THE HACKER TEST - Version 1.0
Preface: 06.16.89
This test was conceived and written by Felix Lee, John Hayes and Angela Thomas at the end of the spring semester, 1989. It has gone through many revisions prior to this initial release, and will undoubtedly go through many more.
(Herewith a compendium of fact and folklore about computer hackerdom, cunningly disguised as a test.)
Scoring - Count 1 for each item that you have done, or each question that you can answer correctly.
If you score is between: You are
0x000 and 0x010 -> Computer Illiterate
0x011 and 0x040 -> a User
0x041 and 0x080 -> an Operator
0x081 and 0x0C0 -> a Nerd
0x0C1 and 0x100 -> a Hacker
0x101 and 0x180 -> a Guru
0x181 and 0x200 -> a Wizard
Note: If you don't understand the scoring, stop here.
And now for the questions...
0001 Have you ever used a computer?
0002 ... for more than 4 hours continuously?
0003 ... more than 8 hours?
0004 ... more than 16 hours?
0005 ... more than 32 hours?
0006 Have you ever patched paper tape?
0007 Have you ever missed a class while programming?
0008 ... Missed an examination?
0009 ... Missed a wedding?
0010 ... Missed your own wedding?
0011 Have you ever programmed while intoxicated?
0012 ... Did it make sense the next day?
0013 Have you ever written a flight simulator?
0014 Have you ever voided the warranty on your equipment?
0015 Ever change the value of 4?
0016 ... Unintentionally?
0017 ... In a language other than Fortran?
0018 Do you use DWIM to make life interesting?
0019 Have you named a computer?
0020 Do you complain when a 'feature' you use gets fixed?
0021 Do you eat slime-molds?
0022 Do you know how many days old you are?
0023 Have you ever wanted to download pizza?
0024 Have you ever invented a computer joke?
0025 ... Did someone not 'get' it?
0026 Can you recite Jabberwocky?
0027 ... Backwards?
0028 Have you seen 'Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land'?
0029 Have you seen 'Tron'?
0030 Have you seen 'Wargames'?
0031 Do you know what ASCII stands for?
0032 ... EBCDIC?
0033 Can you read and write ASCII in hex or octal?
0034 Do you know the names of all the ASCII control codes?
0035 Can you read and write EBCDIC in hex?
0036 Can you convert from EBCDIC to ASCII and vice versa?
0037 Do you know what characters are the same in both ASCII and EBCDIC?
0038 Do you know maxint on your system?
0039 Ever define your own numerical type to get better precision?
0040 Can you name powers of two up to 2**16 in arbitrary order?
0041 ... up to 2**32?
0042 ... up to 2**64?
0043 Can you read a punched card, looking at the holes?
0044 ... feeling the holes?
0045 Have you ever patched binary code?
0046 ... While the program was running?
0047 Have you ever used program overlays?
0048 Have you met any IBM vice-president?
0049 Do you know Dennis, Bill, or Ken?
0050 Have you ever taken a picture of a CRT?
0051 Have you ever played a videotape on your CRT?
0052 Have you ever digitized a picture?
0053 Did you ever forget to mount a scratch monkey?
0054 Have you ever optimized an idle loop?
0055 Did you ever optimize a bubble sort?
0056 Does your terminal/computer talk to you?
0057 Have you ever talked into an acoustic modem?
0058 ... Did it answer?
0059 Can you whistle 300 baud?
0060 ... 1200 baud?
0061 Can you whistle a telephone number?
0062 Have you witnessed a disk crash?
0063 Have you made a disk drive 'walk'?
0064 Can you build a puffer train?
0065 ... Do you know what it is?
0066 Can you play music on your line printer?
0067 ... Your disk drive?
0068 ... Your tape drive?
0069 Do you have a Snoopy calendar?
0070 ... Is it out-of-date?
0071 Do you have a line printer picture of...
0072 ... the Mona Lisa?
0073 ... the Enterprise?
0074 ... Einstein?
0075 ... Oliver?
0076 Have you ever made a line printer picture?
0077 Do you know what the following stand for?
0078 ... DASD
0079 ... Emacs
0080 ... ITS
0081 ... RSTS/E
0082 ... SNA
0083 ... Spool
0084 ... TCP/IP
Have you ever used
0085 ... TPU?
0086 ... TECO?
0087 ... Emacs?
0088 ... ed?
0089 ... vi?
0090 ... Xedit (in VM/CMS)?
0091 ... SOS?
0092 ... EDT?
0093 ... Wordstar?
0094 Have you ever written a CLIST?
Have you ever programmed in
0095 ... the X windowing system?
0096 ... CICS?
0097 Have you ever received a Fax or a photocopy of a floppy?
0098 Have you ever shown a novice the 'any' key?
0099 ... Was it the power switch?
Have you ever attended
0100 ... Usenix?
0101 ... DECUS?
0102 ... SHARE?
0103 ... SIGGRAPH?
0104 ... NetCon?
0105 Have you ever participated in a standards group?
0106 Have you ever debugged machine code over the telephone?
0107 Have you ever seen voice mail?
0108 ... Can you read it?
0109 Do you solve word puzzles with an on-line dictionary?
0110 Have you ever taken a Turing test?
0111 ... Did you fail?
0112 Ever drop a card deck?
0113 ... Did you successfully put it back together?
0114 ... Without looking?
0115 Have you ever used IPCS?
0116 Have you ever received a case of beer with your computer?
0117 Does your computer come in 'designer' colors?
0118 Ever interrupted a UPS?
0119 Ever mask an NMI?
0120 Have you ever set off a Halon system?
0121 ... Intentionally?
0122 ... Do you still work there?
0123 Have you ever hit the emergency power switch?
0124 ... Intentionally?
0125 Do you have any defunct documentation?
0126 ... Do you still read it?
0127 Ever reverse-engineer or decompile a program?
0128 ... Did you find bugs in it?
0129 Ever help the person behind the counter with their terminal/computer?
0130 Ever tried rack mounting your telephone?
0131 Ever thrown a computer from more than two stories high?
0132 Ever patched a bug the vendor does not acknowledge?
0133 Ever fix a hardware problem in software?
0134 ... Vice versa?
0135 Ever belong to a user/support group?
0136 Ever been mentioned in Computer Recreations?
0137 Ever had your activities mentioned in the newspaper?
0138 ... Did you get away with it?
0139 Ever engage a drum brake while the drum was spinning?
0140 Ever write comments in a non-native language?
0141 Ever physically destroy equipment from software?
0142 Ever tried to improve your score on the Hacker Test?
0143 Do you take listings with you to lunch?
0144 ... To bed?
0145 Ever patch a microcode bug?
0146 ... around a microcode bug?
0147 Can you program a Turing machine?
0148 Can you convert postfix to prefix in your head?
149 Can you convert hex to octal in your head?
0150 Do you know how to use a Kleene star?
0151 Have you ever starved while dining with philosophers?
0152 Have you solved the halting problem?
0153 ... Correctly?
0154 Ever deadlock trying eating spaghetti?
0155 Ever written a self-reproducing program?
0156 Ever swapped out the swapper?
0157 Can you read a state diagram?
0158 ... Do you need one?
0159 Ever create an unkillable program?
0160 ... Intentionally?
0161 Ever been asked for a cookie?
0162 Ever speed up a system by removing a jumper
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