TCS - The Hacker Test

The Hacker Test

From NutWorks, the former Bitnet humour group
Preface: 06.16.89
From the November 1997 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

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 your score is between:You are
0x000 and 0x010Computer Illiterate
0x011 and 0x040a User
0x041 and 0x080an Operator
0x081 and 0x0C0a Nerd
0x0C1 and 0x100a Hacker
0x101 and 0x180a Guru
0x181 and 0x200a Wizard
Note: If you don't understand the scoring, stop here.

And now for the questions...

0001Have 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?
0006Have you ever patched paper tape?
0007Have you ever missed a class while programming?
0008... Missed an examination?
0009... Missed a wedding?
0010... Missed your own wedding?
0011Have you ever programmed while intoxicated?
0012... Did it make sense the next day?
0013Have you ever written a flight simulator?
0014Have you ever voided the warranty on your equipment?
0015Ever change the value of 4?
0016... Unintentionally?
0017... In a language other than Fortran?
0018Do you use DWIM to make life interesting?
0019Have you named a computer?
0020Do you complain when a "feature" you use gets fixed?
0021Do you eat slime-molds?
0022Do you know how many days old you are?
0023Have you ever wanted to download pizza?
0024Have you ever invented a computer joke?
0025... Did someone not 'get' it?
0026Can you recite Jabberwocky?
0027... Backwards?
0028Have you seen "Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land"?
0029Have you seen "Tron"?
0030Have you seen "Wargames"?
0031Do you know what ASCII stands for?
0032... EBCDIC?
0033Can you read and write ASCII in hex or octal?
0034Do you know the names of all the ASCII control codes?
0035Can you read and write EBCDIC in hex?
0036Can you convert from EBCDIC to ASCII and vice versa?
0037Do you know what characters are the same in both ASCII and EBCDIC?
0038Do you know maxint on your system?
0039Ever define your own numerical type to get better precision?
0040Can you name powers of two up to 2**16 in arbitrary order?
0041... up to 2**32?{middle} 0042 ... up to 2**64?
0043Can you read a punched card, looking at the holes?
0044... feeling the holes?
0045Have you ever patched binary code?
0046... While the program was running?
0047Have you ever used program overlays?
0048Have you met any IBM vice-president?
0049Do you know Dennis, Bill, or Ken?
0050Have you ever taken a picture of a CRT?
0051Have you ever played a videotape on your CRT?
0052Have you ever digitized a picture?
0053Did you ever forget to mount a scratch monkey?
0054Have you ever optimized an idle loop?
0055Did you ever optimize a bubble sort?
0056Does your terminal/computer talk to you?
0057Have you ever talked into an acoustic modem?
0058... Did it answer?
0059Can you whistle 300 baud?
0060... 1200 baud?
0061Can you whistle a telephone number?
0062Have you witnessed a disk crash?
0063Have you made a disk drive "walk"?
0064Can you build a puffer train?
0065... Do you know what it is?
0066Can you play music on your line printer?
0067... Your disk drive?
0068... Your tape drive?
0069Do you have a Snoopy calendar?
0070... Is it out-of-date?
0071Do you have a line printer picture of...
0072... the Mona Lisa?
0073... the Enterprise?
0074... Einstein?
0075... Oliver?
0076Have you ever made a line printer picture?
0077Do 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?
0094Have you ever written a CLIST?
Have you ever programmed in
0095... the X windowing system?
0096... CICS?
0097Have you ever received a Fax or a photocopy of a floppy?
0098Have 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?
0105Have you ever participated in a standards group?
0106Have you ever debugged machine code over the telephone?
0107Have you ever seen voice mail?
0108... Can you read it?
0109Do you solve word puzzles with an on-line dictionary?
0110Have you ever taken a Turing test?
0111... Did you fail?
0112Ever drop a card deck?
0113... Did you successfully put it back together?
0114... Without looking?
0115Have you ever used IPCS?
0116Have you ever received a case of beer with your computer?
0117Does your computer come in 'designer' colors?
0118Ever interrupted a UPS?
0119Ever mask an NMI?
0120Have you ever set off a Halon system?
0121... Intentionally?
0122... Do you still work there?
0123Have you ever hit the emergency power switch?
0124... Intentionally?
0125Do you have any defunct documentation?
0126... Do you still read it?
0127Ever reverse-engineer or decompile a program?
0128... Did you find bugs in it?
0129Ever help the person behind the counter with their terminal/computer?
0130Ever tried rack mounting your telephone?
0131Ever thrown a computer from more than two stories high?
