True to the word's roots, it also meant
writing programs that served no other purpose than to
amuse or entertain.
A classic example of this expanded hacking definition
is the game Spacewar, the first interactive video game.
Developed by MIT hackers in the early 1960s, Spacewar
had all the traditional hacking definitions: it was
goofy and random, serving little useful purpose other
than providing a nightly distraction for the dozen or
so hackers who delighted in playing it. From a software
perspective, however, it was a monumental testament to
innovation of programming skill. It was also completely
free. Because hackers had built it for fun, they saw no
reason to guard their creation, sharing it extensively
with other programmers. By the end of the 1960s,
Spacewar had become a favorite diversion for mainframe
programmers around the world.
This notion of collective innovation and communal
software ownership distanced the act of computer
hacking in the 1960s from the tunnel hacking and phone
hacking of the 1950s.
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