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Money should be paid to +"Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine University". + +*SMALL PRINT! Ver.04.29.93 FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTED ETEXTS*END* + + + + + + +Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy +(C)1984 by Steven Levy + + + + + + + +Chapters 1 and 2 of +Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution +by Steven Levy + + + +Who's Who +The Wizards and their Machines + +Bob Albrecht +Found of People's Computer Company who took visceral pleasure +in exposing youngsters to computers. + +Altair 8800 +The pioneering microcomputer that galvanized hardware hackers. +Building this kit made you learn hacking. Then you tried to +figure out what to DO with it. + +Apple II ][ +Steve Wozniak's friendly, flaky, good-looking computer, +wildly successful and the spark and soul of a thriving industry. + +Atari 800 +This home computer gave great graphics to game hackers like John Harris, +though the company that made it was loath to tell you how it worked. + +Bob and Carolyn Box +World-record-holding gold prospectors turned software stars, +working for Sierra On-Line. + +Doug Carlston +Corporate lawyer who chucked it all to form the Broderbund +software company. + +Bob Davis +Left job in liquor store to become best-selling author +of Sierra On-Line computer game "Ulysses and the Golden Fleece." +Success was his downfall. + +Peter Deutsch +Bad in sports, brilliant at math, Peter was still in short pants +when he stubled on the TX-0 at MIT--and hacked it +along with the masters. + +Steve Dompier +Homebrew member who first made the Altair sing, +and later wrote the "Targe" game on the Sol +which entranced Tom Snyder. + +John Draper +The notorious "Captain Crunch" who fearlessly explored +the phone systems, got jailed, hacked microprocessors. +Cigarettes made his violent. + +Mark Duchaineau +The young Dungeonmaster who copy-protected On-Lines disks +at his whim. + +Chris Esponosa +Fourteen-year-old follower of Steve Wozniak +and early Apple employee. + +Lee Felsenstein +Former "military editor" of Berkeley Barb, +and hero of an imaginary science-fiction novel, +he designed computers with "junkyard" approach +and was central figure in Bay Area hardware +hacking in the seventies. + +Ed Fredkin +Gentle founder of Information International, +thought himself world's greates programmer +until he met Stew Nelson. Father figure to hackers. + +Gordon French +Silver-haired hardware hacker whose garage held not cars +but his homebrewed Chicken Hawk comptuer, then held the +first Homebrew Computer Club meeting. + +Richard Garriott +Astronaut's son who, as Lord British, +created Ultima world on computer disks. + +Bill Gates +Cocky wizard, Harvard dropout who wrote Altair BASIC, +and complained when hackers copied it. + +Bill Gosper +Horwitz of computer keyboards, master math and LIFE hacker +at MIT AI lab, guru of the Hacker Ethic and student of +Chinese restaurant menus. + +Richard Greenblatt +Single-minded, unkempt, prolific, and canonical MIT hacker +who went into night phase so often that he zorched +his academic career. The hacker's hacker. + +John Harris +The young Atari 800 game hacker who became Sierra On-Line's +star programmer, but yearned for female companionship. + +IBM-PC +IBM's entry into the personal computer market +which amazingly included a bit of the Hacker Ethic, +and took over. [H.E. as open architecture.] + +IBM 704 +IBM was The Enemy, and this was its machine, +the Hulking Giant computer in MIT's Building 26. +Later modified into the IBM 709, then the IBM 7090. +Batch-processed and intolerable. + +Jerry Jewell +Vietnam vet turned programmer who founded Sirius Software. + +Steven Jobs +Visionary, beaded, non-hacking youngster who took +Wozniak's Apple II ][, made a lot of deals, +and formed a company that would make a billion dollars. + +Tom Knight +At sixteen, an MIT hacker who would name the +Incompatible Time-sharing System. Later a +Greenblatt nemesis over the LISP machine schism. + +Alan Kotok +The chubby MIT student from Jersey who worked +under the rail layout at TMRC, learned the phone system +at Western Electric, and became a legendary TX-0 and PDP-1 hacker. + +Effrem Lipkin +Hacker-activist from New York who loved machines +but hated their uses. Co-Founded Community Memory; +friend of Felsenstein. + +LISP Machine +The ultimate hacker computer, invented mosly by Greenblatt +and subject of a bitter dispute at MIT. + +"Uncle" John McCarthy +Absent-minded but brilliant MIT [later Stanford] professor +who helped pioneer computer chess, artificial intelligence, LISP. + +Bob Marsh +Berkeley-ite and Homebrewer who shared garage with Felsenstein +and founded Processor Technology, which made the Sol computer. + +Roger Melen +Homebrewer who co-founded Cromemco company to make +circuit boards for Altair. His "Dazzler" played LIFE +programs on his kitchen table. + +Louis Merton +Pseudonym for the AI chess hacker whose tendency +to go catatonic brought the hacker community together. + +Jude Milhon +Met Lee Felsenstein through a classified ad in the +Berkeley Barb, and became more than a friend-- +a member of the Community Memory collective. + +Marvin Minsky +Playful and brilliant MIT prof who headed the AI lave +and allowed the hackers to run free. + +Fred Moore +Vagabond pacifist who hated money, loved technology, +and co-founded Homebrew Club. + +Stewart Nelson +Buck-toothed, diminutive, but fiery AI lab hacker +who connected the PDP-1 comptuer to hack the phone system. +Later co-founded the Systems Concepts company. + +Ted Nelson +Self-described "innovator" and noted curmudgeon +who self-published the influential Computer Lib book. + +Russel Noftsker +Harried administrator of MIT AI lab in the late sixties; +later president of Symbolics company. + +Adam Osborne +Bangkok-born publisher-turned-computer-manufacturer +who considered himself a philsopher. Founded Osborne +Computer Company to make "adequate" machines. + +PDP-1 +Digital Equipment's first minicomputer, and in 1961 +an interactive godsend to the MIT hackers and a +slap in the face to IBM fascism. + +PDP-6 +Designed in part by Kotok, this mainframe computer +was cornerstone of AI lab, with its gorgeious instruction set +and sixteen sexy registers. + +Tom Pittman +The religious Homebrew hacker who lost his wife +but kept the faith with his Tiny Basic. + +Ed Roberts +Enigmatic founder of MITS company who shook the world +with his Altair computer. He wanted to help people +build mental pyramids. + +Steve [Slug] Russell +McCarthy's "coolie," who hacked the Spacewar program, +first videogame, on the PDP-1. Never made a dime from it. + +Peter Samson +MIT hacker, one of the first, who loved systems, trains, +TX-0, music, parliamentary procedure, pranks, and hacking. + +Bob Saunders +Jolly, balding TMRC hacker who married early, +hacked till late at night eating "lemon gunkies," +and mastered the "CBS Strategy on Spacewar. + +Warren Schwader +Big blond hacker from rural Wisconsin who went from +the assembly line to software stardom but couldn't +reconcile the shift with his devotion to Jehovah's Witnesses. + +David Silver +Left school at fourteen to be mascot of AI lab; +maker of illicit keys and builder of a tiny robot +that did the impossible. + +Dan Sokol +Long-haired prankster who reveled in revealing technological +secrets at Homebrew Club. Helped "liberate" Alair BASIC +on paper tape. + +Les Solomon +Editor of Popular Electroics, the puller of strings +who set the computer revolution into motion. + +Marty Spergel +The Junk Man, the Homebrew member who supplied circuits +and cables and could make you a deal for anything. + +Richard Stallman +The Last of the Hackers, who vowed to defend +the principles of Hackerism to the bitter end. +Remained at MIT until there was no one to eat +Chinese food with. + +Jeff Stephenson +Thirty-year-old martial arts veteran and hacker +who was astounded that joining Sierra On-Line +meant enrolling in Summer Camp. + +Jay Sullivan +MAddeningly clam wizard-level programmer at Informatics who +impressed Ken Williams by knowing the meaning of the word "any." + +Dick Sunderland +Chalk-complexioned MBA who believed that firm managerial +bureaucracy was a worth goal, but as president of Sierra On-Line +found that hackers didn't think that way. + +Gerry Sussman +Young MIT hacker branded "loser" because he smoked a pipe +and "munged" his programs; later became "winner" by algorithmic magic. + +Margot Tommervik +With her husband Al, long-haired Margot parlayed her +game show winnings into a magazine that deified the Apple Computer. + +Tom Swift Terminal +Lee Felsenstein's legendary, never-to-be-built computer terminal +which would give the user ultimate leave to get his hands on the world. + +TX-0 +Filled a small room, but in the late fifties this $3 million machine +was the world's first personal computer--for the community of +MIT hackers that formed around it. + +Jim Warren +Portly purveyor of "techno-gossip" at Homebrew, +he was first editor of hippie-styled Dr. Dobbs Journal, +later started the lucrative Computer Faire. + +Randy Wigginton +Fifteen-year-old member of Steve Wozniak's kiddie corps, +he help Woz trundle the Apple II to Homebrew. +Still in high school when he became Apple's first software employee. + +Ken Williams +Arrogant and brilliant young programmer who saw the writing on the CRT +and started Sierra On-Line to make a killing and improve society +by selling games for the Apple computer. + +Roberta Williams +Ken Williams' timid wife who rediscovered her own creativity +by writing "Mystery House," the first of her many bestselling +computer games. + +Steven "Woz" Wozniak +Openhearted, technologically daring hardware hacker +from San Jose suburbs. Woz built the Apple Computer +for the pleasure of himself and friends. + + + + + +PART ONE True Hackers +CAMBRIDGE: The Fifties and Sixties + +CHAPTER 1 THE TECH MODEL RAILROAD CLUB + +Just why Peter Samson was wandering around in Building 26 in the +middle of the night is a matter that he would find difficult to +explain. Some things are not spoken. If you were like the +people whom Peter Samson was coming to know and befriend in this, +his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in +the winter of 1958-59, no explanation would be required. +Wandering around the labyrinth of laboratories and storerooms, +searching for the secrets of telephone switching in machine +rooms, tracing paths of wires or relays in subterranean steam +tunnels . . . for some, it was common behavior, and there was +no need to justify the impulse, when confronted with a closed +door with an unbearably intriguing noise behind it, to open the +door uninvited. And then, if there was no one to physically bar +access to whatever was making that intriguing noise, to touch the +machine, start flicking switches and noting responses, and +eventually to loosen a screw, unhook a template, jiggle some +diodes and tweak a few connections. Peter Samson and his friends +had grown up with a specific relationship to the world, wherein +things