Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and

typed Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed

out some status information, including how many people were

already using the computer; it might print "14 users", for

example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch

the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a great

controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to

be called losers to their faces every time they used the

computer. For a while several hackers struggled covertly,

each changing the message behind the back of the others; any

time you logged into the computer it was even money whether it

would say "users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the

compromise "lusers", and it stuck.