Hackers

[John Kennedy]

To prepare for the PiDP-1, I can recommend a read (or listen) to Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. It sets the scene and describes the sense of the period very well. 

Any other book recommendations?

[Lars Brinkhoff]

To prepare for the PiDP-1, I can recommend a read (or listen) to Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. It sets the scene and describes the sense of the period very well. 

Any other book recommendations?

There is no other book like that with a focus on PDP-1, 6, or 10 hackers, be they at MIT or elsewhere.  Maybe Computing in the Middle Ages.  There are several books about ARPANET, which can be said to have some overlap; I think Abbate is best.

[Clem Cole]

"Where Wizards Stay up Late" Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyons - ISBN: 9780684832678

"Inventing the Internet" Janet Abbate ISBN: 0262511150

Levy's book is good, but incomplete.  He wrote it assuming just the left and right coasts in particular, which isn't fair to many people who were part of the formation of what we now call the Internet and who were 'hackers' at other places.  That said, it is a good history for MIT and the TX-0 and the PDP-1.

Hafner and Lyons did the best job of the three, IMO.

On Wed, Aug 20, 2025 at 5:51 PM John Kennedy <johntk...@gmail.com> wrote:

To prepare for the PiDP-1, I can recommend a read (or listen) to Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. It sets the scene and describes the sense of the period very well. 

Any other book recommendations?

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[Glenn Babecki]

Oops, I blew the attachment limit.  Here's a hopefully shorter version, with fewer pictures, in the event that none of the original got through.

A little off topic, by a computer generation or two, I have some pictures of what's left of the Whirlwind 1 that was on display at the MIT museum.

Unfortunately the TX -0 morphed i to the TX-2, and only a TX-2 core memory plane exits somewhere in the MIT museum. I didn't come across it during my reunion tour.

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[John Kennedy]

Thanks for the book recommendations and pictures. I've never been to the MIT museum and would love to see more.

[Norbert Landsteiner]

Complementary reading: "Services curtailed, Telephone hackers active" by By Henry Lichstein

The Tech, Vol. 83, No.24; MIT, Nov. 20, 1963, p.1

PDF-Copy: https://thetech.com/issues/83/24/pdf

This is the remarkable tale of actual phone phreaking/hacking using the PDP-1 in 1963. According to the article, this wasn't the first incident, as a previous one  "caused the expulsion from the Institute of one member of the Class of '63 one week before his graduation." Also, MIT's communication infrastructure was already hardened, because of this, when the article was written in Sept/Nov 1963.

From this we also learn that the PDP-1 at MIT had access to the telephone system before summer 1963 (something I have seen claimed as a pioneering feat for the PDP-4 before.) There may be still some to be learned about early networking.

Last, but not least, this also paints a quite different picture of hacking culture at MIT than Levy's portrayal.

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