Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus

Class 5 - Warez // Culture of Hacking

Apéritif

RFC as koan

Emulator as koan

Themes

Prompts

Description

Episodes: - S1E10 “1984”, S2E1 “SETI”, S2E2 “New Coke”

The last episode in this block features someone being accused of being a hacker – through hacking into the network, hacking by changing the source code of a game, and hacking by distributing it freely, via copied floppy disks. There are other characteristics of “hacking” in the previous two episodes, too, except they have more to do with “social engineering” practices than changing computer bits.

“Hacking” on games is essential to the culture doing this time, and led to the prominent and influencial demoscene and warez scenes.

Readings