had meaning only if you found out how they worked. And +how would you go about that if not by getting your hands on them? + +It was in the basement of Building 26 that Samson and his friends +discovered the EAM room. Building 26 was a long glass-and-steel +structure, one of MIT's newer buildings, contrasting with the +venerable pillared structures that fronted the Institute on +Massachusetts Avenue. In the basement of this building void of +personality, the EAM room. Electronic Accounting Machinery. A +room that housed machines which ran like computers. + +Not many people in 1959 had even seen a computer, let alone +touched one. Samson, a wiry, curly-haired redhead with a way of +extending his vowels so that it would seem he was racing through +lists of possible meanings of statements in mid-word, had viewed +computers on his visits to MIT from his hometown of Lowell, +Massachusetts, less than thirty miles from campus. This made him +a "Cambridge urchin," one of dozens of science-crazy high +schoolers in the region who were drawn, as if by gravitational +pull, to the Cambridge campus. He had even tried to rig up his +own computer with discarded parts of old pinball machines: they +were the best source of logic elements he could find. + +LOGIC ELEMENTS: the term seems to encapsulate what drew Peter +Samson, son of a mill machinery repairman, to electronics. The +subject made sense. When you grow up with an insatiable +curiosity as to how things work, the delight you find upon +discovering something as elegant as circuit logic, where all +connections have to complete their loops, is profoundly +thrilling. Peter Samson, who early on appreciated the +mathematical simplicity of these things, could recall seeing a +television show on Boston's public TV channel, WGBH, which gave a +rudimentary introduction to programming a computer in its own +language. It fired his imagination: to Peter Samson, a computer +was surely like Aladdin's lamp--rub it, and it would do your +bidding. So he tried to learn more about the field, built +machines of his own, entered science project competitions and +contests, and went to the place that people of his ilk aspired +to: MIT. The repository of the very brightest of those weird +high school kids with owl-like glasses and underdeveloped +pectorals who dazzled math teachers and flunked PE, who dreamed +not of scoring on prom night, but of getting to the finals of the +General Electric Science Fair competition. MIT, where he would +wander the hallways at two o'clock in the morning, looking for +something interesting, and where he would indeed discover +something that would help draw him deeply into a new form of +creative process, and a new life-style, and would put him into +the forefront of a society envisioned only by a few +science-fiction writers of mild disrepute. He would discover a +computer that he could play with. + +The EAM room which Samson had chanced on was loaded with large +keypunch machines the size of squat file cabinets. No one was +protecting them: the room was staffed only by day, when a select +group who had attained official clearance were privileged enough +to submit long manila cards to operators who would then use these +machines to punch holes in them according to what data the +privileged ones wanted entered on the cards. A hole in the card +would represent some instruction to the computer, telling it to +put a piece of data somewhere, or perform a function on a piece +of data, or move a piece of data from one place to another. An +entire stack of these cards made one computer program, a program +being a series of instructions which yield some expected result, +just as the instructions in a recipe, when precisely followed, +lead to a cake. Those cards would be taken to yet another +operator upstairs who would feed the cards into a "reader" that +would note where the holes were and dispatch this information to +the IBM 704 computer on the first floor of Building 26. The +Hulking Giant. + +The IBM 704 cost several million dollars, took up an entire room, +needed constant attention from a cadre of professional machine +operators, and required special air-conditioning so that the +glowing vacuum tubes inside it would not heat up to +data-destroying temperatures. When the air-conditioning broke +down--a fairly common occurrences--a loud gong would sound, and +three engineers would spring from a nearby office to frantically +take covers off the machine so its innards wouldn't melt. All +these people in charge of punching cards, feeding them into +readers, and pressing buttons and switches on the machine were +what was commonly called a Priesthood, and those privileged +enough to submit data to those most holy priests were the +official acolytes. It was an almost ritualistic exchange. + +ACOLYTE: Oh machine, would you accept my offer of information so +you may run my program and perhaps give me a computation? + +PRIEST (on behalf of the machine): We will try. We promise +nothing. + +As a general rule, even these most privileged of acolytes were +not allowed direct access to the machine itself, and they would +not be able to see for hours, sometimes for days, the results of +the machine's ingestion of their "batch" of cards. + +This was something Samson knew, and of course it frustrated the +hell out of Samson, who wanted to get at the damn machine. For +this was what life was all about. + +What Samson did not know, and was delighted to discover, was that +the EAM room also had a particular keypunch machine called the +407. Not only could it punch cards, but it could also read +cards, sort them, and print them on listings. No one seemed to +be guarding these machines, which were computers, sort of. Of +course, using them would be no picnic: one needed to actually +wire up what was called a plug board, a two-inch-by-two-inch +plastic square with a mass of holes in it. If you put hundreds +of wires through the holes in a certain order, you would get +something that looked like a rat's nest but would fit into this +electromechanical machine and alter its personality. It could do +what you wanted it to do. + +So, without any authorization whatsoever, that is what Peter +Samson set out to do, along with a few friends of his from an MIT +organization with a special interest in model railroading. It +was a casual, unthinking step into a science-fiction future, but +that was typical of the way that an odd subculture was pulling +itself up by its bootstraps and growing to underground +prominence--to become a culture that would be the impolite, +unsanctioned soul of computerdom. It was among the first +computer hacker escapades of the Tech Model Railroad Club, or +TMRC. + + * * * + +Peter Samson had been a member of the Tech Model Railroad Club +since his first week at MIT in the fall of 1958. The first event +that entering MIT freshmen attended was a traditional welcoming +lecture, the same one that had been given for as long as anyone +at MIT could remember. LOOK AT THE PERSON TO YOUR LEFT . . . +LOOK AT THE PERSON TO YOUR RIGHT . . . ONE OF YOU THREE WILL NOT +GRADUATE FROM THE INSTITUTE. The intended effect of the speech +was to create that horrid feeling in the back of the collective +freshman throat that signaled unprecedented dread. All their +lives, these freshmen had been almost exempt from academic +pressure. The exemption had been earned by virtue of brilliance. +Now each of them had a person to the right and a person to the +left who was just as smart. Maybe even smarter. + +But to certain students this was no challenge at all. To these +youngsters, classmates were perceived in a sort of friendly haze: +maybe they would be of assistance in the consuming quest to find +out how things worked, and then to master them. There were +enough obstacles to learning already--why bother with stupid +things like brown-nosing teachers and striving for grades? To +students like Peter Samson, the quest meant more than the degree. + +Sometime after the lecture came Freshman Midway. All the campus +organizations--special-interest groups, fraternities, and such-- +set up booths in a large gymnasium to try to recruit new members. +The group that snagged Peter was the Tech Model Railroad Club. +Its members, bright-eyed and crew-cutted upperclassmen who spoke +with the spasmodic cadences of people who want words out of the +way in a hurry, boasted a spectacular display of HO gauge trains +they had in a permanent clubroom in Building 20. Peter Samson +had long been fascinated by trains, especially subways. So he +went along on the walking tour to the building, a shingle-clad +temporary structure built during World War II. The hallways were +cavernous, and even though the clubroom was on the second floor +it had the dank, dimly lit feel of a basement. + +The clubroom was dominated by the huge train layout. It just +about filled the room, and if you stood in the little control +area called "the notch" you could see a little town, a little +industrial area, a tiny working trolley line, a papier-mache +mountain, and of course a lot of trains and tracks. The trains +were meticulously crafted to resemble their full-scale +counterparts, and they chugged along the twists and turns of +track with picture-book perfection. + +And then Peter Samson looked underneath the chest-high boards +which held the layout. It took his breath away. Underneath this +layout was a more massive matrix of wires and relays,and crossbar +switches than Peter Samson had ever dreamed existed. There were +neat regimental lines of switches, and achingly regular rows of +dull bronze relays, and a long, rambling tangle of red, blue, and +yellow wires--twisting and twirling like a rainbow-colored +explosion of Einstein's hair. It was an incredibly complicated +system, and Peter Samson vowed to find out how it worked. + +The Tech Model Railroad Club awarded its members a key to the +clubroom after they logged forty hours of work on the layout. +Freshman Midway had been on a Friday. By Monday, Peter Samson +had his key. + + * * * + +There were two factions of TMRC. Some members loved the idea of +spending their time building and painting replicas of certain +trains with historical and emotional value, or creating realistic +scenery for the layout. This was the knife-and-paintbrush +contingent, and it subscribed to railroad magazines and booked +the club for trips on aging train lines. The other faction +centered on the Signals and Power Subcommittee of the club, and +it cared far more about what went on under the layout. This was +The System, which worked something like a collaboration between +Rube Goldberg and Wernher von Braun, and it was constantly being +improved, revamped, perfected, and sometimes "gronked"--in club +jargon, screwed up. S&P people were obsessed with the way The +System worked, its increasing complexities, how any change you +made would affect other parts, and how you could put those +relationships between the parts to optimal use. + +Many of the parts for The System had been donated by the Western +Electric College Gift Plan, directly from the phone company. The +club's faculty advisor was also in charge of the campus phone +system, and had seen to it that sophisticated phone equipment was +available for the model railroaders. Using that equipment as a +starting point, the Railroaders had devised a scheme which +enabled several people to control trains at once, even if the +trains were at different parts of the same track. Using dials +appropriated from telephones, the TMRC "engineers" could specify +which block of track they wanted control of, and run a train from +there. This was done by using several types of phone company +relays, including crossbar executors and step switches which let +you actually hear the power being transferred from one block to +another by an other-worldly chunka-chunka-chunka sound. + +It was the S&P group who devised this fiendishly ingenious +scheme, and it was the S&P group who harbored the kind of +restless curiosity which led them to root around campus buildings +in search of ways to get their hands on computers. They were +lifelong disciples of a Hands-On Imperative. Head of S&P was an +upperclassman named Bob Saunders, with ruddy, bulbous features, +an infectious laugh, and a talent for switch gear. As a child in +Chicago, he had built a high-frequency transformer for a high +school project; it was his six-foot-high version of a Tesla coil, +something devised by an engineer in the 1800s which was supposed +to send out furious waves of electrical power. Saunders said his +coil project managed to blow out television reception for blocks +around. Another person who gravitated to S&P was Alan Kotok, a +plump, chinless, thick-spectacled New Jerseyite in Samson's +class. Kotok's family could recall him, at age three, prying a +plug out of a wall with a screwdriver and causing a hissing +shower of sparks to erupt. When he was six, he was building and +wiring lamps. In high school he had once gone on a tour of the +Mobil Research Lab in nearby Haddonfield, and saw his first +computer--the exhilaration of that experience helped him decide +to enter MIT. In his freshman year, he earned a reputation as +one of TMRC's most capable S&P people. + +The S&P people were the ones who spent Saturdays going to Eli +Heffron's junkyard in Somerville scrounging for parts, who would +spend hours on their backs resting on little rolling chairs they +called "bunkies" to get underneath tight spots in the switching +system, who would work through the night making the wholly +unauthorized connection between the TMRC phone and the East +Campus. Technology was their playground. + +The core members hung out at the club for hours; constantly +improving The System, arguing about what could be done next, +developing a jargon of their own that seemed incomprehensible to +outsiders who might chance on these teen-aged fanatics, with +their checked short-sleeve shirts, pencils in their pockets, +chino pants, and, always, a bottle of Coca-Cola by their side. +(TMRC purchased its own Coke machine for the then forbidding sum +of $165; at a tariff of five cents a bottle, the outlay was +replaced in three months; to facilitate sales, Saunders built a +change machine for Coke buyers that was still in use a decade +later.) When a piece of equipment wasn't working, it was +"losing"; when a piece of equipment was ruined, it was "munged" +(Mash Until No Good); the two desks in the corner of the room +were not called the office, but the "orifice"; one who insisted +on studying for courses was a "tool"; garbage was called "cruft"; +and a project undertaken or a product built not solely to fulfill +some constructive goal, but with some wild pleasure taken in mere +involvement, was called a "hack." + +This latter term may have been suggested by ancient MIT lingo-- +the word "hack" had long been used to describe the elaborate +college pranks that MIT students would regularly devise, such as +covering the dome that overlooked the campus with reflecting +foil. But as the TMRC people used the word, there was serious +respect implied. While someone might call a clever connection +between relays a "mere hack," it would be understood that, to +qualify as a hack, the feat must be imbued with innovation, +style, and technical virtuosity. Even though one might +self-deprecatingly say he was "hacking away at The System" (much +as an axe-wielder hacks at logs), the artistry with which one +hacked was recognized to be considerable. + +The most productive people working on Signals and Power called +themselves "hackers" with great pride. Within the confines of +the clubroom in Building 20, and of the "Tool Room" (where some +study and many techno bull sessions took place), they had +unilaterally endowed themselves with the heroic attributes of +Icelandic legend. This is how Peter Samson saw himself and his +friends in a Sandburg-esque poem in the club newsletter: + +Switch Thrower for the World, +Fuze Tester, Maker of Routes, +Player with the Railroads and the System's Advance Chopper; +Grungy, hairy, sprawling, +Machine of the Point-Function Line-o-lite: +They tell me you are wicked and I believe them; for I have seen + your painted light bulbs under the lucite luring + the system coolies . . . +Under the tower, dust all over the place, hacking with bifur- + cated springs . . . +Hacking even as an ignorant freshman acts who has never lost + occupancy and has dropped out +Hacking the M-Boards, for under its locks are the switches, and + under its control the advance around the layout, + Hacking! +Hacking the grungy, hairy, sprawling hacks of youth; uncabled, + frying diodes, proud to be Switch-thrower, Fuze- + tester, Maker of Routes, Player with Railroads, + and Advance Chopper to the System. + +Whenever they could, Samson and the others would slip off to the +EAM room with their plug boards, trying to use the machine to +keep track of the switches underneath the layout. Just as +important, they were seeing what the electromechanical counter +could do, taking it to its limit. + +That spring of 1959, a new course was offered at MIT. It was the +first course in programming a computer that freshmen could take. +The teacher was a distant man with a wild shock of hair and an +equally unruly beard--John McCarthy. A master mathematician, +McCarthy was a classically absent-minded professor; stories +abounded about his habit of suddenly answering a question hours, +sometimes even days after it was first posed to him. He would +approach you in the hallway, and with no salutation would begin +speaking in his robotically precise diction, as if the pause in +conversation had been only a fraction of a second, and not a +week. Most likely, his belated response would be brilliant. + +McCarthy was one of a very few people working in an entirely new +form of scientific inquiry with computers. The volatile and +controversial nature of his field of study was obvious from the +very arrogance of the name that McCarthy had bestowed upon it: +Artificial Intelligence. This man actually thought that +computers could be SMART. Even at such a science-intensive place +as MIT, most people considered the thought ridiculous: they +considered computers to be useful, if somewhat absurdly +expensive, tools for number-crunching huge calculations and for +devising missile defense systems (as MIT's largest computer, the +Whirlwind, had done for the early-warning SAGE system), but +scoffed at the thought that computers themselves could actually +be a scientific field of study, Computer Science did not +officially exist at MIT in the late fifties, and McCarthy and his +fellow computer specialists worked in the Electrical Engineering +Department, which offered the course, No. 641, that Kotok, +Samson, and a few other TRMC members took that spring. + +McCarthy had started a mammoth program on the IBM 704--the +Hulking Giant--that would give it the extraordinary ability to +play chess. To critics of the budding field of Artificial +Intelligence, this was just one example of the boneheaded +optimism of people like John McCarthy. But McCarthy had a +certain vision of what computers could do, and playing chess was +only the beginning. + +All fascinating stuff, but not the vision that was driving Kotok +and Samson and the others. They wanted to learn how to WORK the +damn machines, and while this new programming language called +LISP that McCarthy was talking about in 641 was interesting, it +was not nearly as interesting as the act of programming, or that +fantastic moment when you got your printout back from the +Priesthood--word from the source itself!--and could then spend +hours poring over the results of the program, what had gone wrong +with it, how it could be improved. The TMRC hackers were +devising ways to get into closer contact with the IBM 704, which +soon was upgraded to a newer model called the 709. By hanging +out at the computation center in the wee hours of the morning, +and by getting to know the Priesthood, and by bowing and scraping +the requisite number of times, people like Kotok were eventually +allowed to push a few buttons on the machine, and watch the +lights as it worked. + +There were secrets to those IBM machines that had been +painstakingly learned by some of the older people at MIT with +access to the 704 and friends among the Priesthood. Amazingly, a +few of these programmers, grad students working with McCarthy, +had even written a program that utilized one of the rows of tiny +lights: the lights would be lit in such an order that it looked +like a little ball was being passed from right to left: if an +operator hit a switch at just the right time, the motion of the +lights could be reversed--Computer Ping-Pong! This obviously was +the kind of thing that you'd show off to impress your peers, who +would then take a look at the actual program you had written and +see how it was done. + +To top the program, someone else might try to do the same thing +with fewer instructions--a worthy endeavor, since there was so +little room in the small "memory" of the computers of those days +that not many instructions could fit into them, John McCarthy had +once noticed how his graduate students who loitered around the +704 would work over their computer programs to get the most out +of the fewest instructions, and get the program compressed so +that fewer cards would need to be fed to the machine. Shaving +off an instruction or two was almost an obsession with them. +McCarthy compared these students to ski bums. They got the same +kind of primal thrill from "maximizing code" as fanatic skiers +got from swooshing frantically down a hill. So the practice of +taking a computer program and trying to cut off instructions +without affecting the outcome came to be called "program +bumming," and you would often hear people mumbling things like +"Maybe I can bum a few instructions out and get the octal +correction card loader down to three cards instead of four." + +McCarthy in 1959 was turning his interest from chess to a new way +of talking to the computer, the whole new "language" called LISP. +Alan Kotok and his friends were more than eager to take over the +chess project. Working