How the RESISTORS put computing into 1960s counter-culture(spectrum.ieee.org)
spectrum.ieee.org
How the RESISTORS put computing into 1960s counter-culture
https://spectrum.ieee.org/teenage-hackers
13 comments
This resonates. A lot of real technical talent starts with curiosity and boundary-pushing as a teenager. Treating that impulse as purely criminal instead of something to mentor and redirect feels like a great way to waste the next generation of engineers and security researchers.
It is a wonderful (and intriguing) to see the response. I was the first President of the club and starting as the Really Enthusiastic Students Involved in Science Or Research Studies, and it fascinating to see how it evolved and participants grew in their enthusiasm and skills. We actually started in an out-building of an actual Poor Farm, and then had the opportunity (facilitated by my bad) to connect with Claude and George and move to the barn. With our first computer, a Burroughs 205, being in the barn, insects and spiders were an issue - debugging was focused on the living bugs, then the programming ones. We need to encourage our youth to explore and grow, wihout limits. Amazing experience. Chris Brigham
> They borrowed an acoustic coupler—a forerunner of the computer modem—and connected it to a nearby pay phone
The acoustic coupler is mounted on a modem, and is just the cradle where you rest a handset. The device is not a forerunner of a modem, it is a modem.
The acoustic coupler is mounted on a modem, and is just the cradle where you rest a handset. The device is not a forerunner of a modem, it is a modem.
Almost. A modem sometimes had a phone jack as well as a coupler, for those cases when the handset was hardwired into the phone and the phone was hardwired into the wall.
We tapped where we could and we were happy. Bonus points if the rotary phone had a lock on it and you dialed out by pulsing the hangup switch.
We tapped where we could and we were happy. Bonus points if the rotary phone had a lock on it and you dialed out by pulsing the hangup switch.
Often, one could dial out by pulsing the on hook switch on any phone. Ask me how I know. That was such a fun discovery! I did it frequently from many different phones.
This is an excerpt from the book “README
A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines” by W. Patrick McCray.
MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553483/readme/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/README-Computing-Electronic-Everythin...
MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553483/readme/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/README-Computing-Electronic-Everythin...
In 2007 several people and I started NYC Resistor, a hacker space in Brooklyn, completely unaware of this resistors in New Jersey.
It was over 10 years later that any of us heard of this much older resistor. It's kinda it funny how similar we are to them, nearly shared a name, and completely unaware of each other.
The world needs more places where people can explore their curiosity of how things work.
It was over 10 years later that any of us heard of this much older resistor. It's kinda it funny how similar we are to them, nearly shared a name, and completely unaware of each other.
The world needs more places where people can explore their curiosity of how things work.
Trac64 implementation:
https://git.luxferre.top/nntrac/
https://git.luxferre.top/nntrac/
Web site is still up, resistors.org . It looks like John and Margy Levine (first generation Resistors) are running it now. I think Dave Fox (2nd generation I guess) took care of it before. The linked article looks pretty good. There were a bunch of paper archives kept around that are probably still interesting. I don't know who has them now or if they still exist.
I didn't know about Trac64 or that Trac even really had the concept of bits. It was all string operations, including string arithmetic in arbitrary precision, I thought. But I never used it much. It could be seen as a weird take on both Forth and Lisp.
#(ps,#(rs))
I didn't know about Trac64 or that Trac even really had the concept of bits. It was all string operations, including string arithmetic in arbitrary precision, I thought. But I never used it much. It could be seen as a weird take on both Forth and Lisp.
#(ps,#(rs))
A maker space https://www.nycresistor.com/
> Being able to work with computers interactively and in real time was generally unavailable to nonprofessional computer users at the time [1966].
What a game-changer and privilege. What hope did kids have to learn about computing at the time? Reading about it in books and magazines wouldn't seem to be sufficient. Did people outside the computer professionals in the special room get to use them? What about people in accounting, science, mathematics, ballistics, etc.?