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The San Francisco Chronicle
- November 4, 1993
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Nearly three years ago, a small group of talented engineers and programmers at apple Computer joined a secret project designed to take the company far beyond the boundaries of its bedrock Macintosh PC technology. They also decided to bring a writer and photographer for the ride. "Defying Gravity" is a written account and photo essay documenting the human side of an immense technological challenge. The product is the Newton, a hand-held pen-based computer straight out of the Dick Tracy comics. It's about the size of a thin videocassette and combines intelligent handwriting recognition and communications software with a powerful processor. Using Newton, you can jot down "Lunch with Lester on Tuesday," and the machine translates the note, pops it into your calendar and sends Lester a fax to confirm your appointment. At least in theory. You'd think that everyone at an iconoclastic company like Apple would be receptive to new ideas. Wrong. Author Markos Kounalakis says some executives had an intense paranoia about he mysterious Newton project, fearing it would kill the Macintosh and demolish their corporate fiefdoms. Kounalakis and photographer Doug Menuez use extraordinary access to the professional and personal lives of the engineering team s they try to summon the must to create Newton's body and soul. The programmers portrayed here are not a particularly healthy bunch, writing more than 750,000 lines of code between feasting on soda and pizza and playing ferocious basketball games. It's a tough task trying to capture the spirit of something as intrinsically mundane as computer programming, but Menuez deftly captures emotions ranging from frustration to ecstasy. Kounalakis sneaks in a couple of literary tricks to make us feel like the clock is ticking: page numbers run backward counting down lower and lower as the Newton deadline approaches. For a book that has the handcrafted feel and crisp design of an art book, "Defying Gravity" paints a gritty portrait of the birth of a computer product. Unfortunately, it's not gritty enough. Perhaps because the book was sanctioned by Apple, it doesn't fully show the psychological challenges of nurturing Newton. About he only way we know that it was physically ad emotionally draining are the many photos of people yawning and falling asleep. The closest we get to real internecine intrigue is when engineers start bickering over the depleting supply of Reese's peanut butter cups. The departure of early Newton advocate Jean-Louis Gassee and the suicide of a programmer deep into the project are summarized briefly and with little comment. Kounalakis and Menuez also leave the Newton saga on the precise day of its introduction in Boston. That's hardly fair. Newton shipped far earlier than it should have lacking the communications software designed to connect it to the wired world. There's no mention of that here. It also experienced problems with handwriting recognition and power supply that, when coupled with its early hype, let to lambastes of Newton everywhere, from electronic bulletin boards to the "Doonesbury" comic strip. But not a word of that here. Despite its shortcomings, "Defying Gravity" is an exciting peek behind the scenes at risk-tasking entrepreneurship -- and that's a rare commodity these days. James Daly writes for Computerworld | ||