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 Definitions for TMRC: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
:
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 decomissioned 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'.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
:
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. Thirty
years later that connection is still very much alive, and this
dictionary accordingly includes a number of entries from a
recent revision of the TMRC dictionary (via the Hacker Jargon
File).
[Jargon File]
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Additionally, the TMRC is one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. ... TMRC's Signals and Power Subcommittee liked to work on the layout's relays, switches ...
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