[throwanem]

Yes, but from a much older coinage, as documented in (the not entirely uncontroversial) "The New Hacker's Dictionary" compiled by (the likewise) Eric Raymond: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#hacke...

I'm old enough to recall the term in active use, and to have received the appellation from one who'd had it likewise handed down. I regard both as epiphenomena of the Internet's frontier or "Wild West" days, of which California has proven as terminal as it was for the nominate example after the US Civil War - not wholly for dissimilar reasons, if we take Vietnam, for the Internet, as the war whose loss would spur the migration.

[pessimizer]

The site used to be called "Startup News."

https://news.ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

[throwanem]

That's good background, but I'm not sure where I'm meant to understand it to disagree with the idea that the "hacker" in "Hacker News" is the same one discussed in TNHD.