0132Ever patched a bug the vendor does not acknowledge?
0133Ever fix a hardware problem in software?
0134... Vice versa?
0135Ever belong to a user/support group?
0136Ever been mentioned in Computer Recreations?
0137Ever had your activities mentioned in the newspaper?
0138... Did you get away with it?
0139Ever engage a drum brake while the drum was spinning?
0140Ever write comments in a non-native language?
0141Ever physically destroy equipment from software?
0142Ever tried to improve your score on the Hacker Test?
0143Do you take listings with you to lunch?
0144... To bed?
0145Ever patch a microcode bug?
0146... around a microcode bug?
0147Can you program a Turing machine?
0148Can you convert postfix to prefix in your head?
0149Can you convert hex to octal in your head?
0150Do you know how to use a Kleene star?
0151Have you ever starved while dining with philosophers?
0152Have you solved the halting problem?
0153... Correctly?
0154Ever deadlock trying to eat spaghetti?
0155Ever written a self-reproducing program?
0156Ever swapped out the swapper?
0157Can you read a state diagram?
0158... Do you need one?
0159Ever create an unkillable program?
0160... Intentionally?
0161Ever been asked for a cookie?
0162Ever speed up a system by removing a jumper?
Do you know...
0163Do you know who wrote Rogue?
0164... Rogomatic?
0165Do you know Gray code?
0166Do you know what HCF means?
0167... Ever use it?
0168... Intentionally?
0169Do you know what a lace card is?
0170... Ever make one?
0171Do you know the end of the epoch?
0172... Have you celebrated the end of an epoch?
0173... Did you have to rewrite code?
0174Do you know the difference between DTE and DCE?
0175Do you know the RS-232C pinout?
0176... Can you wire a connector without looking?
Do you have...
0177Do you have a copy of Dec Wars?
0178Do you have the Canonical Collection of Lightbulb Jokes?
0179Do you have a copy of the Hacker's dictionary?
0180... Did you contribute to it?
0181Do you have a flowchart template?
0182... Is it unused?
0183Do you have your own fortune-cookie file?
0184Do you have the Anarchist's Cookbook?
0185... Ever make anything from it?
0186Do you own a modem?
0187... a terminal?
0188... a toy computer?
0189... a personal computer?
0190... a minicomputer?
0191... a mainframe?
0192... a supercomputer?
0193... a hypercube?
0194... a printer?
0195... a laser printer?
0196... a tape drive?
0197... an outmoded peripheral device?
0198Do you have a programmable calculator?
0199... Is it RPN?
0200Have you ever owned more than 1 computer?
0201... 4 computers?
0202... 16 computers?
0203Do you have a SLIP line?
0204... a T1 line?
0205Do you have a separate phone line for your terminal/computer?
0206... Is it legal?
0207Do you have core memory?
0208... drum storage?
0209... bubble memory?
0210Do you use more than 16 megabytes of disk space?
0211... 256 megabytes?
0212... 1 gigabyte?
0213... 16 gigabytes?
0214... 256 gigabytes?
0215... 1 terabyte?
0216Do you have an optical disk/disk drive?
0217Do you have a personal magnetic tape library?
0218... Is it unlabeled?
0219Do you own more than 16 floppy disks?
0220... 64 floppy disks?
0221... 256 floppy disks?
0222... 1024 floppy disks?
0223Do you have any 8-inch disks?
0224Do you have an internal stack?
0225Do you have a clock interrupt?
0226Do you own volumes 1 to 3 of _8 The Art of Computer Programming_?
0227... Have you done all the exercises?
0228... Do you have a MIX simulator?
0229... Can you name the unwritten volumes?
0230Can you quote from _The Mythical Man-month_?
0231... Did you participate in the OS/360 project?
0232Do you have a TTL handbook?
0233Do you have printouts more than three years old?
Career
0234Do you have a job?
0235... Have you ever had a job?
0236... Was it computer-related?
0237Do you work irregular hours?
0238Have you ever been a system administrator?
0239Do you have more megabytes than megabucks?
0240Have you ever downgraded your job to upgrade your processing power?
0241Is your job secure?
0242... Do you have code to prove it?
0243Have you ever had a security clearance?
Games
0244Have you ever played Pong?
Have you ever played
0246... Spacewar?
0247... Star Trek?
0248... Wumpus?
0249... Lunar Lander?
0250... Empire?
Have you ever beaten
0251... Moria 4.8?
0252... Rogue 3.6?
0253... Rogue 5.3?
0254... Larn?
0255... Hack 1.0.3?
