The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) is a student organization at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Historically it has
been a wellspring of hacker culture.\
The first meeting was organized by John Fitzallen Moore and Walter
Marvin in November 1946.[2] Moore and Marvin had membership cards
#0 and #1. They served as the first president and vice-president
respectively, and switched these roles the following year.
Circa 1948, the club obtained space in Room 20E-214, on the third
floor of Building 20, a "temporary" World War II-era structure,
sometimes called "the Plywood Palace,"[3] which had been home to
the MIT Radiation Lab during World War II.
The club's members, who shared a passion to find out how things
worked and then to master them, were among the first hackers.
[1]
Some of the key early members of the club were Jack
Dennis and Peter Samson, who compiled the 1959 Dictionary of the
TMRC Language[4] and who are credited with originating the concept
"Information wants to be free".[5] The atmosphere was casual;
members disliked authority.[citation needed] Members received a key to the
room after logging 40 hours of work on the layout.[6]
John McCarthy
Jack Dennis
Peter Deutsch
Alan Kotok
Richard Greenblatt
John Fitzallen Moore
Peter Samson
'Slug' Russell
The Book of Mozilla is a computer Easter egg found in
the Netscape and Mozilla series of web browsers.[1][2] It is viewed by directing the
browser to about:mozilla .[3][4][5]
There is no real book titled The Book of Mozilla. However, apparent quotations
hidden in Netscape and Mozilla give this impression by revealing passages in the
style of apocalyptic literature, such as the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
When about:mozilla is typed into the location bar, various versions of these
browsers display a cryptic message in white text on a maroon background in the
browser window.
There are seven official verses of The Book of Mozilla which have been included
in shipping releases, although various unofficial verses can be found on
the Internet. All seven official verses have scriptural chapter and verse
references, although these are actually references to important dates in the
history of Netscape and Mozilla.
The seven verses all refer to the activities of a fearsome-sounding "beast". In its
early days, Netscape Communications had a green fire-breathing dragon-
like lizardmascot, known as Mozilla (after the code name for Netscape Navigator
1.0). From this, it can be conjectured that the "beast" referred to in The Book of
Mozilla is a type of fire-breathing lizard, which can be viewed as a metaphor for,
or personification of Netscape.
