[WPI]
1. v. To {hack}, usually at night. At WPI, from 1975 onwards, one who
gweeped could often be found at the College Computing Center punching
cards or crashing the {PDP-10} or, later, the DEC-20. A correspondent
who was there at the time opines that the term was originally
onomatopoetic, describing the keyclick sound of the Datapoint
terminals long connected to the PDP-10; others allege that `gweep'
was the sound of the Datapoint's bell (compare {feep}). The term has
survived the demise of those technologies, however, and was still
alive in early 1999. "I'm going to go gweep for a while. See you in
the morning." "I gweep from 8 PM till 3 AM during the week."
2. n. One who habitually gweeps in sense 1; a {hacker}. "He's a
hard-core gweep, mumbles code in his sleep." Around 1979 this was
considered derogatory and not used in self-reference; it has since
been proudly claimed in much the same way as {geek}.
[glossary]