tmrc

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
   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 (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.
    

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)