
Scenery nerds and systems nerds: MIT's Model Railroad Club - ColinWright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Model_Railroad_Club#History
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jgrahamc
I'd recommend reading Steven Levy's "Hackers" for a better explanation of
these guys and the rest of the hacker world:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/729>

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smadam9
For another good read, check out "Jargon File" (many may have already read
this) <http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg262.txt> (1991 Revision)

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jgrahamc
The Jargon File pre-Eric Raymond is worth reading because it doesn't include
all the extra information that Raymond decided to add about what he thinks the
hacker culture is, who hackers are etc.

<http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg140.txt>

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jsrn
For a model railroad similar in spirit (I think) that was built out into a
startup and now a successful business (by charging visitors and selling
merchandise), check out the "Miniatur Wunderland" in Hamburg, Germany.

They build and program many things by themselves. Recently, they completed a
very impressive addition: an airport, complete with starting and landing
airplanes, cars etc. I listened to an interview with one of the founders,
Gerrit Braun, where he says that for the airport alone they wrote several
hundred thousand lines of code.

The airport: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz4NcTnQedo>

Camera mounted on train: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBArNAyODLc>

More: <http://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV>

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mechanical_fish
Smartest thing I ever did: I went to a TMRC open house in what must have been
the final year or two of their relay-based switching system. That thing was
just awesome. It made all these great clacking noises.

Now if only I'd made it before MIT destroyed building 20.

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yread
Check out the video overview of it
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxiuUo0y0EA>

You can see the tetris in action

