Author: Massimiliano BrolliTranslator: Tara Lie In the beginning there was the Word… Computers, before passing into the era of transistors, were cyclopean machines – heavy and hungry for electricity. They used thermionic valves or vacuum tubes to work, and then were only able to perform very small computations. Let’s discuss for example the ENIAC, 1945, the first digital general-purpose computer, created to solve problems regarding the calculation of the ballistic curves of bullets. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) This gigantic computer took up 1800 square feet of space, and would consume about 150 kilowatts of power. It is said that the very

Author: Massimiliano BrolliOriginal Publication Date: 19/03/2021Translator: Tara Lie In this exciting story, we will catapult ourselves back to 1958 to MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club and meet Steve Russel, Steve was one of the first hackers and wrote one of the first video games in history, and the very first with a connected Gamepad. The Tech Model Railroad Club The TMRC was an exclusive club, as we have already seen, which was frequented by brilliant and interesting characters. They often fit into the classic “geeky” stereotype – bespectacled individuals, not particularly athletic or tall, and more likely to have a ruler in their pockets

Author: Massimiliano BrolliOriginal Publication Date: 20/07/2020Translator: Tara Lie In this brief article, I will discuss a piece of hacking history: where it all began. Precisely, hacking started in 1958 on the ground floor of Building 26 at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) at the Tech Model Railroad Club, by fans of model railways. The club managed a very sophisticated model railway, and was neatly divided into two factions: The first faction was called “Knife-and-paintbrush”. They spent most of their time recreating models of railway cars of times past, or building landscapes, in addition to reading magazines and making journeys on old