28 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
28 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>TMRC</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../T.html" title="T"/><link rel="previous" href="TLA.html" title="TLA"/><link rel="next" href="TMRCie.html" title="TMRCie"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">TMRC</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="TLA.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">T</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="TMRCie.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="TMRC"/><dt xmlns="" id="TMRC"><b>TMRC</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/tmerk´/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of
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hacker culture. The 1959 <i class="citetitle">Dictionary of the TMRC
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Language</i> compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that
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became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see
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esp. <a href="../F/foo.html"><i class="glossterm">foo</i></a>, <a href="../M/mung.html"><i class="glossterm">mung</i></a>, and
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<a href="../F/frob.html"><i class="glossterm">frob</i></a>).</p><p>By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity
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and has grown in the years since. All the features described here were
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still present when the old layout was decommissioned in 1998 just before
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the demolition of MIT Building 20, and will almost certainly be retained
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when the old layout is rebuilt (expected in 2003). The control system
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alone featured about 1200 relays. There were <a href="../S/scram-switch.html"><i class="glossterm">scram
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switch</i></a>es located at numerous places around the room that could
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be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train
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going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a
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digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder
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in those bygone days before cheap LEDs and seven-segment displays. When
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someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced
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with the word ‘FOO’; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore
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called <span class="firstterm">foo switches</span>.</p><p>Steven Levy, in his book <i class="citetitle">Hackers</i> (see the
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<a href="../pt03.html#bibliography" title="Bibliography">Bibliography</a> in Appendix C), gives a
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stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Signals and Power
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Committee included many of the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who later
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became the core of the MIT AI Lab staff. Thirty years later that
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connection is still very much alive, and this lexicon accordingly includes
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a number of entries from a recent revision of the TMRC dictionary.</p><p>TMRC has a web page at <a href="http://tmrc-www.mit.edu/" target="_top">http://tmrc-www.mit.edu/</a>. The TMRC
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Dictionary is available there, at <a href="http://tmrc-www.mit.edu/dictionary.html" target="_top">http://tmrc-www.mit.edu/dictionary.html</a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="TLA.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../T.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="TMRCie.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">TLA </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> TMRCie</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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