---
created_at: '2015-09-06T20:33:18.000Z'
title: MIT 6.001 Spellbook (1992)
url: http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1992/spellbook/
author: jstoja
points: 73
story_text: 
comment_text: 
num_comments: 2
story_id: 
story_title: 
story_url: 
parent_id: 
created_at_i: 1441571598
_tags:
- story
- author_jstoja
- story_10178903
objectID: '10178903'

---
[Source](http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1992/spellbook/ "Permalink to IHTFP Hack Gallery:  6.001 Spellbook")

# IHTFP Hack Gallery:  6.001 Spellbook

![][1] ![The Freshman Fishwrap / IHTFP Hack Gallery][2]

* * *

# 6.001 Spellbook

**Location:** 10-250  
**Date:** 5/7/92  

Students filing into [10-250][3] for one of their last few lectures in [6.001][4], were met, as usual, with an assortment of handouts. True to habit, each student took one of each and found a seat in the lecture hall. Once seated, the students began to take inventory of their latest batch of course paperwork. During this inventory it became clear that one of these handouts did not match the normal flow of material -- either the class was going to take a strange twist, or someone slipped a hack handout into the distribution piles. 

The anomalous handout was a fold-up book of ``spells'' which played on both the course's magical theme and many of the various trials students experienced during the course. 

* [PostScript for Spellbook handout][5]
* [GIF bitmap of handout][6]
* [Enlarged GIF of spellbook front][7]
* [Enlarged GIF of spellbook text][8]
* [HTML text of spellbook contents][9]

The course staff was amused. After the class, they tracked down the source code used to produce the hack handout and expressed their approval. 

* [Response to hackers from course staff][10]

The hackers were, of course, pleased with the warm reception given their hack and replied suitably. 

* [PostScript for hackers' response][11] (_n.b._ some postscript previewers do not properly render this in a fully readable form. It will probably print fine to most PostScript printers.) 
* [Plain text for hackers' response][12] (_n.b._ not as pretty, but readable in case the PostScript version is not.) 
* * *

[Top of the _IHTFP Hack Gallery_][13]

[1]: http://hacks.mit.edu/icons/HackIcon.flat.gif
[2]: http://hacks.mit.edu/icons/fishwrap_ihtfp_gallery.xbm
[3]: http://hacks.mit.edu/10-250.html
[4]: http://hacks.mit.edu/6.001.html
[5]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook.ps
[6]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook.gif
[7]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook_front_large.gif
[8]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook_inside_large.gif
[9]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook_inside_text.html
[10]: http://hacks.mit.edu/bitdiddle_mail.html
[11]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook.response.encrypt.ps
[12]: http://hacks.mit.edu/spellbook_hacker_response.html
[13]: http://hacks.mit.edu/Gallery.html