on the batch-processed IBM, they embarked +on the gargantuan project of teaching the 704, and later the 709, +and even after that its replacement the 7090, how to play the +game of kings. Eventually Kotok's group became the largest users +of computer time in the entire MIT computation center. + +Still, working with the IBM machine was frustrating. There was +nothing worse than the long wait between the time you handed in +your cards and the time your results were handed back to you. If +you had misplaced as much as one letter in one instruction, the +program would crash, and you would have to start the whole +process over again. It went hand in hand with the stifling +proliferation of goddamn RULES that permeated the atmosphere of +the computation center. Most of the rules were designed to keep +crazy young computer fans like Samson and Kotok and Saunders +physically distant from the machine itself. The most rigid rule +of all was that no one should be able to actually touch or tamper +with the machine itself. This, of course, was what those Signals +and Power people were dying to do more than anything else in the +world, and the restrictions drove them mad. + +One priest--a low-level sub-priest, really--on the late-night +shift was particularly nasty in enforcing this rule, so Samson +devised a suitable revenge. While poking around at Eli's +electronic junk shop one day, he chanced upon an electrical board +precisely like the kind of board holding the clunky vacuum tubes +which resided inside the IBM. One night, sometime before 4 A.M., +this particular sub-priest stepped out for a minute; when he +returned, Samson told him that the machine wasn't working, but +they'd found the trouble--and held up the totally smashed module +from the old 704 he'd gotten at Eli's. + +The sub-priest could hardly get the words out. "W-where did you +get that?" + +Samson, who had wide green eyes that could easily look maniacal, +slowly pointed to an open place on the machine rack where, of +course, no board had ever been, but the space still looked sadly +bare. The sub-priest gasped. He made faces that indicated his +bowels were about to give out. He whimpered exhortations to the +deity. Visions, no doubt, of a million-dollar deduction from his +paycheck began flashing before him. Only after his supervisor, a +high priest with some understanding of the mentality of these +young wiseguys from the Model Railroad Club, came and explained +the situation did he calm down. + +He was not the last administrator to feel the wrath of a hacker +thwarted in the quest for access. + + * * * + +One day a former TMRC member who was now on the MIT faculty paid +a visit to the clubroom. His name was Jack Dennis. When he had +been an undergraduate in the early 1950s, he had worked furiously +underneath the layout. Dennis lately had been working a computer +which MIT had just received from Lincoln Lab, a military +development laboratory affiliated with the Institute. The +computer was called the TX-0, and it was one of the first +transistor-run computers in the world. Lincoln Lab had used it +specifically to test a giant computer called the TX-2, which had +a memory so complex that only with this specially built little +brother could its ills be capably diagnosed. Now that its +original job was over, the three-million-dollar TX-0 had been +shipped over to the Institute on "long-term loan," and apparently +no one at Lincoln Lab had marked a calendar with a return date. +Dennis asked the S&P people at TMRC whether they would like to +see it. + +Hey you nuns! Would you like to meet the Pope? + +The TX-0 was in Building 26, in the second-floor Radio Laboratory +of Electronics (RLE), directly above the first-floor Computation +Center which housed the hulking IBM 704. The RLE lab resembled +the control room of an antique spaceship. The TX-0, or Tixo, as +it was sometimes called, was for its time a midget machine, since +it was one of the first computers to use finger-size transistors +instead of hand-size vacuum tubes. Still, it took up much of the +room, along with its fifteen tons of supporting air-conditioning +equipment. The TX-O's workings were mounted on several tall, +thin chassis, like rugged metal bookshelves, with tangled wires +and neat little rows of tiny, bottle-like containers in which the +transistors were inserted. Another rack had a solid metal front +speckled with grim-looking gauges. Facing the racks was an +L-shaped console, the control panel of this H. G. Wells +spaceship, with a blue countertop for your elbows and papers. On +the short arm of the L stood a Flexowriter, which resembled a +typewriter converted for tank warfare, its bottom anchored in a +military gray housing. Above the top were the control panels, +boxlike protrusions painted an institutional yellow. On the +sides of the boxes which faced the user were a few gauges, +several lines of quarter-inch blinking lights, a matrix of steel +toggle switches the size of large grains of rice, and, best of +all, an actual cathode ray tube display, round and smoke-gray. + +The TMRC people were awed. THIS MACHINE DID NOT USE CARDS. The +user would first punch in a program onto a long, thin paper tape +with a Flexowriter (there were a few extra Flexowriters in an +adjoining room), then sit at the console, feed in the program by +running the tape through a reader, and be able to sit there while +the program ran. If something went wrong with the program, you +knew immediately, and you could diagnose the problem by using +some of the switches, or checking out which of the lights were +blinking or lit. The computer even had an audio output: while +the program ran, a speaker underneath the console would make a +sort of music, like a poorly tuned electric organ whose notes +would vibrate with a fuzzy, ethereal din. The chords on this +"organ" would change, depending on what data the machine was +reading at any given microsecond; after you were familiar with +the tones, you could actually HEAR what part of your program the +computer was working on. You would have to discern this, though, +over the clacking of the Flexowriter, which could make you think +you were in the middle of a machine-gun battle. Even more +amazing was that, because of these "interactive" capabilities, +and also because users seemed to be allowed blocks of time to use +the TX-0 all by themselves, you could even modify a program WHILE +SITTING AT THE COMPUTER. A miracle! + +There was no way in hell that Kotok, Saunders, Samson, and the +others were going to be kept away from that machine. +Fortunately, there didn't seem to be the kind of bureaucracy +surrounding the TX-0 that there was around the IBM 704. No cadre +of officious priests. The technician in charge was a canny +white-haired Scotsman named John McKenzie. While he made sure +that graduate students and those working on funded projects-- +Officially Sanctioned Users--maintained access to the machine, +McKenzie tolerated the crew of TMRC madmen who began to hang out +in the RLE lab, where the TX-0 stood. + +Samson, Kotok, Saunders, and a freshman named Bob Wagner soon +figured out that the best time of all to hang out in Building 26 +was at night, when no person in his right mind would have signed +up for an hour-long session on the piece of paper posted every +Friday beside the air conditioner in the RLE lab. The TX-0 as a +rule was kept running twenty-four hours a day--computers back +then were too expensive for their time to be wasted by leaving +them idle through the night, and besides, it was a hairy +procedure to get the thing up and running once it was turned off. +So the TMRC hackers, who soon were referring to themselves as +TX-0 hackers, changed their life-style to accommodate the +computer. They laid claim to what blocks of time they could, and +would "vulture time" with nocturnal visits to the lab on the off +chance that someone who was scheduled for a 3 A.M. session might +not show up. + +"Oh!" Samson would say delightedly, a minute or so after someone +failed to show up at the time designated in the logbook. "Make +sure it doesn't go to waste!" + +It never seemed to, because the hackers were there almost all the +time. If they weren't in the RLE lab waiting for an opening to +occur, they were in the classroom next to the TMRC clubroom, the +Tool Room, playing a "hangman"-style word game that Samson had +devised called "Come Next Door," waiting for a call from someone +who was near the TX-0, monitoring it to see if someone had not +shown up for a session. The hackers recruited a network of +informers to give advance notice of potential openings at the +computer--if a research project was not ready with its program in +time, or a professor was sick, the word would be passed to TMRC +and the hackers would appear at the TX-0, breathless and ready to +jam into the space behind the console. + +Though Jack Dennis was theoretically in charge of the operation, +Dennis was teaching courses at the time, and preferred to spend +the rest of his time actually writing code for the machine. +Dennis played the role of benevolent godfather to the hackers: +he would give them a brief hands-on introduction to the machine, +point them in certain directions, be amused at their wild +programming ventures. He had little taste for administration, +though, and was just as happy to let John McKenzie run things. +McKenzie early on recognized that the interactive nature of the +TX-0 was inspiring a new form of computer programming, and the +hackers were its pioneers. So he did not lay down too many +edicts. + +The atmosphere was loose enough in 1959 to accommodate the +strays--science-mad people whose curiosity burned like a hunger, +who like Peter Samson would be exploring the uncharted maze of +laboratories at MIT. The noise of the air-conditioning, the +audio output, and the drill-hammer Flexowriter would lure these +wanderers, who'd poke their heads into the lab like kittens +peering into baskets of yarn. + +One of those wanderers was an outsider named Peter Deutsch. Even +before discovering the TX-0, Deutsch had developed a fascination +for computers. It began one day when he picked up a manual that +someone had discarded, a manual for an obscure form of computer +language for doing calculations. Something about the orderliness +of the computer instructions appealed to him: he would later +describe the feeling as the same kind of eerily transcendent +recognition that an artist experiences when he discovers the +medium that is absolutely right for him. THIS IS WHERE I BELONG. +Deutsch tried writing a small program, and, signing up for time +under the name of one of the priests, ran it on a computer. +Within weeks, he had attained a striking proficiency in +programming. He was only twelve years old. + +He was a shy kid, strong in math and unsure of most everything +else. He was uncomfortably overweight, deficient in sports, but +an intellectual star performer. His father was a professor at +MIT, and Peter used that as his entree to explore the labs. + +It was inevitable that he would be drawn to the TX-0. He first +wandered into the small "Kluge Room" (a "kluge" is a piece of +inelegantly constructed equipment that seems to defy logic by +working properly), where three off-line Flexowriters were +available for punching programs onto paper tape which would later +be fed into the TX-0. Someone was busy punching in a tape. +Peter watched for a while, then began bombarding the poor soul +with questions about that weird-looking little computer in the +next room. Then Peter went up to the TX-0 itself, examined it +closely, noting how it differed from other computers: it was +smaller, had a CRT display, and other neat toys. He decided +right then to act as if he had a perfect right to be there. He +got hold of a manual and soon was startling people by spouting +actual make-sense computer talk, and eventually was allowed to +sign up for night and weekend sessions, and to write his own +programs. + +McKenzie worried that someone might accuse him of running some +sort of summer camp, with this short-pants little kid, barely +tall enough to stick his head over the TX-O's console, staring at +the code that an Officially Sanctioned User, perhaps some +self-important graduate student, would be hammering into the +Flexowriter, and saying in his squeaky, preadolescent voice +something like "Your problem is that this credit is wrong over +here . . . you need this other instruction over there," and the +self-important grad student would go crazy--WHO IS THIS LITTLE +WORM?