Word: mcilroy
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Core War was the brainstorm of three Bell Labs programmers then in their early 20s: H. Douglas McIlroy, Victor Vysottsky and Robert Morris. Like Von Neumann, they recognized that computers were vulnerable to a peculiar kind of self-destruction. The machines employed the same "core" memory to store both the data used by programs and the instructions for running those programs. With subtle changes in its coding, a program designed to consume data could be made instead to consume programs...
Such pranks enrage the original Core War programmers. McIlroy and his friends took care that their high-tech high jinks did not put other people's programs and data at risk. "I'm amazed at how malicious some of today's players are," says McIlroy, who is now a senior member of the technical staff at Bell Labs. "What was once a friendly, harmless game has deteriorated into something that is neither friendly, harmless, nor a game...
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