The PDP

In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

"What are you doing?"

, asked Minsky.

"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe."

"Why is the net wired randomly?"

, asked Minsky.

"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play."

Minsky shut his eyes.

"Why do you close your eyes?"

, Sussman asked his teacher.

"So the room will be empty."

At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.