hack

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Mullins, Bill wrote:

> hack -- a prank, particularly technically-oriented, or involved detailed
> planning (or at least appealing to MIT students)
>  This sense isn't in the OED or the HDAS.  As near as I can tell, it
> started as MIT slang.  I tend to think that the computing sense of
> "hack" evolved from it, but can't prove it.

There is no doubt in my mind that the computing senses of "hack" and
"hacker" derive from the MIT slang above.  I have previously posted a 1963
citation for "hacker" from the MIT student newspaper.

Fred Shapiro
MIT Class of 1974


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