Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!know!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvax1!okunewck
From: okunewck@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: i don't wanna be a hacker anymore...
Message-ID: <F&p!kor2@cs.psu.edu>
Date: 15 Oct 90 19:28:08 GMT
References: <39489@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <20413@ttidca.TTI.COM> <1990Oct10.170946.26477@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet)
Organization: Random, at best
Lines: 45
Approved: My cat likes it
Nntp-Posting-Host: psuvax1.cs.psu.edu

jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) writes:
>|> ...Cliff Stoll referred to the crackers ... as hackers...
>
>  I wrote to Stoll about this...
>
>>"Once, I was proud to call myself a hacker.  Alas, those days are 
>>finished:  by 1986, Webster's New International Dictionary (3rd edition)
>>listed hacker as one who illegally accesses computers.  The fight
>>was lost before I entered the battle..."

    For ordinary mortals, it would be.  But we are hackers.  So what if
Webster thinks we break into systems to get our jollies?  He's no hacker.  
Half the fun in being a true hacker is being misunderstood by the general
public.  Kudos to Noah and his good book, for helping to further this
mystique.  But a pox on Cliff - he's a hacker, he should know better.
(On the other hand, how many of you can honestly say you've never referred
to crackers as "hackers"?)  (Be truthful, now.)

    As far as I'm concerned, leave the speling to Webster and leave the
hacking to us!

ObHack:
    On an fried Okidata disk drive, I found a mass of burned components and
a 1/2" hole burned completely through a driver board.  This would normally
be a good excuse to write "For Parts" on the board, and leave it on a shelf.
Which is one of the main reasons I repaired it - just to prove it could be
done.

    First, remove all the charred componenets, and test everything else
that was connected to the crispy critters.  Next, scrape away all the
charred areas of the board, along with curled-up traces.  I now had nothing
left but good board and componenets, with a massive hole in the middle.

    Now, the hack:  Auto body fiberglass.  I first made a fiberglass/epoxy
bridge across the hole to support the new "board".  When this dried, I put
a couple layers of fiberglass on, and pretty soon I had a complete (though
slightly uneven) board.  From there, it was easy - drill new holes, and
point-to-point wire the new components into place.

    And it worked again.  (It blew again 9 months later; I think this was
because of a part being weakened in the first burn.  It needed repair,
but no reconstructive surgery this time.)

							---Phil