2  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  TMRC  /tmerk'/  n.  The  Tech  Model  Railroad  Club  at  MIT,  one  of 
  the  wellsprings  of  hacker  culture.  The  1959  "Dictionary  of  the  TMRC 
  Language"  compiled  by  Peter  Samson  included  several  terms  that  became 
  basics  of  the  hackish  vocabulary  (see  esp.  {foo},  {mung},  and  {frob}). 
 
  By  1962,  TMRC's  legendary  layout  was  already  a  marvel  of  complexity 
  and  has  grown  in  the  years  since.  All  the  features  described  here 
  were  still  present  when  the  old  layout  was  decomissioned  in  1998  just 
  before  the  demolition  of  MIT  Building  20,  and  will  almost  certainly  be 
  retained  when  the  old  layout  is  rebuilt  (expected  in  2003).  The  control 
  system  alone  featured  about  1200  relays.  There  were  {scram  switch}es 
  located  at  numerous  places  around  the  room  that  could  be  thwacked  if 
  something  undesirable  was  about  to  occur,  such  as  a  train  going  full-bore 
  at  an  obstruction.  Another  feature  of  the  system  was  a  digital  clock  on 
  the  dispatch  board,  which  was  itself  something  of  a  wonder  in  those  bygone 
  days  before  cheap  LEDs  and  seven-segment  displays.  When  someone  hit  a 
  scram  switch  the  clock  stopped  and  the  display  was  replaced  with  the  word 
  `FOO';  at  TMRC  the  scram  switches  are  therefore  called  `foo  switches'. 
 
  Steven  Levy,  in  his  book  Hackers"  (see  the  {Bibliography}  in 
  Appendix  C),  gives  a  stimulating  account  of  those  early  years.  TMRC's 
  Signals  and  Power  Committee  included  many  of  the  early  PDP-1  hackers 
  and  the  people  who  later  became  the  core  of  the  MIT  AI  Lab  staff. 
  Thirty  years  later  that  connection  is  still  very  much  alive,  and  this 
  lexicon  accordingly  includes  a  number  of  entries  from  a  recent  revision 
  of  the  TMRC  dictionary 
 
  TMRC  has  a  web  page  at  `http://web.mit.edu/tmrc/www/'. 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  TMRC 
 
  /tmerk'/  The  Tech  Model  Railroad  Club  at  {MIT},  one  of  the 
  wellsprings  of  {hacker}  culture.  The  1959  "Dictionary  of  the 
  TMRC  Language"  compiled  by  Peter  Samson  included  several  terms 
  that  became  basics  of  the  hackish  vocabulary  (see  especially 
  {foo},  {mung},  and  {frob}). 
 
  By  1962,  TMRC's  legendary  layout  was  already  a  marvel  of 
  complexity  (and  has  grown  in  the  thirty  years  since;  all  the 
  features  described  here  are  still  present).  The  control 
  system  alone  featured  about  1200  relays.  There  were  {scram 
  switch}es  located  at  numerous  places  around  the  room  that 
  could  be  thwacked  if  something  undesirable  was  about  to  occur, 
  such  as  a  train  going  full-bore  at  an  obstruction.  Another 
  feature  of  the  system  was  a  digital  clock  on  the  dispatch 
  board,  which  was  itself  something  of  a  wonder  in  those  bygone 
  days  before  cheap  LEDS  and  seven-segment  displays.  When 
  someone  hit  a  scram  switch  the  clock  stopped  and  the  display 
  was  replaced  with  the  word  "FOO";  at  TMRC  the  scram  switches 
  are  therefore  called  "foo  switches". 
 
  Steven  Levy,  in  his  book  "Hackers",  gives  a  stimulating 
  account  of  those  early  years.  TMRC's  Power  and  Signals  group 
  included  most  of  the  early  {PDP-1}  hackers  and  the  people  who 
  later  bacame  the  core  of  the  {MIT}  {AI  Lab}  staff.  Thirty 
  years  later  that  connection  is  still  very  much  alive,  and  this 
  dictionary  accordingly  includes  a  number  of  entries  from  a 
  recent  revision  of  the  TMRC  dictionary  (via  the  Hacker  Jargon 
  File). 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
 

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