--and start screaming at him to go out and play somewhere. +Invariably, though, Peter Deutsch's comments would turn out to be +correct. Deutsch would also brazenly announce that he was going +to write better programs than the ones currently available, and +he would go and do it. + +Samson, Kotok, and the other hackers accepted Peter Deutsch: by +virtue of his computer knowledge he was worthy of equal +treatment. Deutsch was not such a favorite with the Officially +Sanctioned Users, especially when he sat behind them ready to +spring into action when they made a mistake on the Flexowriter. +These Officially Sanctioned Users appeared at the TX-0 with the +regularity of commuters. The programs they ran were statistical +analyses, cross correlations, simulations of an interior of the +nucleus of a cell. Applications. That was fine for Users, but +it was sort of a waste in the minds of the hackers. What hackers +had in mind was getting behind the console of the TX-0 much in +the same way as getting in behind the throttle of a plane, Or, as +Peter Samson, a classical music fan, put it, computing with the +TX-0 was like playing a musical instrument: an absurdly +expensive musical instrument upon which you could improvise, +compose, and, like the beatniks in Harvard Square a mile away, +wail like a banshee with total creative abandon. + +One thing that enabled them to do this was the programming system +devised by Jack Dennis and another professor, Tom Stockman. When +the TX-0 arrived at MIT, it had been stripped down since its days +at Lincoln Lab: the memory had been reduced considerably, to +4,096 "words" of eighteen bits each. (A "bit" is a BInary digiT, +either a one or zero. These binary numbers are the only thing +computers understand. A series of binary numbers is called a +"word.") And the TX-0 had almost no software. So Jack Dennis, +even before he introduced the TMRC people to the TX-0, had been +writing "systems programs"--the software to help users utilize +the machine. + +The first thing Dennis worked on was an assembler. This was +something that translated assembly language--which used three- +letter symbolic abbreviations that represented instructions to +the machine--into machine language, which consisted of the binary +numbers 0 and 1. The TX-0 had a rather limited assembly +language: since its design allowed only two bits of each +eighteen-bit word to be used for instructions to the computer, +only four instructions could be used (each possible two-bit +variation--00, 0 1, 10, and 11--represented an instruction). +Everything the computer did could be broken down to the execution +of one of those four instructions: it took one instruction to +add two numbers, but a series of perhaps twenty instructions to +multiply two numbers. Staring at a long list of computer +commands written as binary numbers--for example, 10011001100001-- +could make you into a babbling mental case in a matter of +minutes. But the same command in assembly language might look +like this: ADD Y. After loading the computer with the assembler +that Dennis wrote, you could write programs in this simpler +symbolic form, and wait smugly while the computer did the +translation into binary for you, Then you'd feed that binary +"object" code back into the computer. The value of this was +incalculable: it enabled programmers to write in something that +LOOKED like code, rather than an endless, dizzying series of ones +and zeros. + +The other program that Dennis worked on with Stockman was +something even newer--a debugger. The TX-0 came with a debugging +program called UT-3, which enabled you to talk to the computer +while it was running by typing commands directly into the +Flexowriter, But it had terrible problems-for one thing, it only +accepted typed-in code that used the octal numeric system. +"Octal" is a base-eight number system (as opposed to binary, +which is base two, and Arabic--ours-which is base ten), and it is +a difficult system to use. So Dennis and Stockman decided to +write something better than UT-3 which would enable users to use +the symbolic, easier-to-work-with assembly language. This came +to be called FLIT, and it allowed users to actually find program +bugs during a session, fix them, and keep the program running. +(Dennis would explain that "FLIT" stood for FLexowriter +Interrogation Tape, but clearly the name's real origin was the +insect spray with that brand name.) FLIT was a quantum leap +forward, since it liberated programmers to actually do original +composing on the machine--just like musicians composing on their +musical instruments. With the use of the debugger, which took up +one third of the 4,096 words of the TX-O's memory, hackers were +free to create a new, more daring style of programming. + +And what did these hacker programs DO? Well, sometimes, it +didn't matter much at all what they did. Peter Samson hacked the +night away on a program that would instantly convert Arabic +numbers to Roman numerals, and Jack Dennis, after admiring the +skill with which Samson had accomplished this feat, said, "My +God, why would anyone want to do such a thing?" But Dennis knew +why. There was ample justification in the feeling of power and +accomplishment Samson got when he fed in the paper tape, +monitored the lights and switches, and saw what were once plain +old blackboard Arabic numbers coming back as the numerals the +Romans had hacked with. + +In fact it was Jack Dennis who suggested to Samson that there +were considerable uses for the TX-O's ability to send noise to +the audio speaker. While there were no built-in controls for +pitch, amplitude, or tone character, there was a way to control +the speaker--sounds would be emitted depending on the state of +the fourteenth bit in the eighteen-bit words the TX-0 had in its +accumulator in a given microsecond. The sound was on or off +depending on whether bit fourteen was a one or zero. So Samson +set about writing programs that varied the binary numbers in that +slot in different ways to produce different pitches. + +At that time, only a few people in the country had been +experimenting with using a computer to output any kind of music, +and the methods they had been using required massive computations +before the machine would so much as utter a note, Samson, who +reacted with impatience to those who warned he was attempting the +impossible, wanted a computer playing music right away. So he +learned to control that one bit in the accumulator so adeptly +that he could command it with the authority of Charlie Parker on +the saxophone. In a later version of this music compiler, Samson +rigged it so that if you made an error in your programming +syntax, the Flexowriter would switch to a red ribbon and print +"To err is human to forgive divine." + +When outsiders heard the melodies of Johann Sebastian Bach in a +single-voice, monophonic square wave, no harmony, they were +universally unfazed. Big deal! Three million dollars for this +giant hunk of machinery, and why shouldn't it do at least as much +as a five-dollar toy piano? It was no use to explain to these +outsiders that Peter Samson had virtually bypassed the process by +which music had been made for eons. Music had always been made +by directly creating vibrations that were sound. What happened +in Samson's program was that a load of numbers, bits of +information fed into a computer, comprised a code in which the +music resided. You could spend hours staring at the code, and +not be able to divine where the music was. It only became music +while millions of blindingly brief exchanges of data were taking +place in the accumulator sitting in one of the metal, wire, and +silicon racks that comprised the TX-0. Samson had asked the +computer, which had no apparent knowledge of how to use a voice, +to lift itself in song--and the TX-0 had complied. + +So it was that a computer program was not only metaphorically a +musical composition--it was LITERALLY a musical composition! It +looked like--and was--the same kind of program which yielded +complex arithmetical computations and statistical analyses. +These digits that Samson had jammed into the computer were a +universal language which could produce ANYTHING--a Bach fugue or +an anti-aircraft system. + +Samson did not say any of this to the outsiders who were +unimpressed by his feat. Nor did the hackers themselves discuss +this--it is not even clear that they analyzed the phenomenon in +such cosmic terms. Peter Samson did it, and his colleagues +appreciated it, because it was obviously a neat hack. That was +justification enough. + + * * * + +To hackers like Bob Saunders--balding, plump, and merry disciple +of the TX-0, president of TMRC's S&P group, student of systems-- +it was a perfect existence. Saunders had grown up in the suburbs +of Chicago, and for as long as he could remember the workings of +electricity and telephone circuitry had fascinated him. Before +beginning MIT, Saunders had landed a dream summer job, working +for the phone company installing central office equipment, He +would spend eight blissful hours with soldering iron and pliers +in hand, working in the bowels of various systems, an idyll +broken by lunch hours spent in deep study of phone company +manuals. It was the phone company equipment underneath the TMRC +layout that had convinced Saunders to become active in the Model +Railroad Club. + +Saunders, being an upperclassman, had come to the TX-0 later in +his college career than Kotok and Samson: he had used the +breathing space to actually lay the foundation for a social life, +which included courtship of and eventual marriage to Marge +French, who had