Massimiliano Brolli : 11 November 2025 12:38
The word hacking comes from the English verb “to hack,” which means “to damage.”
Today, with this short article, I will tell you a piece of the history of hacking, where it all began, precisely on the ground floor of Building 26 at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), precisely in 1958 at the Tech Model Railroad Club, by model railway enthusiasts.
The club, which ran a very sophisticated model railway, was drastically divided into two factions:
The system was constantly improved, renewed, perfected, especially when it became “gronked,” in club slang meaning “ruined.”
The freshmen collaborated with the senior members, but all were bright, intelligent people, top of the class, strictly in plaid short-sleeved shirts, khaki trousers and a bottle of Coca-Cola in their hands.
But the most important thing for all the club members was to work and grow together or individually on a project, to make mistakes and then try again and constantly learn from them.
This, they said, was the only way to advance in knowledge, but look… they weren’t a bunch of nutcases.
Imagine that they had a vocabulary all their own (which later became the famous jargon file) that the others couldn’t even begin to understand. They were kids who lost their minds first for toy trains and then for computers.
There were also some unusual members. There was a certain Morton, who would suddenly fall into a catatonic state. His fists would clench, his body would stiffen, and his physical activity would reduce him to a vegetative state. But the brotherly bonds were so strong in the club that not only was Morton’s behavior easily tolerated, but some even found effective therapy.
Morton was a great chess player (a common thing among hackers, such as those with Asperger’s syndrome) and at that time he was working on a program to make computers play chess.
When he fell into his catatonic state, it was enough to utter the phrase “Morton, how about a nice game of chess?” and Morton would mechanically sit down at the table and begin a silent game of chess that finally brought him back to earth.
From here, from this particular place, the famous motto ” get your hands on” took shape , adopted in programming later, to highlight the importance of proceeding empirically, as well as theoretically, in the study of a discipline.
But what does all this have to do with IT and hacker culture?
The word “hacker” originated from the Signal and Power faction. In fact, the system was initially governed by an IBM 704 mainframe, later moving on to the TIX-0 or tixO and subsequent processors, up until arriving at today’s new technologies.
But at the Tech Model Railroad Club , they didn’t just play with model trains; they also talked about military computers and music programs. This is where the hacker ethic was born, a sort of “programmatic manifesto” that could not fail to resonate with the libertarian spirit of the 1960s.
Because yesterday as today, hacking is exploration, manipulation, understanding things as they are made inside to improve them, “ seeing beyond”, through intuition, genius and art.
So being a Hacker doesn’t just refer to computer security, as we often spontaneously intuit today, but encompasses all disciplines.
So, in your work, you’re a hacker too?
Massimiliano Brolli