tmrc

2 definitions found

tmrc - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  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]
  

tmrc - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  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.