done some non-hacking computer work for a +research project. Still, the TX-0 was the center of his college +career, and he shared the common hacker experience of seeing his +grades suffer from missed classes. It didn't bother him much, +because he knew that his real education was occurring in Room 240 +of Building 26, behind the Tixo console. Years later he would +describe himself and the others as "an elite group. Other people +were off studying, spending their days up on four-floor buildings +making obnoxious vapors or off in the physics lab throwing +particles at things or whatever it is they do. And we were +simply not paying attention to what other folks were doing +because we had no interest in it. They were studying what they +were studying and we were studying what we were studying. And +the fact that much of it was not on the officially approved +curriculum was by and large immaterial." + +The hackers came out at night. It was the only way to take full +advantage of the crucial "off-hours" of the TX-0. During the +day, Saunders would usually manage to make an appearance in a +class or two. Then some time spent performing "basic +maintenance"--things like eating and going to the bathroom. He +might see Marge for a while. But eventually he would filter over +to Building 26. He would go over some of the programs of the +night before, printed on the nine-and-a-half-inch-wide paper that +the Flexowriter used. He would annotate and modify the listing +to update the code to whatever he considered the next stage of +operation. Maybe then he would move over to the Model Railroad +Club, and he'd swap his program with someone, checking +simultaneously for good ideas and potential bugs. Then back to +Building 26, to the Kluge Room next to the TX-0, to find an +off-line Flexowriter on which to update his code. All the while +he'd be checking to see if someone had canceled a one-hour +session on the machine; his own session was scheduled at +something like two or three in the morning. He'd wait in the +Kluge Room, or play some bridge back at the Railroad Club, until +the time came. + +Sitting at the console, facing the metal racks that held the +computer's transistors, each transistor representing a location +that either held or did not hold a bit of memory, Saunders would +set up the Flexowriter, which would greet him with the word +"WALRUS." This was something Samson had hacked, in honor of +Lewis Carroll's poem with the line "The time has come, the Walrus +said . . ." Saunders might chuckle at that as he went into the +drawer for the paper tape which held the assembler program and +fed that into the tape reader. Now the computer would be ready +to assemble his program, so he'd take the Flexowriter tape he'd +been working on and send that into the computer. He'd watch the +lights go on as the computer switched his code from "source" (the +symbolic assembly language) to "object" code (binary), which the +computer would punch out into another paper tape. Since that +tape was in the object code that the TX-0 understood, he'd feed +it in, hoping that the program would run magnificently. + +There would most probably be a few fellow hackers kibitzing +behind him, laughing and joking and drinking Cokes and eating +some junk food they'd extracted from the machine downstairs. +Saunders preferred the lemon jelly wedges that the others called +"lemon gunkies." But at four in the morning, anything tasted +good. They would all watch as the program began to run, the +lights going on, the whine from the speaker humming in high or +low register depending on what was in Bit 14 in the accumulator, +and the first thing he'd see on the CRT display after the program +had been assembled and run was that the program had crashed. So +he'd reach into the drawer for the tape with the FLIT debugger +and feed THAT into the computer. The computer would then be a +debugging machine, and he'd send the program back in. Now he +could start trying to find out where things had gone wrong, and +maybe if he was lucky he'd find out, and change things by putting +in some commands by flicking some of the switches on the console +in precise order, or hammering in some code on the Flexowriter. +Once things got running--and it was always incredibly satisfying +when something worked, when he'd made that roomful of transistors +and wires and metal and electricity all meld together to create a +precise output that he'd devised--he'd try to add the next +advance to it. When the hour was over--someone already itching +to get on the machine after him--Saunders would be ready to spend +the next few hours figuring out what the heck had made the +program go belly-up. + +The peak hour itself was tremendously intense, but during the +hours before, and even during the hours afterward, a hacker +attained a state of pure concentration. When you programmed a +computer, you had to be aware of where all the thousands of bits +of information were going from one instruction to the next, and +be able to predict--and exploit--the effect of all that movement. +When you had all that information glued to your cerebral being, +it was almost as if your own mind had merged into the environment +of the computer. Sometimes it took hours to build up to the +point where your thoughts could contain that total picture, and +when you did get to that point, it was such a shame to waste it +that you tried to sustain it by marathon bursts, alternatively +working on the computer or poring over the code that you wrote on +one of the off-line Flexowriters in the Kluge Room. You would +sustain that concentration by "wrapping around" to the next day. + +Inevitably, that frame of mind spilled over to what random shards +of existence the hackers had outside of computing. The +knife-and-paintbrush contingent at TMRC were not pleased at all +by the infiltration of Tixo-mania into the club: they saw it as +a sort of Trojan horse for a switch in the club focus, from +railroading to computing. And if you attended one of the club +meetings held every Tuesday at five-fifteen, you could see the +concern: the hackers would exploit every possible thread of +parliamentary procedure to create a meeting as convoluted as the +programs they were hacking on the TX-0. Motions were made to +make motions to make motions, and objections ruled out of order +as if they were so many computer errors. A note in the minutes +of the meeting on November 24, 1959, suggests that "we frown on +certain members who would do the club a lot more good by doing +more S&P-ing and less reading Robert's Rules of Order." Samson +was one of the worst offenders, and at one point, an exasperated +TMRC member made a motion "to purchase a cork for Samson's oral +diarrhea." + +Hacking parliamentary procedure was one thing, but the logical +mind-frame required for programming spilled over into more +commonplace activities. You could ask a hacker a question and +sense his mental accumulator processing bits until he came up +with a precise answer to the question you asked. Marge Saunders +would drive to the Safeway every Saturday morning in the +Volkswagen and upon her return ask her husband, "Would you like +to help me bring in the groceries?" Bob Saunders would reply, +"No." Stunned, Marge would drag in the groceries herself. After +the same thing occurred a few times, she exploded, hurling curses +at him and demanding to know why he said no to her question. + +"That's a stupid question to ask," he said. "Of course I won't +LIKE to help you bring in the groceries. If you ask me if I'll +help you bring them in, that's another matter." + +It was as if Marge had submitted a program into the TX-0, and the +program, as programs do when the syntax is improper, had crashed. +It was not until she debugged her question that Bob Saunders +would allow it to run successfully on his own mental computer. + + +CHAPTER 2 +THE HACKER ETHIC + +Something new was coalescing around the TX-0: a new way of life, +with a philosophy, an ethic, and a dream. + +There was no one moment when it started to dawn on the TX-0 +hackers that by devoting their technical abilities to computing +with a devotion rarely seen outside of monasteries they were the +vanguard of a daring symbiosis between man and machine. With a +fervor like that of young hot-rodders fixated on souping up +engines, they came to take their almost unique surroundings for +granted, Even as the elements of a culture were forming, as +legends began to accrue, as their mastery of programming started +to surpass any previous recorded levels of skill, the dozen or so +hackers were reluctant to acknowledge that their tiny society, on +intimate terms with the TX-0, had been slowly and implicitly +piecing together a body of concepts, beliefs, and mores. + +The precepts of this revolutionary Hacker Ethic were not so much +debated and discussed as silently agreed upon. No manifestos +were issued. No missionaries tried to gather converts. The +computer did the converting, and those who seemed to follow the +Hacker Ethic most faithfully were people like Samson, Saunders, +and Kotok, whose lives before MIT seemed to be mere preludes to +that moment when they fulfilled themselves behind the console of +the TX-0. Later there would come hackers who took the implicit +Ethic even more seriously than the TX-0 hackers did, hackers like +the legendary Greenblatt or Gosper, though it would be some years +yet before the tenets of hackerism would be explicitly +delineated. + +Still, even in the days of the TX-0, the planks of the platform +were in place. The Hacker Ethic: + +ACCESS TO COMPUTERS--AND ANYTHING WHICH MIGHT TEACH YOU SOMETHING +ABOUT THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS--SHOULD BE UNLIMITED AND TOTAL. +ALWAYS YIELD TO THE HANDS-ON IMPERATIVE! + +Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about the +systems--about the world--from taking things apart, seeing how +they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more +interesting things. They resent any person, physical barrier, or +law that tries to keep them from doing this. + +This is especially true when a hacker wants to fix something that +(from his point of view) is broken or needs improvement. +Imperfect systems infuriate hackers, whose primal instinct is to +debug them. This is one reason why hackers generally hate +driving cars--the system of randomly programmed red lights and +oddly laid out one-way streets causes delays which are so +goddamned UNNECESSARY that the impulse is to rearrange signs, +open up traffic-light control boxes . . .redesign the entire +system. + +In a perfect hacker world, anyone pissed off enough to open up a +control box near a traffic light and take it apart to make it +work better should be perfectly welcome to make the attempt. +Rules which prevent you from taking matters like that into your +own hands are too ridiculous to even consider abiding by. This +attitude helped the Model Railroad Club start, on an extremely +informal basis, something called the Midnight Requisitioning +Committee. When TMRC needed a set of diodes, or some extra +relays, to