hacker (antedating Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT - TMRC Dictionary 1959) (Should be checked in original document)

Wed Jul 28 22:06:29 UTC 2010

Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> Just for the record, I have photocopies of the 1959 and 1960
> editions of the TMRC dictionary, and the text given by Peter
> Sampson as cited below is accurate

Great!

Reading the definitions given in the OED (1989) I now see that the
TMRC Dictionary is not an antedating for the precise senses given in
definitions 3.a and 3 b of the word hacker. Both definitions involve
computers:

  3. a. A person with an enthusiasm for programming or using computers
as an end in itself. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
First cite 1976.
 3. b. A person who uses his skill with computers to try to gain
unauthorized access to computer files or networks. colloq.
First cite 1983.

But the OED may wish to craft more general definitions for hacker or
incorporate the information about the citations in some other way.
Garson

.. Continuing message from Jesse Sheidlower
> Also, the annotations that
> Garson refers to as "added later" are indeed modern ones, from
> September 2005. The only available copy of the 1960 edition of
> the dictionary does have some pencilled annotations.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 05:33:27PM -0400, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>> Thanks to Bill Mullins for pointing out the Rolling Stone and to Fred
>> Shapiro for pointing to The Tech article. Here is an early cite from
>> the world of model railroads at MIT. This subculture was contiguous
>> with the later computer subculture at MIT according to several
>> references: (This information is from an online repository and should
>> be checked on paper I think)
>>
>> TMRC is the Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT
>> http://www.gricer.com/tmrc/tmrc-dictionary-intro.html
>>
>> Annotated First Edition of the TMRC Dictionary (1959)
>> http://www.gricer.com/tmrc/dictionary1959.html
>>
>> HACK: 1) something done without constructive end; 2) a project under-
>>
>>            taken on bad self-advice; 3) an entropy booster; 4) to produce,
>>
>>            or attempt to produce, a hack3.
>>
>> [Annotation added later I think: I saw this as a term for an
>> unconventional or unorthodox application of technology, typically
>> deprecated for engineering reasons. There was no specific suggestion
>> of malicious intent (or of benevolence, either). Indeed, the era of
>> this dictionary saw some "good hacks:" using a room-sized computer to
>> play music, for instance; or, some would say, writing the dictionary
>> itself.]
>>
>>
>>
>> HACKER: one who hacks, or makes them.
>>
>> [Annotation added later I think: A hacker avoids the standard
>> solution. The hack is the basic concept; the hacker is defined in
>> terms of it.]
>>
>> Garson
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
>> <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>> > Subject:      antedate hacker (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> > Caveats: NONE
>> >
>> > Someone has transcribed an interesting _Rolling Stone_ article, that may
>> > offer some hacker/computer antedates:
>> >
>> > http://wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html
>> >
>> > There are some obvious typos, so any use of this should be checked
>> > against hard copy.  Or the entire magazine has been digitized and is
>> > available on CD-ROM (for only $25 or so at the local Barnes & Noble).
>> >
>> > [All cites in this post are from the above article]
>> >
>> > OED has two computer-related senses for hacker (n) -- 1976 and 1983.
>> >
>> > "Spacewar" by Stewart Brand.  _Rolling Stone_ Dec 7 1972 (p# unknown).
>> > "The hackers are the technicians of this science - "It's a term of
>> > derision and also the ultimate compliment." They are the ones who
>> > translate human demands into code that the machines can understand and
>> > act on."
>> >
>> > OED has hack (n) 7.a. 1983
>> > [same article]
>> > "Meanwhile, your photographer Annie, was tugged all over the lab to see
>> > the hand-eye rig, the number half-tone printer, various spectacular
>> > geometric display hacks, computer music programs, the color video image
>> > maker"
>> > [note: this word is probably related to, and probably has origins in,
>> > the MIT student term "hack" meaning "an elegant solution to a technical
>> > problem"]
>> >
>> > up in the sense of a computer system being "up" (online, available for
>> > work) goes back to 1547 in the OED (adv2 13.b.), but the first computer
>> > related cite in this sense is 1978.
>> >
>> > "His major project has been getting the ARPA Network up. ("Up" around
>> > computers means working, the opposite of "down" or crashed.) "
>> > [the corresponding sense of "down" goes back to 1965 in the OED (down
>> > adv 17.b.), so this sense of "up" can likely be antedated still
>> > further.]
>> >
>> > "Net" as a network is back to 1970 in the OED (n1 7.)  Another early
>> > cite:
>> > "At present some 20 major computer centers are linked on the
>> > two-year-old ARPA Net. Traffic on the Net has been very slow, due to
>> > delays and difficulties of translation between different computers and
>> > divergent projects. "
>> >
>> > This article also makes eerily accurate predictions of the
>> > decline/demise of print newspapers and record stores.
>> > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
>> > Caveats: NONE
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
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>
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