First, my apologies. I didn't mean for my original message to be sent
public.
On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:
> The name hacker has been dragged through the mud for far too long.
> There's almost no real record of the 1st and 2nd generation hacks. (1st
> were the hacks at MIT. 2nd were those at Berkeley and elsewhere, who
> adjusted the Hacker Ethic to allow for making money. 3rd are the
> present-day warez loosers. [They're here for refrence. Technically,
Not true. Read _Hackers_ by Steven Levy. It embodies the tale of the
first two generations you mentioned and then also goes into the game
hackers of the early 80s on microcomputers. An excellent book. I've read
it twice (first in 1988) and may bring it on my next trip to read again.
As far as the warez-loozers, well, they are just that, warez-loozers, and
will be a footnote in some future book.
> they don't count]) All that survives to the actual public is the image
> of some cybernerd on drugs with wild hair maliciously attacking big
> companies just to be a punk. My brother hates computers, and he's
> closer to THAT description than I am.
Heheh. So true, unfortunately. The other extreme is the
fat-pud-who-eats-while-he's-hacking stereotype and then the
thick-glasses-total-dweeb-high-pitched-voice-hacker stereotype.
> Of course, I'm still not as good as the 1st-gen guys. I can't solder
> any good, I have nearly no idea how to wire-wrap or use a slide rule,
> and I can't do number conversion in my head yet. I'm not very good at
> math. (I can do it with a calculator, but I tend to drop numbers left
> and right with big variables) I still have some to go... -------
That's all myth, Daniel (except for the number-conversion-in-the-head,
starting working at it :). The fact is, you don't NEED to know how to
wire-wrap or use a slide-rule. They would be impressive skills and might
get you a date some day, but if we still NEEDED to use those tools to this
day then we wouldn't have progressed much in the realm of technology and
that would be very sucky.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Fri Feb 06 1998 - 11:54:55 GMT