Kotok, though, recognized that because of the huge amounts of numbers that would have to be crunched in a chess program, part of the program would have to be done in FORTRAN, and part in assembly. They hacked it part by part, with "move generators," basic data structures, and all kinds of innovative algorithms for strategy. After feeding the machine the rules for moving each piece, they gave it some parameters by which to evaluate its position, consider various moves, and make the move which would advance it to the most advantageous situation. Kotok kept at it for years, the program growing as MIT kept upgrading its IBM computers, and one memorable night a few hackers gathered to see the program make some of its first moves in a real game. Its opener was quite respectable, but after eight or so exchanges there was real trouble, with the computer about to be checkmated. Everybody wondered how the computer would react. It too a while (everyone knew that during those pauses the computer was actually "thinking," if your idea of thinking included mechanically considering various moves, evaluating them, rejecting most, and using a predefined set of parameters to ultimately make a choice). Finally, the computer moved a pawn two squares forward--illegally jumping over another piece. A bug! But a clever one--it got the computer out of check. Maybe the program was figuring out some new algorithm with which to conquer chess. At other universities, professors were making public proclamations that computers would never be able to beat a human being in chess. Hackers knew better. They would be the ones who would guide computers to greater heights than anyone expected. And the hackers, by fruitful, meaningful association with the computer, would be foremost among the beneficiaries. But they would not be the only beneficiaries. Everyone could gain something by the use of thinking computers in an intellectually automated world. And wouldn't everyone benefit even more by approaching the world with the same inquisitive intensity, skepticism toward bureaucracy, openness to creativity, unselfishness in sharing accomplishments, urge to make improvements, and desire to build as those who followed the Hacker Ethic? By accepting others on the same unprejudiced basis by which computers accepted anyone who entered code into a Flexowriter? Wouldn't we benefit if we learned from computers the means of creating a perfect system? If EVERYONE could interact with computers with the same innocent, productive, creative impulse that hackers did, the Hacker Ethic might spread through society like a benevolent ripple, and computers would indeed change the world for the better.