Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

that often formed in the aftermath of a Minskytron display.The variations were endless. By switching a few parameters you could turn thegame into "hydraulic Spacewar," in which torpedoes flow out in ejaculatorystreams instead of one by one. Or, as the night grew later and people becamelocked into interstellar mode, someone might shout, "Let's turn on the Winds ofSpace!" and someone would hack up a warping factor which would force playersto make adjustments every time they moved. Though any improvement a hackerwished to make would be welcome, it was extremely bad form to make someweird change in the game unannounced. The effective social pressures whichenforced the Hacker Ethic which urged hands-on for improvement, not damageprevented any instance of that kind of mischief. Anyway, the hackers were alreadyengaged in a mind-boggling tweak of the system they were using an expensivecomputer to play the world's most glorified game!Spacewar was played a hell of a lot. For some, it was addictive. Though no onecould officially sign up the PDP-1 for a Spacewar session, the machine's everyfree moment that spring seemed to have some version of the game running. Bottlesof Coke in hand (and sometimes with money on the line), the hackers would runmarathon tournaments. Russell eventually wrote a subroutine that would keepscore, displaying in octal (everyone could sight-read that base-eight numbersystem by then) the total of games won. For a while, the main drawback seemed tobe that working the switches on the console of the PDP-1 was uncomfortableeverybody was getting sore elbows from keeping their arms at that particularangle. So one day Kotok and Saunders went over to the TMRC clubroom andfound parts for what would become the first computer joysticks. Constructedtotally with parts lying around the clubroom and thrown together in an hour ofinspired construction, the control boxes were made of wood, with Masonite tops.They had switches for rotation and thrust, as well as a button for hyperspace. Allcontrols were, of course, silent, so that you could surreptitiously circle around youropponent or duck into Nth space, should you care to.While some hackers lost interest in Spacewar once the fury of the programmingphase had died down, others developed a killer instinct for devising strategies tomow down opponents. Most games were won and lost in ..the first few seconds.Wagner became adept at the "lie in wait" strategy, in which you stayed silent whilegravity whipped you around the sun, then straightened out and began blastingtorps at your opponent. Then there was a variation called the "CBS Opening,"where you angled to shoot and then whipped around the star: the strategy got itsname because when both Spacewar gladiators tried it, they would leave a patternon the screen that bore a remarkable resemblance to the CBS eye. Saunders, whotook his Spacewar seriously, used a modified CBS strategy to maintain dominancethrough the tournaments there was a time when he couldn't be beaten. However,