The first
self-described computer hackers of the 1960s MIT campus
originated from a late 1950s student group called the
Tech Model Railroad Club. A tight clique within the
club was the Signals and Power (S&P) Committee-the
group behind the railroad club's electrical circuitry
system. The system was a sophisticated assortment of
relays and switches similar to the kind that controlled
the local campus phone system. To control it, a member
of the group simply dialed in commands via a connected
phone and watched the trains do his bidding.
The nascent electrical engineers responsible for
building and maintaining this system saw their activity
as similar in spirit to phone hacking. Adopting the
hacking term, they began refining it even further. From
the S&P hacker point of view, using one less relay to
operate a particular stretch of track meant having one
more relay for future play. Hacking subtly shifted from
a synonym for idle play to a synonym for idle play that
improved the overall performance or efficiency of the
club's railroad system at the same time.
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