History of Hackers

The early history of hackers is centered early in the 1950's and 1960's. Naturally curious and intelligent IT (Information Technology) students who had been exploring the control systems of computers. A group of students, many of who came from which had an incredibly complicated switching system for its model railroad were able to use a couple MIT computers very late at night. So they started to write programs. Showing how hierarchical computer access was, one computer (an IBM 704 worth several millions) was guarded by a group of people who were called "The Priesthood."

This was the "golden age'' of the computer hacker. The machines were large, slow, not advisable to use, and it took an extraordinary effort to make them do even the simplest computation. Although this less than 40 years ago, to the programmer of today is like looking through the mists of time into the genesis of computing. The legendary feats of the early hackers are made all the more amazing by the primitive nature of the machines they were using and the tools they had at their disposal.

Computers ran around the clock and there were always a group of students ready to fill-in in case someone would not show up for their slot. It wasn’t only college students who were interested. One faculty kid turned hacker. He got computer time under a false name and wrote his first program at the age of twelve. As they had to write basic programs to run the computer, they shared their work freely.

As computers spread to other parts of the country, so did the hacker culture. Largely initiated by hackers who had their beginning at mid 1960's saw centers of hacker culture developed at other universities.

The third wave of hacker activity was born in northern California without direct genealogy to hackers. It started with some Computer Club in San Francisco bay area. This was a group of electronic hobbyists with a common interest in the then radical idea of building their own computers. Because of the size and cost of the early computers, early hackers were restricted to using a small number of machines built by large companies and installed at universities or industrial research centers. This third wave of hackers wanted their own machines that they could not only program at home, but also build and modify the computer hardware at home. It was this group of hackers, which includes legendary figures like Bill Gates, that formed the foundation for the entire personal computer industry of today.