The Soul of a New Machine
Tracy Kidder
 The book opens with a turf war between two computer design groups within Data General Corporation, a minicomputer vendor in the 1970s. Most of the senior designers are assigned the "sexy" job of designing the next generation machine, which will be done in North Carolina. Their project (code-named "Fountainhead") is to give Data General a machine to compete with the new VAX computer from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which is starting to take over the new 32-bit minicomputer market. The few senior designers who are left in corporate headquarters at Westborough, MA are given the much more humble job of designing enhancements for the existing product lines. Tom West, the leader of Westborough designers, starts a skunkworks project which becomes a backup plan in case Fountainhead fails. Eventually, the skunk works project (code-named "Eagle") becomes the company's only hope in catching up with DEC. In order to complete the project on-time, West takes risks in not only new technology but also relying on new college graduates (who have never designed anything so complex) to make up the bulk of his design team. The book follows many of the designers as they give up every waking moment of their lives in order to design and debug the new machine on schedule.