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Wow! Our own bulletin board, MacValley OnLine. What a Users Group! I got the software at the March meeting but I didn't get a chance to load it until last night. My ritual monthly cleaning up of the hard disk came first. Off with the old and in with the new. Keep that trash icon bulging. That's how life is for the common folk. We look on in envy at the upper crust with their multiple, optical, and removable hard drives. They pass us by during the monthly meetings, proud, serene, unaware of hardships faced by the lower classes. But I do all right with my forty megs. My desktop, I mean my real desktop, on top of which my computer sits, is in a constant state of impending disaster. Bills piled on top of print outs of lyrics piled on top of articles torn out of computer magazines piled of top of little scraps of paper with handwritten notes. If I had four hundred megabytes of hard disk space it would make my real desktop look like a Good Housekeeping dream. There isn't a piece of software in the known universe that could keep that kind of storage space organized with me at the controls. So, you see, I'm happy I have only a forty megabyte hard disk. You believe me? Really? Look, I've got some old 256 K simms I could sell you... cheap.
I use Compuserve and America OnLine regularly so the thought of MacValley OnLine was not at all intimidating to me. I dragged the self extracting archive to my hard disk, double clicked on it, and when it was done expanding I dragged the archive into the trash. I glanced briefly at the docs and saw there was nothing peculiar to worry about, and then I double clicked on MacValley OnLine.
I have a 1200 baud Migent pocked modem. ---
Make fun of me. Ridicule me in front of god and computer. ---
I know I am behind the times. I know I should have a 2400 baud modem. I know they only cost about a hundred bucks, but that's what I paid for this modem, and it still works. Maybe it's false economy. Maybe over a year savings in my online charges would pay for a new modem. Maybe. I'd like four more megs of RAM too and I haven't coughed up for those simms yet either. If I let my computer control my checkbook (come to think of it I use Checkfree so my computer does control my checkbook) my credit card balances could compete with the national debt.
Anyway, my Migent modem wasn't on the FirstClass User/MacValley Online list of modems. I knew it wouldn't be. But it is Hayes compatible so I tried both Hayes modem settings. No dice. The computer didn't even know the modem existed. I did a little better with the basic AT setups. It actually dialed up the Glassell Park BBS and got an answer but it couldn't make contact with the host. Okay, I could start down the list of modems and try them one by one until I found one that worked. By the Butterfield law of worst picks (if I walk up to a shopping center entrance and there are eight doors I will pick the only one that is locked) that would mean that I would have to try every single modem on the list. I decided on a more drastic, and risky, course of action. I would dig up the modem manual and find out from it what settings I should use.
I have eight bookshelves in my apartment with something approaching a thousand books, two desks with drawers, a filing cabinet, several closets, kitchen cabinets, VCR, CD, and record storage, and an infinite number of additional unclassifiable places where a 4" by 6" by 1/8" thick manual might hide. By Butterfield's Law of worst picks I would be searching for that manual until the end of time. But Butterfield's Law of worst picks doesn't apply in cases where I have misplaced something myself, even if it has been four years and everything has been shuffled around since. As long as my wife hasn't cleaned up after me I am all right. Did she move it? Did she leave it where it was and move everything around it? (Which is just as bad.) Had she reorganized it and put it in a logical sensible place? If she had then it was lost forever. No, she hadn't. I went straight to it. It was a miracle of the disorganized mind. Not only is the Migent pocket modem Hayes compatible, it is Apple modem compatible. I chose Apple Personal Modem 1200 from the modem list and was ready to try again.
It was raining outside. There might have been thunder, I don't know, I was too intent on what I was doing to pay attention. I clicked on "Login". That's when the lightening struck. The lights went off but the computer didn't. It crackled and glowed, and jets of streaking luminescence shot along the cables. I went deaf from a basso clap than shook the walls. The floor at my feet lit up as bright as a summer day. I looked under the desk. The modem shone like a miniature sun, with a pulsing golden corona, and sparks bursting all around. The wire from the modem to the jack in the wall was jumping. Good bye hard disk, I thought. Good bye motherboard. I knew I should have ordered that computer insurance from page 317 of MacUser. The torn out ad was buried somewhere on my desk. I couldn't afford a piddly one hundred dollar modem, how in the world could I ever replace my Mac II?
It didn't last very long. Ten, twenty seconds max, but it seemed like forever. After the last spark sparked and the last crackle cracked, after the lights came on and the thunderclap that rocked the floor rolled away into the night, my Mac II was still up and running. The cursor still responded when I moved the mouse. The menus still popped up when I clicked on them. The hard disk whirred (Praise be!) and Smart Alarms popped up a reminder. "Don't forget to water your wife's geraniums" (she has gone to visit her mother). I looked out the window at the water coursing down the street. When my wife posts a message, God listens.
