hack

[Mullins, Bill]

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.
 
 
"Two expelled from dorms" _The Tech_ (MIT, Cambridge, MA) Vol 83, No. 12, May 1 1963, p. 1, col 3 and 4.
online at:  http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_083/TECH_V083_S0157_P001.pdf
 
"It was brought out in testimony that the four students involved had decided to retaliate to a hack perpetrated by a close friend, not an MIT student."  
 
and later in the article 
 
"At the trial, the five, including their friend, stressed that the hack was considered a "joke" by all concerned, and a harmless  one at that."
 
"Techman chosen for priority mission" _The Tech_ (MIT, Cambridge, MA) Vol 82, No. 11, Apr 25, 1962, p. 8, col  4.
online at:  http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_083/TECH_V083_S0157_P001.pdf
"I figured that if anyone was willing to buy a thirteen-dollar ticket just for a hack, then there just might be a man in a turquoise suit in  the Plaza lobby."
 
"Is Paul alive? - the morbid details" Dave deBronkart and John Jurewicz, _ The Tech_ (MIT, Cambridge, MA) Vol 89, No. 38, Oct 21, 1969, p. 5, col  1. http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_089/TECH_V089_S0385_P005.pdf
"For the last three years the Beatles have been pulling a monumentally bizarre hack on the world: they have repeatedly indicated that Paul McCartney has been dead since 1966."
 
 
_Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food_, Penn Jillett and Teller, Villard Books: New York, 1992. p. 110, from the chapter "Pixar's Listerine Hack"
"To computer people, scams, practical jokes, and most anything sneaky and clever are "hacks."  Our computer buddies congratulate us on our "Letterman hacks."  This book could be called "Penn & Teller's Food Hacks." "