0256... Nethack 2.4?
0257Can you get a better score on Rogue than Rogomatic?
0258Have you ever solved Adventure?
0259... Zork?
0260Have you ever written any redcode?
0261Have you ever written an adventure program?
0262... a real-time game?
0263... a multi-player game?
0264... a networked game?
0265Can you out-doctor Eliza?
Hardware
0266Have you ever used a light pen?
0267... did you build it?
Have you ever used
0268... a teletype?
0269... a paper tape?
0270... a decwriter?
0271... a card reader/punch?
0272... a SOL?
Have you ever built
0273... an Altair?
0274... a Heath/Zenith computer?
Do you know how to use
0275... an oscilloscope?
0276... a voltmeter?
0277... a frequency counter?
0278... a logic probe?
0279... a wirewrap tool?
0280... a soldering iron?
0281... a logic analyzer?
0282Have you ever designed an LSI chip?
0283... has it been fabricated?
0284Have you ever etched a printed circuit board?
Historical
0285Have you ever toggled in boot code on the front panel?
0286... from memory?
0287Can you program an Eniac?
0288Ever seen a 90 column card?
IBM
0289Do you recite IBM part numbers in your sleep?
0290Do you know what IBM part number 7320154 is?
0291Do you understand 3270 data streams?
0292Do you know what the VM privilege classes are?
0293Have you IPLed an IBM off the tape drive?
0294... off a card reader?
0295Can you sing something from the IBM Songbook?
Languages
0296Do you know more than 4 programming languages?
0297... 8 languages?
0298... 16 languages?
0299... 32 languages?
0300Have you ever designed a programming language?
0301Do you know what BASIC stands for?
0302... Pascal?
0303Can you program in BASIC?
0304... Do you admit it?
0305Can you program in Cobol?
0306... Do you deny it?
0307Do you know Pascal?
0308... Modula-2?
0309... Oberon?
0310... More that two Wirth languages?
0311... Can you recite a Niklaus Wirth joke?
0312Do you know Algol-60?
0313... Algol-W?
0314... Algol-68?
0315... Do you understand the Algol-68 report?
0316... Do you like two-level grammars?
0317Can you program in assembler on 2 different machines?
0318... on 4 different machines?
0319... on 8 different machines?
Do you know
0320... APL?
0321... Ada?
0322... BCPL?
0323... C++?
0324... C?
0325... Comal?
0326... Eiffel?
0327... Forth?
0328... Fortran?
0329... Hypertalk?
0330... Icon?
0331... Lisp?
0332... Logo?
0333... MIIS?
0334... MUMPS?
0335... PL/I?
0336... Pilot?
0337... Plato?
0338... Prolog?
0339... RPG?
0340... Rexx (or ARexx)?
0341... SETL?
0342... Smalltalk?
0343... Snobol?
0344... VHDL?
0345... any assembly language?
0346Can you talk VT-100?
0347... Postscript?
0348... SMTP?
0349... UUCP?
0350... English?
Micros
0351Ever copy a copy-protected disk?
0352Ever create a copy-protection scheme?
0353Have you ever made a "flippy" disk?
0354Have you ever recovered data from a damaged disk?
0355Ever boot a naked floppy?
Networking
0356Have you ever been logged in to two different timezones at once?
0357Have you memorized the UUCP map for your country?
0358... For any country?
0359Have you ever found a sendmail bug?
0360... Was it a security hole?
0361Have you memorized the HOSTS.TXT table?
0362... Are you up to date?
0363Can you name all the top-level nameservers and their addresses?
0364Do you know RFC-822 by heart?
0365... Can you recite all the errors in it?
0366Have you written a Sendmail configuration file?
0367... Does it work?
0368... Do you mumble "defocus" in your sleep?
0369Do you know the max packet lifetime?
Operating systems
Can you use
0370... BSD Unix?
0371... non-BSD Unix?
0372... AIX
0373... VM/CMS?
0374... VMS?
0375... MVS?
0376... VSE?
0377... RSTS/E?
0378... CP/M?
0379... COS?
0380... NOS?
0381... CP-67?
0382... RT-11?
0383... MS-DOS?
0384... Finder?
0385... PRODOS?
0386... more than one OS for the TRS-80?
0387... Tops-10?
0388... Tops-20?
0389... OS-9?
0390... OS/2?
0391... AOS/VS?
0392... Multics?
0393... ITS?
0394... Vulcan?
0395Have you ever paged or swapped off a tape drive?
0396... Off a card reader/punch?
0397... Off a teletype?
