2600 Magazine_ The Hacker Quarterly - Digital Edition - Summer 2011 - 2600 Magazine [46]
I hope I have not forced you to repeat something you have answered before (no doubt you receive many "Can you teach me to be a hacker?" letters to your magazine).
Anonymous
Actually, the “2600” mentioned in that piece is an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup called alt.2600 that really has no affiliation with us or with hackers in general. It once did, but with no oversight or standards, this newsgroup sadly fell into disrepair and disarray. We encourage you to read through it and then read through the material in our issues to see the difference. There are a lot of naive generalizations in the article you cite, which is unfortunate as it does seem to grasp the spirit of hacking for the most part. Definitions are always open to interpretation and to change, but to define yourself as the epitome of a “real hacker” and everyone else as some other word is basically closing off the discussion. We need to avoid that trap.
Dear 2600:
Your magazine’s perseverance continues to amaze me. I find myself trying to collect the now "defunct" printed hacker magazines on eBay when I can find them. I don't think that I will ever have to track any 2600 issues down in the future - they will always be around. Congratulations on this amazing feat. Your magazine is a fantastic history lesson to the birth of the modern communication age with various perspectives told from both sides of the wire.
One thing I want to ask about, though, are the 2600 covers. I don't see many requests from the readers to the staff regarding the cover art. The 2600 covers have been overlooked since 1987. We need to change this ASAP, if not sooner. Every now and then, there is a mention of the covers in the letters, but not very often. I want to know about all of the hidden meanings in each of the covers from the random micro text in the background to the main image on the page. Sometimes I think I can decipher the general meaning of the covers, but other times I know there is a lot more going on than what meets the eye. It's like a MAD Magazine cover for us nerds. I think there is more work that goes into the covers than into most of the articles. I didn't even realize that on 26:1, it was an AT&T logo on the baby's shirt until Darth Vader pointed it out to me. In your early covers (the hand drawn ones), there are all kinds of micro text hidden away. I would inspect the covers with a jeweler’s loupe as if I was inspecting a two carat diamond for flaws (I still do this on new covers). Also, in the early hand drawn covers, there was a space in the upper right hand corner of some random text or an image. I would really like to know all of the hidden eggs in each of these covers along with the meanings. The cover is one of the most interesting aspects of your magazine. On the back of your early issues, there was very small text at the bottom that said something like "It never happened" or "missing words." Please give us all some insight on all of these little things.
On your website, it says "As this site grows, we'll be adding explanations of each cover as well as selected highlights from our past issues." It has said this for quite some time now. Please start adding these explanations before the meanings are lost along with the artist that created the cover.
I also just want to know more about how they are made. Do you make them in-house or are they submitted by readers? Are they made as a collaborative effort by all of the staff at 2600 ? Is there an agreed upon message by the staff for each cover? Are they photoshopped or are they actual pictures? The covers that have equipment - are these photoshopped or is there someone who makes these random equipment props? I am sorry for all of the questions. I just love the attention to detail in every single 2600 cover. I wouldn't mind owning poster sized versions of these covers, either. I'm sure it would be costly, though, but something to think about.
Thank you