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From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Cc: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: [TUHS] Tech Sq elevator (Was: screen editors)
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2020 12:27:47 -0500 (EST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20200110172747.90BDE18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> (raw)

    > From: Clem Cole

    > when she found out the elevators were hacked and controlled by the
    > student's different computers, she stopped using them and would take
    > the stairs 

It wasn't quite as major as this makes it sound! A couple of inconspicuous
wires were run from the 'TV 11' on the MIT-AI KA10 machine (the -11 that ran
the Knight displays) into the elevator controller, and run onto the terminals
where the wires from the 'down' call buttons on the 8th and 9th floors went.

So it wasn't anything major, and there was really no need for her to take the
stair (especially 8 flights up :-).

The code is still extant, in 'SYSTEM; TV >'. It only worked (I think) from
Knight TV keyboards; typing 'ESC E' called the elevator to the floor
that keyboard was on (there's a table, 'ELETAB', which gives the physical
floor for each keyboard).

The machine could also open the locked 9th floor door to the machine room
(with an 'ESC D'), and there some other less major things, e.g. print screen
hardcopy. I'm not sure what the hardware in the TV-11 was (this was all run
out of the 'keyboard multiplexor'); it may have been something the AI Lab
built from scratch.

      Noel

             reply	other threads:[~2020-01-10 17:28 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-01-10 17:27 Noel Chiappa [this message]
2020-01-10 17:45 ` [TUHS] Tech Sq elevator Lars Brinkhoff
2020-01-10 20:18 ` [TUHS] Tech Sq elevator (Was: screen editors) Angelo Papenhoff
2020-01-12 13:43 Doug McIlroy
2020-01-12 16:56 ` Warner Losh
2020-01-12 17:21   ` markus schnalke
2020-01-12 20:25   ` Kevin Bowling
2020-01-12 20:32     ` Larry McVoy
2020-01-12 20:34     ` Jon Steinhart
2020-01-12 20:40       ` Kevin Bowling
2020-01-12 20:44         ` Jon Steinhart
2020-01-12 21:03           ` Kevin Bowling
2020-01-12 21:41           ` Bakul Shah
2020-01-12 21:47             ` Jon Steinhart
2020-01-12 22:25 Doug McIlroy
2020-01-12 22:40 ` Kevin Bowling

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