The MIT Tech
Encyclopedia
The Tech, first published on November 16, 1881, is the oldest and largest campus newspaper at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
. Editions are published on Tuesday and Friday throughout the academic year, daily during freshman orientation period, Wednesdays during January, and about once a month over the summer. Printed copies are distributed throughout the MIT campus on the morning of publication.
The Tech became the first newspaper published on the World Wide Web
, as stated on its webpage: "The world's first newspaper on the Web, est. 1993." Earlier, StarText
, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
s videotex system which displayed newspaper content on computer screens, began in 1982 in Fort Worth, Texas
(but did not go on the Internet until 1996). In 1987, the Middlesex News (Framingham, Massachusetts
) launched Fred the Computer
, a single-line BBS system used to preview the next day's edition and later to organize the newspaper's past film reviews.
Nearly every published Tech is available online and most issues are accessible as PDF files. For example, the first issue ever printed:
The Tech (November 16, 1881). Edited by Arthur W. Walker, it was printed by Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers, located at 34 School Street in Boston.
Today, The Tech is printed by Mass Web Printing Company, a unit of Phoenix Media/Communications Group
, the publisher of the Boston Phoenix. From 2000-2009, The Tech was printed by Charles River Publishing in Charlestown and briefly by Saltus Press in Worcester, after Saltus acquired Charles River Publishing.
The Tech archives are available online.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. Editions are published on Tuesday and Friday throughout the academic year, daily during freshman orientation period, Wednesdays during January, and about once a month over the summer. Printed copies are distributed throughout the MIT campus on the morning of publication.
The Tech became the first newspaper published on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, as stated on its webpage: "The world's first newspaper on the Web, est. 1993." Earlier, StarText
StarText
StarText was an online ASCII-based computer service officially launched May 3, 1982 by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Tandy Corporation...
, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a major U.S. daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. Its area of domination is checked by its main rival, The Dallas Morning News, which is published from the eastern half of the Metroplex. It is owned...
s videotex system which displayed newspaper content on computer screens, began in 1982 in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
(but did not go on the Internet until 1996). In 1987, the Middlesex News (Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham is a New England town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 68,318 as of the United States 2010 Census. -History:...
) launched Fred the Computer
Fred the Computer
Fred the Computer was launched in 1987 by the Middlesex News in Framingham, Massachusetts. A single-line BBS system, it was used to preview the next day's edition with news headlines and weather information...
, a single-line BBS system used to preview the next day's edition and later to organize the newspaper's past film reviews.
Nearly every published Tech is available online and most issues are accessible as PDF files. For example, the first issue ever printed:
The Tech (November 16, 1881). Edited by Arthur W. Walker, it was printed by Alfred Mudge & Son, Printers, located at 34 School Street in Boston.
Today, The Tech is printed by Mass Web Printing Company, a unit of Phoenix Media/Communications Group
Phoenix Media/Communications Group
Phoenix Media/Communications Group is a Boston, Massachusetts corporation with several publishing and broadcasting interests. In addition to the Boston Phoenix, the Providence Phoenix and the Portland Phoenix, the company publishes a biweekly publication about Boston nightlife called Stuff and...
, the publisher of the Boston Phoenix. From 2000-2009, The Tech was printed by Charles River Publishing in Charlestown and briefly by Saltus Press in Worcester, after Saltus acquired Charles River Publishing.
The Tech archives are available online.
Notable alumni
- Karen W. Arenson - Education writer for The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. - O. Reid Ashe, Jr. - Chief Operating Officer of Media GeneralMedia GeneralMedia General, Inc. is a media company based in the Southeastern United States. Its major properties include newspapers such as The Tampa Tribune, the Winston-Salem Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as well as numerous television stations, such as flagship station WFLA-TV.The company was...
. - Simson L. Garfinkel - Writer for Technology ReviewTechnology ReviewTechnology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as "The Technology Review", and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey...
, WiredWired (magazine)Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
and the Boston Globe. - Arthur Hu - Writer for Asian Week. His columns focused on affirmative action and the increasing number of Asian American students in the 1980s. They were quoted by Thomas SowellThomas SowellThomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a libertarian perspective...
. - Tom Huang - Assistant Managing Editor for The Dallas Morning NewsThe Dallas Morning NewsThe Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
. - Karen Kaplan - Science writer for the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
. - James R. Killian, Jr. - 10th president of MIT.
- Harry Ward Leonard - electrical engineer and inventor.
- Patrick Joseph McGovern, Jr. - the chairman and founder of International Data Group (IDG)
- Norman D. Sandler - White HouseWhite HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
correspondent of United Press InternationalUnited Press InternationalUnited Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
. - Larry StarkLarry StarkLarry Stark is an American journalist and reviewer best known for his in-depth coverage of the Boston theater scene at his website, Theater Mirror. In newspapers and online, Stark has written hundreds of reviews of local productions and Broadway tryouts from 1962 to the present...
(pseudonym Charles Foster Ford) - Famed Boston theater critic Stark started writing for The Tech in the years 1962-64. Stark's review of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma's Hung You in the Closet, and I'm Feeling So Sad in The Tech (February 13, 1963). - Len Tower Jr.Leonard H. Tower Jr.Leonard "Len" H. Tower Jr. is a free software activist and one of the founding board members of the Free Software Foundation,where he contributed to the initial releases of gcc and GNU diff. He left the Free Software Foundation in 1997....
- Founding Board Member, Free Software FoundationFree Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
and activist with the GNU ProjectGNU ProjectThe GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...
. - Keith J. Winstein - Staff reporter for The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
.
See also
- ErgoErgo (newspaper)Ergo was a student-run newspaper, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but distributed and staffed by people from other colleges in the Boston area as well, primarily Harvard University and Boston University. It was started in 1969 as a conservative-libertarian alternative to the...
, another student-run campus newspaper