0398... Off a networked (non-local) disk?
0399Have you ever found an operating system bug?
0400... Did you exploit it?
0401... Did you report it?
0402... Was your report ignored?
0403Have you ever crashed a machine?
0404... Intentionally?
People
0405Do you know any people?
0406... more than one?
0407... more than two?
Personal
0408Are your shoelaces untied?
0409Do you interface well with strangers?
0410Are you able to recite phone numbers for half-a-dozen computer systems but unable to recite your own?
0411Do you log in before breakfast?
0412Do you consume more than LD-50 caffeine a day?
0413Do you answer either-or questions with "yes"?
0414Do you own an up-to-date copy of any operating system manual?
0415... *every* operating system manual?
0416Do other people have difficulty using your customized environment?
0417Do you dream in any programming languages?
0418Do you have difficulty focusing on three-dimensional objects?
0419Do you ignore mice?
0420Do you despise the CAPS LOCK key?
0421Do you believe menus belong in restaurants?
0422Do you have a Mandelbrot hanging on your wall?
0423Have you ever decorated with magnetic tape or punched cards?
0424Do you have a disk platter or a naked floppy hanging in your home?
0425Have you ever seen the dawn?
0426... Twice in a row?
0427Do you use "foobar" in daily conversation?
0428... "bletch"?
0429Do you use the "P convention"?
0430Do you automatically respond to any user question with RTFM?
0431... Do you know what it means?
0432Do you think garbage collection means memory management?
0433Do you have problems allocating horizontal space in your room/office?
0434Do you read Scientific American in bars to pick up women?
0435Is your license plate computer-related?
0436Have you ever taken the Purity test?
0437Ever have an out-of-CPU experience?
0438Have you ever set up a blind date over the computer?
0439Do you talk to the person next to you via computer?
Programming
0440Can you write a Fortran compiler?
0441... In TECO?
0442Can you read a machine dump?
0443Can you disassemble code in your head?
Have you ever written
0444... a compiler?
0445... an operating system?
0446... a device driver?
0447... a text processor?
0448... a display hack?
0449... a database system?
0450... an expert system?
0451... an edge detector?
0452... a real-time control system?
0453... an accounting package?
0454... a virus?
0455... a prophylactic?
0456Have you ever written a biorhythm program?
0457... Did you sell the output?
0458... Was the output arbitrarily invented?
0459Have you ever computed pi to more than a thousand decimal places?
0460... the number e?
0461Ever find a prime number of more than a hundred digits?
0462Have you ever written self-modifying code?
0463... Are you proud of it?
0464Did you ever write a program that ran correctly the first time?
0465... Was it longer than 20 lines?
0466... 100 lines?
0467... Was it in assembly language?
0468... Did it work the second time?
0469Can you solve the Towers of Hanoi recursively?
0470... Non-recursively?
0471... Using the Troff text formatter?
0472Ever submit an entry to the Obfuscated C code contest?
0473... Did it win?
0474... Did your entry inspire a new rule?
0475Do you know Duff's device?
0476Do you know Jensen's device?
0477Ever spend ten minutes trying to find a single-character error?
0478... More than an hour?
0479... More than a day?
0480... More than a week?
0481... Did the first person you show it to find it immediately?
Unix
0482Can you use Berkeley Unix?
0483.. Non-Berkeley Unix?
0484Can you distinguish between sections 4 and 5 of the Unix manual?
0485Can you find TERMIO in the System V release 2 documentation?
0486Have you ever mounted a tape as a Unix file system?
0487Have you ever built Minix?
0488Can you answer "quiz function ed-command" correctly?
0489... How about "quiz ed-command function"?
Usenet
0490Do you read news?
0491... More than 32 newsgroups?
0492... More than 256 newsgroups?
0493... All the newsgroups?
0494Have you ever posted an article?
0495... Do you post regularly?
0496Have you ever posted a flame?
0497... Ever flame a cross-posting?
0498... Ever flame a flame?
0499... Do you flame regularly?
0500Ever have your program posted to a source newsgroup?
0501Ever forge a posting?
0502Ever form a new newsgroup?
0503... Does it still exist?
0504Do you remember
0505... mod.ber?
0506... the Stupid People's Court?
0507... Bandy-grams?
Phreaking
0508Have you ever built a black box?
0509Can you name all of the "colors" of boxes?
0510... and their associated functions?
0511Does your touch tone phone have 16 DTMF buttons on it?
0512Did the breakup of Ma Bell create more opportunities for you?


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Tulsa Computer Society 09/08/97
Don Singleton, President
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