Hack, Hack, Hack

© 1993 Steven Weyhrich
(Sung to the tune of “Fun, Fun, Fun” by the Beach Boys)

(This is not an Apple II-specific song, but is still “fun”. And no, despite that title, it has nothing to do with phlegm.)

Well, she got her dad’s account
And she broke into his office mainframe, now
Seems like she forgot all about the term paper
Like she told her old man, now
And with her eye on the modem
Goes typin’ just as fast as she can, now
And she’ll just hack, hack, hack
‘Till her daddy takes her keyboard away

Well, the sysops^[1] can’t stand her
‘Cause she speaks Unix just like an ace, now
(She speaks like an ace, now, she speaks like an ace)
She takes the BBS^[2] software
And really puts it through its pace, now
(Puts through its pace, now, puts through its pace)
IBM tried to catch her
But she led ’em on a wild goose chase, now
(Wild goose chase, now, wild goose chase)
And she’ll just hack, hack, hack
‘Till her daddy takes her keyboard away

Well, you knew all along
That the Feds were gettin’ wise to you, now
(You shouldn’t have tried, now, you shouldn’t have tried)
And since they took your set of disks
You’ve been thinkin’ that your fun is all through, now
(You shouldn’t have lied, now, you shouldn’t have lied
But you can come and work for me
‘Cause we’ve got a lot of things to do, now
(Do you think you can help me finish debugging Windows 95?)
And we’ll just hack, hack, hack
Uncle Sammy took your keyboard away

And we’ll just hack, hack, hack
Now that daddy took your keyboard away…

NOTES

1. ^[1]Short for “system operator”. Back when individual dial-up bulletin-board systems ruled, the person who ran a “board” was called the Sysop, and usually was able to set his or her rules as to what was or was not allowed. This is somewhat analogous to the Webmaster of today.↩
2. ^[2]Bulletin Board System. Specifically, the software that ran on the computer at the other end of the phone line when you dialed up. It would answer the phone, allow you to log in, and present with options of message boards, files to download, etc. The pre-Internet version of what today is usually a personal web site.↩