Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr
From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.college
Subject: Re: Free and undirected campus computing facilities - Not at Waterloo
Message-ID: <466@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Nov-84 03:41:35 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.466
Posted: Fri Nov 16 03:41:35 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Nov-84 05:04:25 EST
References: <457@utcsrgv.UUCP> <649@watdcsu.UUCP>, <425@watcgl.UUCP>, <652@watdcsu.UUCP> <9840@watmath.UUCP> <1502@hcrvax.UUCP>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 23

From Hugh Redelmeier:
>I presume the current generation uses its own personal computers.

This is significant difference from the past generations Hugh mentioned,
I believe.  Hacking has changed from a way of drawing naturally rather
reclusive people together (by bringing them to a common physical location
for long periods of time) to a way of reinforcing the seclusion.

Now, there *is* a very definite community of "micro hackers" but it
seems much less tightly-knit, and this is understandable-- they just aren't
together for as long hacking.  Also, it seems there may be some significance
to the fact that past-generation hacks worked on a common machine, so sharing
software was done in a different way than the current practice of swapping
disks.  The relative lack of source availability for micro software affects
the situation too, as does the large amount of commercial software available.
But I won't venture any more "armchair sociology"-- just to say that I
have a gut feeling that there's something interesting going on, that
it *is* different from past generations, and that there is still worth
in providing an undirected, free, totally hackable, physically centralized
facility (need not be a timesharing machine; a network of micros might
do too).

p. rowley, U. Toronto