborate worlds built out of air—those computer programs which could make any man (or woman) a god.