build some new feature into The System, a few S&P +people would wait until dark and find their way into the places +where those things were kept. None of the hackers, who were as a +rule scrupulously honest in other matters, seemed to equate this +with "stealing." A willful blindness. + +ALL INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE. + +If you don't have access to the information you need to improve +things, how can you fix them? A free exchange of information +particularly when the information was in the form of a computer +program, allowed for greater overall creativity. When you were +working on a machine like the TX-0, which came with almost no +software, everyone would furiously write systems programs to make +programming easier--Tools to Make Tools, kept in the drawer by +the console for easy access by anyone using the machine. This +prevented the dread, time-wasting ritual of reinventing the +wheel: instead of everybody writing his own version of the same +program, the best version would be available to everyone, and +everyone would be free to delve into the code and improve on +THAT. A world studded with feature-full programs, bummed to the +minimum, debugged to perfection. + +The belief, sometimes taken unconditionally, that information +should be free was a direct tribute to the way a splendid +computer, or computer program, works--the binary bits moving in +the most straightforward, logical path necessary to do their +complex job, What was a computer but something which benefited +from a free flow of information? If, say, the accumulator found +itself unable to get information from the input/output (i/o) +devices like the tape reader or the switches, the whole system +would collapse. In the hacker viewpoint, any system could +benefit from that easy flow of information. + +MISTRUST AUTHORITY--PROMOTE DECENTRALIZATION. + +The best way to promote this free exchange of information is to +have an open system, something which presents no boundaries +between a hacker and a piece of information or an item of +equipment that he needs in his quest for knowledge, improvement, +and time on-line. The last thing you need is a bureaucracy. +Bureaucracies, whether corporate, government, or university, are +flawed systems, dangerous in that they cannot accommodate the +exploratory impulse of true hackers. Bureaucrats hide behind +arbitrary rules (as opposed to the logical algorithms by which +machines and computer programs operate): they invoke those rules +to consolidate power, and perceive the constructive impulse of +hackers as a threat. + +The epitome of the bureaucratic world was to be found at a very +large company called International Business Machines--IBM. The +reason its computers were batch-processed Hulking Giants was only +partially because of vacuum tube technology, The real reason was +that IBM was a clumsy, hulking company which did not understand +the hacking impulse. If IBM had its way (so the TMRC hackers +thought), the world would be batch-processed, laid out on those +annoying little punch cards, and only the most privileged of +priests would be permitted to actually interact with the +computer. + +All you had to do was look at someone in the IBM world, and note +the button-down white shirt, the neatly pinned black tie, the +hair carefully held in place, and the tray of punch cards in +hand. You could wander into the Computation Center, where the +704, the 709, and later the 7090 were stored--the best IBM had to +offer--and see the stifling orderliness, down to the roped-off +areas beyond which non-authorized people could not venture. And +you could compare that to the extremely informal atmosphere +around the TX-0, where grungy clothes were the norm and almost +anyone could wander in. + +Now, IBM had done and would continue to do many things to advance +computing. By its sheer size and mighty influence, it had made +computers a permanent part of life in America. To many people, +the words IBM and computer were virtually synonymous. IBM's +machines were reliable workhorses, worthy of the trust that +businessmen and scientists invested in them. This was due in +part to IBM's conservative approach: it would not make the most +technologically advanced machines, but would rely on proven +concepts and careful, aggressive marketing. As IBM's dominance +of the computer field was established, the company became an +empire unto itself, secretive and smug. + +What really drove the hackers crazy was the attitude of the IBM +priests and sub-priests, who seemed to think that IBM had the +only "real" computers, and the rest were all trash. You couldn't +talk to those people--they were beyond convincing. They were +batch-processed people, and it showed not only in their +preference of machines, but in their idea about the way a +computation center, and a world, should be run. Those people +could never understand the obvious superiority of a decentralized +system, with no one giving orders: a system where people could +follow their interests, and if along the way they discovered a +flaw in the system, they could embark on ambitious surgery. No +need to get a requisition form. just a need to get something +done. + +This antibureaucratic bent coincided neatly with the +personalities of many of the hackers, who since childhood had +grown accustomed to building science projects while the rest of +their classmates were banging their heads together and learning +social skills on the field of sport. These young adults who were +once outcasts found the computer a fantastic equalizer, +experiencing a feeling, according to Peter Samson, "like you +opened the door and walked through this grand new universe . . ." +Once they passed through that door and sat behind the console of +a million-dollar computer, hackers had power. So it was natural +to distrust any force which might try to limit the extent of that +power. + +HACKERS SHOULD BE JUDGED BY THEIR HACKING, NOT BOGUS CRITERIA +SUCH AS DEGREES, AGE, RACE, OR POSITION. + +The ready acceptance of twelve-year-old Peter Deutsch in the TX-0 +community (though not by non-hacker graduate students) was a good +example. Likewise, people who trotted in with seemingly +impressive credentials were not taken seriously until they proved +themselves at the console of a computer. This meritocratic trait +was not necessarily rooted in the inherent goodness of hacker +hearts--it was mainly that hackers cared less about someone's +superficial characteristics than they did about his potential to +advance the general state of hacking, to create new programs to +admire, to talk about that new feature in the system. + +YOU CAN CREATE ART AND BEAUTY ON A COMPUTER. + +Samson's music program was an example. But to hackers, the art +of the program did not reside in the pleasing sounds emanating +from the on-line speaker. The code of the program held a beauty +of its own. (Samson, though, was particularly obscure in +refusing to add comments to his source code explaining what he +was doing at a given time. One well-distributed program Samson +wrote went on for hundreds of assembly language instructions, +with only one comment beside an instruction which contained the +number 1750. The comment was RIPJSB, and people racked their +brains about its meaning until someone figured out that 1750 was +the year Bach died, and that Samson had written an abbreviation +for Rest In Peace Johann Sebastian Bach.) + +A certain esthetic of programming style had emerged. Because of +the limited memory space of the TX-0 (a handicap that extended to +all computers of that era), hackers came to deeply appreciate +innovative techniques which allowed programs to do complicated +tasks with very few instructions. The shorter a program was, the +more space you had left for other programs, and the faster a +program ran. Sometimes when you didn't need speed or space much, +and you weren't thinking about art and beauty, you'd hack +together an ugly program, attacking the problem with "brute +force" methods. "Well, we can do this by adding twenty numbers," +Samson might say to himself, "and it's quicker to write +instructions to do that than to think out a loop in the beginning +and the end to do the same job in seven or eight instructions." +But the latter program might be admired by fellow hackers, and +some programs were bummed to the fewest lines so artfully that +the author's peers would look at it and almost melt with awe. + +Sometimes program bumming became competitive, a macho contest to +prove oneself so much in command of the system that one could +recognize elegant shortcuts to shave off an instruction or two, +or, better yet, rethink the whole problem and devise a new +algorithm which would save a whole block of instructions. (An +algorithm is a specific procedure which one can apply to solve a +complex computer problem; it is sort of a mathematical skeleton +key.) This could most emphatically be done by approaching the +problem from an offbeat angle that no one had ever thought of +before but that in retrospect made total sense. There was +definitely an artistic impulse residing in those who could +utilize this genius-from-Mars techniques black-magic, visionary +quality which enabled them to discard the stale outlook of the +best minds on earth and come up with a totally unexpected new +algorithm. + +This happened with the decimal print routine program. This was a +subroutines program within a program that you could sometimes +integrate into many different programs--to translate binary +numbers that the computer gave you into regular decimal numbers. +In Saunders' words, this problem became the "pawn's ass of +programming--if you could write a decimal print routine which +worked you knew enough about the computer to call yourself a +programmer of sorts." And if you wrote a GREAT decimal print +routine, you might be able to call yourself a hacker. More than +a competition, the ultimate bumming of the decimal print routine +became a sort of hacker Holy Grail. + +Various versions of decimal print routines had been around for +some months. If you were being deliberately stupid about it, or +if you were a genuine moron--an out-and-out "loser"--it might +take you a hundred instructions to get the computer to convert +machine language to decimal. But any hacker worth his salt could +do it in less, and finally, by taking the best of the programs, +bumming an instruction here and there, the routine was diminished +to about fifty instructions. + +After that, things got serious. People would work for hours, +seeking a way to do the same thing in fewer lines of code. It +became more than a competition; it was a quest. For all the +effort expended, no one seemed to be able to crack the fifty-line +barrier. The question arose whether it was even possible to do +it in less. Was there a point beyond which a program could not +be bummed? + +Among the people puzzling with this dilemma was a fellow named +Jenson, a tall, silent hacker from Maine who would sit quietly in +the Kluge Room and scribble on printouts with the calm demeanor +of a backwoodsman whittling. Jenson