Stranger still another dialog box popped up on the screen. "User Name" and "Password", it said, with two text boxes, an "OK" and a "Cancel" button. User name? Password? I didn't have a user name. How could I have a password? This was my first time on the system. I didn't have a user name yet. I'd never had a chance to pick a password. Maybe it was asking me to choose them for future use. That's right. I'd seen something about that in the docs. All right. What did I want to call myself? How about "Thor" in honor of the thunder and lightening? Nah, I didn't like Thor. What about "Odin", or better yet, "Wodin"? Top dog. I liked it, typed it in and tabbed to "Password". I had to choose something I could remember, and I can't remember much. How about "Lightening strikes"? It was a little bit long but if it was a very sophisticated password system it wouldn't let me choose something short and easy to guess anyway. I typed it into the box and hit return.
An alert popped up. "Access approved Wodin. All levels."
All levels? I felt privileged.
A window popped up with a number of icons. "Mail", "Announcements", É, "Secure access, level 10".
What the hell. I went for level 10.
A list popped up. I looked through the entries. "Strategy for O/S and Application Dominance." That looked good. I double clicked on it. A text window popped up and I began to read.
... By creating a market for applications that do everything we expect to shape consumer expectations in a matter that will, in due course, force our third party competitors to compete on our ground, or not compete at all. The more features they try to add, that would logically be better addressed by specialized applications with the ability to communicate with other applications, the better. Long, semi-functional feature lists will dilute the strengths of our competitors, setting them up for the kill.É É Our general operating system strategy is progressing admirably. Our operatives inside of Apple have succeeded in establishing an advertising campaign that stresses the ability of the Macintosh to run both DOS and Windows. Since the bulk of business management in the U.S. is either computer illiterate, or marginally literate in DOS/Windows only, our strategy is to assure that management mandates that every Macintosh placed into American business run the operating environment (Windows) that is most familiar to them, non-threatening, and universally accepted. We project this strategy will have every Macintosh in a business situation running Windows within five years. The home market will be harder to crack, largely because a consumer spending his/her own money will insist on superior value. Lowballing the price of PC clones can be expected to provide continuing returns. By proceeding carefully and steadily we will, before the turn of the century, have isolated all of the Macintosh zealots. Once we have isolated them elimination will shortly follow.
My reading was interrupted by a window that popped up in the middle of my screen.
"Who are you?"
"Wodin," I typed.
"You're not Wodin."
"I'm not?"
"You're at 1200 baud."
An alert box popped up on the bottom of the screen. "Your call is being traced," it flashed.
Traced? My call? Why would anybody want to trace my call?
"Security has been compromised. Attempting to log off."
But I'm nobody. I didn't do anything. Another message flashed up.
"Log off attempt failed."
And another, "Internal code modification from external source."
This was getting serious I clicked on the File menu and hit quit. Nothing happened. The cursor froze. I picked the phone up off the receiver and put it to my ear. The carrier tone was still screeching. I had to stop it. I hit the reset button on the side of my machine and tapped the the phone receiver hook up and down, up and down, up and down. Dial tone. I had a dial tone. Did I do it quick enough? Did they trace my call? Did they know where I was?
I waited. The computer booted up. Nothing unusual. I dragged my MacValley OnLine folder to the trash and emptied it. Internal code modification from external source? I thought furiously then shut down my machine. Time to reformat the hard disk and do a full restore. My backup set wasn't too old. I had copies on diskettes of the files I'd worked on since the backup.
Ten minutes passed by. Fifteen minutes. The format completed and I started the long hard disk restoration process. There was a knock at the door. I waited. Another knock. "Just a minute," I called out. Who was there? How could they get to me so quickly? I pulled a baseball bat out of the closet, went to the front door, and looked through the peephole. It was a man in a rain slicker. He held grocery sack that was carefully and precisely folded over at the top. I left the chain latched, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
"Your dinner sir." Chinese accent.
Food? I looked through the open crack. It was still raining ---
hard. The man was dripping wet. I recognized him. He delivers food for my favorite Chinese take out. I put the baseball bat down and unlatched the chain.
"I ordered that two hours ago."
"Sorry. The streets are flooded. That will be nine dollars seventy-three."
I gave him fourteen dollars. Then I looked at his legs. They were wet up to the knees.
"I guess it must be a little deep in the courtyard," I said, and gave him another five.
I haven't left my apartment all day. I'm afraid to answer or use the phone. The baseball bat hasn't left my side. I jump every time I hear someone come up the stairs. The blinds are closed. The lights are off. What have I stumbled onto? Am I safe, inconsequent, or is it just a matter of time before they come after me? I will be at the meeting Wednesday. If I'm not there call the police. Call the FBI. Call my wife. Tell her to post a reminder. "Wednesday, 8:00 P.M. Be good to Gregg. Let him go. DON'T KILL HIM!" That ought to do it.
Gregg Writes
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