Tech Model Railroad Club
The Tech Model Railroad Club ( TMRC ) is a student organization at MIT and one of the most famous model railroad clubs in the world. Built in the nominal size H0 plant is designed for automated operation. The TMRC founded in 1946, is considered one of the birthplaces of the hacker culture.
Plant
A fictional east-west route in the America of the 1950s is reproduced, shortly after the end of the steam era on the system. Already at the beginning of the members who had a very technical background through their work or training at MIT, focused less on modellbauerische design rather than the desire for automation.
Already in 1962, was the plant control system, consisting of about 1200 relays, known for its complexity. Everywhere around the room RESA switches were placed with which in an emergency - such as a risk of collision - the trains can be stopped. Another feature of the system was a clock with seven segment display on the control panel, their implementation in relay logic for that time can be considered a miracle itself. If one of the RESA - switch is operated, the display of the clock on the word FOO jumped, so the RESA - switches were called in TMRC circles as " foo switches ' .
Around 1964, the control was replaced by a system around a clearinghouse computer type 5XB switch. As early as 1970 it was supplemented by two donated PDP-1 computer, which was also attended by the control of the freight depot. For many students this was the first practical application of computers.
In 1997, the TMRC of Building 20, a " makeshift " property moved from the pre-war period, in the building at N52, which is home to the University Museum of the MIT. As a result of this relocation, most of the plant was destroyed, a new has since been under construction. This system is controlled by a network known as System 3 and existing from about 40 PIC16F877 microcontrollers, which is controlled by a Linux PC. Another "hack " is a 18 -story replica of a building at MIT campuses, which, equipped with lights in the windows, can be used to play Tetris on it. It is a tribute to a legendary (albeit fictional) hack of MIT students.
Influence on the hacker culture
A stimulating description of those years can be found in the book Hackers by Steven Levy. Among other things, the TMRC had organized a Signals and Power Subcommittee, which work between relays, switches and cables devoted himself, or a Midnight requisitioning Committee which components bypassing the procurement guidelines of the campus. The Signals and Power Subcommittee recruited mostly from the ranks of the IBM 704 - and the TX -0 hackers and from people who should form the core of the staff of the MIT Artificial Intelligence laboratorys later. These compounds also after nearly 40 years still existed, such as recording a larger number of terms from the TMRC shows in the Hacker Jargon File dictionary.
Many of the terms in the dictionary of the TMRC Language, which was compiled by Peter Samson in 1959, and from which some say he used the term " information wants to be free " was coined, are the basic vocabulary of hacker vocabulary, become (especially "foo", " determination ", and " frob ").
It was also developed with Spacewar! , By Steve Russell in the TMRC one of the first interactive computer games.