was always looking for ways +to compress his programs in time and space--his code was a +completely bizarre sequence of intermingled Boolean and +arithmetic functions, often causing several different +computations to occur in different sections of the same +eighteen-bit "word." Amazing things, magical stunts. + +Before Jenson, there had been general agreement that the only +logical algorithm for a decimal print routine would have the +machine repeatedly subtracting, using a table of the powers of +ten to keep the numbers in proper digital columns. Jenson +somehow figured that a powers-of-ten table wasn't necessary; he +came up with an algorithm that was able to convert the digits in +a reverse order but, by some digital sleight of hand, print them +out in the proper order. There was a complex mathematical +justification to it that was clear to the other hackers only when +they saw Jenson's program posted on a bulletin board, his way of +telling them that he had taken the decimal print routine to its +limit. FORTY-SIX INSTRUCTIONS. People would stare at the code +and their jaws would drop. Marge Saunders remembers the hackers +being unusually quiet for days afterward. + +"We knew that was the end of it," Bob Saunders later said. "That +was Nirvana." + +COMPUTERS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER. + +This belief was subtly manifest. Rarely would a hacker try to +impose a view of the myriad advantages of the computer way of +knowledge to an outsider. Yet this premise dominated the +everyday behavior of the TX-0 hackers, as well as the generations +of hackers that came after them. + +Surely the computer had changed THEIR lives, enriched their +lives, given their lives focus, made their lives adventurous. It +had made them masters of a certain slice of fate. Peter Samson +later said, "We did it twenty-five to thirty percent for the sake +of doing it because it was something we could do and do well, and +sixty percent for the sake of having something which was in its +metaphorical way alive, our offspring, which would do things on +its own when we were finished. That's the great thing about +programming, the magical appeal it has . . . Once you fix a +behavioral problem [a computer or program] has, it's fixed +forever, and it is exactly an image of what you meant." + +LIKE ALADDIN'S LAMP, YOU COULD GET IT TO DO YOUR BIDDING. + +Surely everyone could benefit from experiencing this power. +Surely everyone could benefit from a world based on the Hacker +Ethic. This was the implicit belief of the hackers, and the +hackers irreverently extended the conventional point of view of +what computers could and should do--leading the world to a new +way of looking and interacting with computers. + +This was not easily done. Even at such an advanced institution +as MIT, some professors considered a manic affinity for computers +as frivolous, even demented. TMRC hacker Bob Wagner once had to +explain to an engineering professor what a computer was. Wagner +experienced this clash of computer versus anti-computer even more +vividly when he took a Numerical Analysis class in which the +professor required each student to do homework using rattling, +clunky electromechanical calculators. Kotok was in the same +class, and both of them were appalled at the prospect of working +with those lo-tech machines. "Why should we," they asked, "when +we've got this computer?" + +So Wagner began working on a computer program that would emulate +the behavior of a calculator. The idea was outrageous. To some, +it was a misappropriation of valuable machine time. According to +the standard thinking on computers, their time was too precious +that one should only attempt things which took maximum advantage +of the computer, things that otherwise would take roomfuls of +mathematicians days of mindless calculating. Hackers felt +otherwise: anything that seemed interesting or fun was fodder for +computing--and using interactive computers, with no one looking +over your shoulder and demanding clearance for your specific +project, you could act on that belief. After two or three months +of tangling with intricacies of floating-point arithmetic +(necessary to allow the program to know where to place the +decimal point) on a machine that had no simple method to perform +elementary multiplication, Wagner had written three thousand +lines of code that did the job. He had made a ridiculously +expensive computer perform the function of a calculator that cost +a thousand times less. To honor this irony, he called the +program Expensive Desk Calculator, and proudly did the homework +for his class on it. + +His grade--zero. "You used a computer!" the professor told him. +"This CAN'T be right." + +Wagner didn't even bother to explain. How could he convey to his +teacher that the computer was making realities out of what were +once incredible possibilities? Or that another hacker had even +written a program called Expensive Typewriter that converted the +TX-0 to something you could write text on, could process your +writing in strings of characters and print it out on the +Flexowriter--could you imagine a professor accepting a classwork +report WRITTEN BY THE COMPUTER? How could that professor--how +could, in fact, anyone who hadn't been immersed in this uncharted +man-machine universe--understand how Wagner and his fellow +hackers were routinely using the computer to simulate, according +to Wagner, "strange situations which one could scarcely envision +otherwise"? The professor would learn in time, as would +everyone, that the world opened up by the computer was a +limitless one. + +If anyone needed further proof, you could cite the project that +Kotok was working on in the Computation Center, the chess program +that bearded Al professor "Uncle" John McCarthy, as he was +becoming known to his hacker students, had begun on the IBM 704. +Even though Kotok and the several other hackers helping him on +the program had only contempt for the IBM batch-processing +mentality that pervaded the machine and the people around it, +they had managed to scrounge some late-night time to use it +interactively, and had been engaging in an informal battle with +the systems programmers on the 704 to see which group would be +known as the biggest consumer of computer time. The lead would +bounce back and forth, and the white-shirt-and-black-tie 704 +people were impressed enough to actually let Kotok and his group +touch the buttons and switches on the 704: rare sensual contact +with a vaunted IBM beast. + +Kotok's role in bringing the chess program to life was indicative +of what was to become the hacker role in Artificial Intelligence: +a Heavy Head like McCarthy or like his colleague Marvin Minsky +would begin a project or wonder aloud whether something might be +possible, and the hackers, if it interested them, would set about +doing it. + +The chess program had been started using FORTRAN, one of the +early computer languages. Computer languages look more like +English than assembly language, are easier to write with, and do +more things with fewer instructions; however, each time an +instruction is given in a computer language like FORTRAN, the +computer must first translate that command into its own binary +language. A program called a compiler does this, and the +compiler takes up time to do its job, as well as occupying +valuable space within the computer. In effect, using a computer +language puts you an extra step away from direct contact with the +computer, and hackers generally preferred assembly or, as they +called it, "machine" language to less elegant, "higher-level" +languages like FORTRAN. + +Kotok, though, recognized that because of the huge amounts of +numbers that would have to be crunched in a chess program, part +of the program would have to be done in FORTRAN, and part in +assembly. They hacked it part by part, with "move generators," +basic data structures, and all kinds of innovative algorithms for +strategy. After feeding the machine the rules for moving each +piece, they gave it some parameters by which to evaluate its +position, consider various moves, and make the move which would +advance it to the most advantageous situation. Kotok kept at it +for years, the program growing as MIT kept upgrading its IBM +computers, and one memorable night a few hackers gathered to see +the program make some of its first moves in a real game. Its opener +was quite respectable, but after eight or so exchanges there was real +trouble, with the computer about to be checkmated. Everybody +wondered how the computer would react. It too a while (everyone +knew that during those pauses the computer was actually "thinking," +if your idea of thinking included mechanically considering +various moves, evaluating them, rejecting most, and using a +predefined set of parameters to ultimately make a choice). Finally, +the computer moved a pawn two squares forward--illegally jumping +over another piece. A bug! But a clever one--it got the computer +out of check. Maybe the program was figuring out some new +algorithm with which to conquer chess. + +At other universities, professors were making public proclamations +that computers would never be able to beat a human being in chess. +Hackers knew better. They would be the ones who would guide +computers to greater heights than anyone expected. And the hackers, +by fruitful, meaningful association with the computer, would be +foremost among the beneficiaries. + +But they would not be the only beneficiaries. Everyone could gain +something by the use of thinking computers in an intellectually +automated world. And wouldn't everyone benefit even more by +approaching the world with the same inquisitive intensity, +skepticism toward bureaucracy, openness to creativity, +unselfishness in sharing accomplishments, urge to make improvements, +and desire to build as those who followed the Hacker Ethic? +By accepting others on the same unprejudiced basis by which +computers accepted anyone who entered code into a Flexowriter? +Wouldn't we benefit if we learned from computers the means of +creating a perfect system? If EVERYONE could interact with +computers with the same innocent, productive, creative impulse +that hackers did, the Hacker Ethic might spread through society +like a benevolent ripple, and computers would indeed change +the world for the better. + +In the monastic confines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, +people had the freedom to live out this dream--the hacker dream. +No one dared suggest that the dream might spread. Instead, people +set about building, right there at MIT, a hacker Xanadu the likes +of which might never be duplicated. + + + + + + +**This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg Etext, Details Below** + + +Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy +(C)1984 by Steven Levy + + +End of the 1996 Project Gutenberg Etext of Hackers, by Steven Levy + diff --git a/old/hckrs10.zip b/old/hckrs10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f777b73 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hckrs10.zip |