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TMRC / tmerk'/ The Tech Model Railroad Club at { MIT}, one of the
wellsprings of { hacker} culture. The 1959 " Dictionary of the
TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms
that became basics of the hackish vocabulary ( see especially
{ foo}, { mung}, and { frob}).
By 1962, TMRC' s legendary layout was already a marvel of
complexity ( and has grown in the thirty years since; all the
features described here are still present). The control
system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were { scram
switch} es located at numerous places around the room that
could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur,
such as a train going full- bore at an obstruction. Another
feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch
board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone
days before cheap LEDS and seven- segment displays. When
someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display
was replaced with the word " FOO"; at TMRC the scram switches
are therefore called " foo switches".
Steven Levy, in his book " Hackers", gives a stimulating
account of those early years. TMRC' s Power and Signals group
included most of the early { PDP- 1} hackers and the people who
later bacame the core of the { MIT} { AI Lab} staff. This
dictionary accordingly includes a number of entries from the
TMRC dictionary ( via the Hacker Jargon File).
[{ Jargon File}]
( 2008- 06- 30) TMRC: / tmerk´/, n. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary ( see esp. foo, mung, and frob). By 1962, TMRC' s legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity and has grown in the years since. All the features described here were still present when the old layout was decommissioned in 1998 just before the demolition of MIT Building 20, and will almost certainly be retained when the old layout is rebuilt ( expected in 2003). The control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were scram switches located at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going full- bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDs and seven- segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the word ‘ FOO’; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called foo switches. Steven Levy, in his book Hackers ( see the Bibliography in Appendix C), gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC' s Signals and Power Committee included many of the early PDP- 1 hackers and the people who later became the core of the MIT AI Lab staff. Thirty years later that connection is still very much alive, and this lexicon accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent revision of the TMRC dictionary. TMRC has a web page at http:// tmrc- www. mit. edu/. The TMRC Dictionary is available there, at http:// tmrc- www. mit. edu/ dictionary. html.
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