About Conversation, Thought, and Language

by Diana K.

Some may wonder what conservation, thought, and language have to do with hacking in terms of expanding your knowledge of things and knowledge of your own perceptions.  Let me answer this with a true account.

My alma mater was University of Wisconsin - Parkside.  I graduated in pre-med and computer science with a breadth of knowledge in art and history (actually, an academic minor at other universities) at a difficult time in the United States, U.W. Parkside was established in 1968 at the most intense time of the Vietnam War as university protests were high at University of Wisconsin - Madison and other universities.

However, U.W. Parkside was established with a different conversation.  Many of the early professors were from U.W. Madison and did not wish to export the loss of conversation that had occurred at Madison.  So, an idea was set up that although a topic may be loaded or charged, U.W. Parkside was supposed to be a thoughtful and academic space built to coincide with nature (actually, the campus still coincides with nature as it is part of a forest coexisting with the urban space outside of the university).

The first practice of this principle occurred in computer science and business programming classes.  At that time in 1968, the university batched programs written in FORTRAN and COBOL to Madison to run and send results back.  The first practice was that students, guests, and faculty were not allowed to mock the computer language that one used to solve a problem on a computer, sort of like a Constitutional amendment of language and thought freedom.

A second part of the practice stated that U.W. Parkside's library would obtain books from many sources and authors - and that professorial pull was not allowed to decide what books, magazines, and newspapers the library could obtain.  The library was given complete independence from the administration and academic departments starting in 1968 and still continuing today.  The advantage of this was that the library was able to obtain newspapers and magazines like Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, European newspapers, as well as science journals like BioScience, Nature, and Biology from the U.K. outlier publications were also able to be obtained.  The ability to gain access to various thoughts reflected the policy of U.W. Parkside, which was to trust the reader that they could make up their own mind and evaluate without blinders or without muffling (a concern I have had since the end of 2020 with regard to the shutting down of social media sites on the Internet and the muffling of voices not in chorus with the majority party).

As a result, my language comprehension included French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian.  The comprehension included the ability to read, write, and speak - although my speaking fluency is reduced due to health issues.  The important thing is that I saw that it was not about one language being better than another, but rather that language provides a perspective to evaluate or express an idea from a different perspective.

As my language comprehension increased, I began to see that FORTRAN, COBOL, and PL/1 (the language I programmed in as a programmer) were different ways to perceive or express an idea.  So, I went from FORTRAN to BASIC to machine code (TI-58/59, SR-56, Z80, and PDP-11/20 assembly) to Pascal and others.

One summer, as I was transitioning from ninth grade in junior high school to tenth grade in senior high school, I decided I wanted to learn Pascal.  My dad told me that U.W. Parkside had a liberal policy of allowing non-students to have a practice computer account.  I went to the university computer center and asked for a non-student programming account to learn Pascal.  I filled out a form on green bar paper, about half a page, with information like name, address, phone number, and parent's name (for applicants under 18).  I was then asked to read a simple typed double-spaced page with rules of use.  After signing that, I was given a username, password, and assigned 128 blocks of storage.

"Blocks of storage" is an old term that is no longer used.  It is similar to how much diskspace you have to run or store programs on your hard drive.  A block at that time was 512 bytes.  So 128 blocks translated to 64 kilobytes of information.  This amount may seem low, but you have to remember that in the mid-1970s, many hard drives used on minicomputers for business were only ten megabytes, which is one millionth of a ten-terabyte disk drive in common use today.  Yet, that amount was sufficient to run many applications and programs back then.

The most important part of the open policy of non-student accounts then was that, compared to the security and rigor of today, it was a different time.  People trusted each other and opening an account for the local community was not something to worry about - we all knew each other.  With the environment that existed at U.W. Parkside, we did not have to worry about misuse of the account.  There were safeguards installed to prevent misuse.

Some in other parts of the world - or even other parts of the U.S. - will say "You guys were very naïve and immature to put that much trust into non-students."  Not really.  One has to remember Wisconsin as it existed in the time of the mid to late-1970s.  Where U.W. Parkside was located, the area was a refuge for those escaping the (((race politics))) of the state of Milwaukee and those escaping the one-party political state of Chicago.

My family moved back to Kenosha from Wauwatosa in 1974.  The race politics of Milwaukee had encroached upon Wauwatosa, and so we returned to my dad's home town.  Then, it was an auto town that valued education and arts, and was also away from everyone in various political groups yelling at each other as they were doing in Milwaukee and Chicago at the time.  Peaceful, quiet, and you could leave your violin in a music locker unlocked without fear of it being stolen.

Although the setting was safer than Milwaukee and Chicago at that time, we did have our discussions.  Like many kids who were raised in the late-1960s through early-1970s, we would play war and have Mattel M16 toy guns to simulate with.

When we moved to Kenosha, there were many veterans who had come back from Vietnam.  One of them discussed an important issue that many of us in the neighborhood were not aware of.  The toy M16 guns we were playing with were the same size and made exactly the same sound as a real M16.  The veterans who talked with us didn't mention Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but they did mention that the sound and sight of them caused flashbacks.  So, as a neighborhood, we stopped playing war and instead focused on baseball.

During the 1970s in Kenosha, we were having the same discussions about national politics and what to do about those who were coming back from Vietnam.  A thing to remember about Kenosha is that there were many military families.  My grandfather's name is inscribed on the wall of the library of World War One veterans from Kenosha.  Also, Kenosha was an auto town that greatly supported education and there were many who had questions and concerns.  However, in that time of Vietnam, Watergate, and the Nixon resignation, we argued but never came to blows.

Also, everyone was encouraged to speak their own languages.  Secondary languages included Polish, Italian, and German.  No one was shut down unless someone was deliberately trying to start a riot.  So, to me, when I learned various programming languages (up to 100 now from the early beginnings of the 1970s) with FORTRAN, BASIC, machine code/assembly, and Pascal, I think that even in a turbulent time like the 1970s, I did not feel like I do today.  I felt freer to express my thoughts openly than I do today.

Part of the reason why I have concerns about expressing my thoughts today is that area of Kenosha/Racine which used to be a haven from the race politics of the state of Milwaukee and the one-party system state of Chicago is now absorbed into both.

What does this mean?

I am a contrarian and I believe in reading and listening to multiple points of view.  When we would visit my cousins in Madison, I would read different papers, such as the Capital Times (the liberal paper) and the Wisconsin State Journal (the conservative paper).  At home, I'd read the Chicago Tribune (the conservative paper and I have been told I was reading "the Colonel's paper") and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (the liberal paper).  Yet, today, when I try to share views and concerns about what I see happening worldwide, nationally, and locally, there is only a small circle of friends I can talk to.  When I do try to reach out locally, as soon as I deviate from the majority party talking points, the listening stops and I am shut down in trying to share something important.

Today, I went to have tacos with a friend and I wore my 2600 t-shirt with the Blue Box schematic in front.  Part of the reason I wore it is that I wanted to express being proud of the hacker culture that seeks to expand knowledge and insight.  Also, I wanted to see what others would think at the bar I go to.  I'm glad that I was surprised.  Many were happy to see me wear it.  Over a pitcher of beer, I discussed the components on the front of the shirt.

Also, others who were retired looked and smiled at the fact that the spirit still exists.