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Pure Bollocks Online Vol 102
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V O L U M E * 1 0 2
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Released 8th Dec 1993
=================================================================
The opinions expressed by some of the writers are not necessarily those of all
the PURE BOLLOCKS editorial team. The individual writers retain their own
copyrights. This magazine may be freely spread for non-profit purposes only.
We're not to be held responsible for how people use or mis-use the information
in this magazine.
* NOTE * IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE ODD SWEARWORD, THEN YOU'RE IN A BIT OF
TROUBLE HERE, I GUESS!
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Well, we've survived long enough to put out a second issue! Thanks to the
people who responded to our first issue. So to answer the burning question of
last week- no, I bear absolutely no relation to Genie from The Pompey Pirates!
A couple of people have been asking me how to get copies of the original
diskmag. Er, well, what can I say? Apart from- look at the section marked "END"
(So called, because it's at the end!) that should tell you all you need to
know!
<Genie!>
PS Could the guy who signed his email message something like "froggy" please
contact me again as I lost your original message accidentely!
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01 - SCOTTISH ST SCENE- Genie takes a look at who's alive and who's not in
the twilight zone of the Atari World!
02 - GLAD TO BE LAME? - Bip of Hopeless Lamers takes an alternative look at
the use of the word "lame".
03 - "COMPLETE TRASH FROM NETWORK TRASH" - Background information
04 - "COMPLETE TRASH FROM NETWORK TRASH" - The *official* introduction!
END - Contact details, where to get the diskmag and so on.
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PURE BOLLOCKS REVIEW OF THE SCOTTISH ST SCENE!
------------------------------------------------
by <GENIE> of NETWORK TRASH!
Yes, we mean Scottish- repeat after me- SCOTTISH, SCOTTISH, SCOTTISH! None of
this 'English' scene with Scottish groups that Amazine keeps going on about!
Sorry Mad Vision, but there's more than one country in Britain! In this review
we're going to go on about something we know about here. If you don't know
about CDs/Menus, now this is a unique ST phenomenon! Whilst Amiga games take up
around 10 disks and you need a new hard-drive to run a new PC game, ST crackers
have always had a tradition of *packing* stuff onto *single disks*! It's not
the same as archiving either, because code is inserted into the system vectors
to depack anything newly loaded that has been packed. In short- it's packed,
but you can still run it! As a consequence, crews do selection "menus", which
have become increasingly more complex!
Anyway, back to the review.... If you are a Scottish group and we haven't
included you here, then we're sorry- contact us! Quite a lot of the groups here
have members elsewhere in Britain. Afterwards, we'll talk a bit about various
outlets which deal in their wares, but first, the groups list....
BTW "modules" = 4 channel digi sound files
"demos" = displays of graphics and sound
** CYNIX **
Still one of the best and most active cracking crews in Scotland, but they're
calming down, and might be dead within a year, who knows! There's 1 cracker
left- the Milky Bar Kid or Absu or whatever he's called now.
** LEMMINGS **
This is a group with members in Scotland (Potsan) and England (Pele). Pele does
most of the cracking, but Potsan also does the occasional crack and codes some
stuff like his 'Boot Crazy' utility. Potsan has also released a couple of menus
with other people. All the cracks are minor league stuff- don't expect Epic
cracked by this group.
** THE PIXEL TWINS **
This was the main demo crew in Scotland with about 6-7 members. Their stuff was
nearly always STE only, and they have converted the Scoopex 'Mental Hangover'
demo from the Amiga onto the STE! One of the coders, DML, works as a
professional programmer. Now they are dead as a demo crew, and are working on
the Falcon as Black Scorpion Software, with one of their first products, Chroma
24, a commercial art/animation package, out fairly soon.
** FINGERBOBS **
This is now the main demo crew in Scotland, and mainly come from Aberdeen
University. They've done guest screens for Inner Circle's 'Decade Demo', and
did a couple of screens for the Ripped Off party demo, two of them STE only.
Surprise surprise, the coder (Oberjee) is also a professional programmer!
** TOP NOTCH **
This is a new crew composed of STOS coders ACO and Wheee the Fibble. Under
their old names they released the 'Cunning Demos' and under Top Notch they
released their STOS extension 'Misty' on ST Format, and their 'Misty Demo'. WTF
(Billy Alan) is now the ST Format STOS correspondant.
** DIMENSION ZERO **
This is a mainly STOS coding crew who are also active on the Amiga! The main
coder is Michael Lynne. They have done a guest screen for Top Notch's 'Misty
Demo' and are working on their demo called 'Evie the Dog' (I think that's what
it's called!)
** BLUE HARVEST **
Originally just the name which Red Five released his modules under, they've
recently become a slightly less lame demo crew. We know this because one of the
coders, Agrajag, turned up at the Ripped Off party in September and spent most
of the time trying to get a chessboard effect working on a demo screen! He's
also written a couple of articles for Ledgers. There's also another coder in
BH, but we don't know his name. Red Five's module got 3rd place at the Ripped
Off party module competition. We've heard that they're also overdue with a
digi-music demo! However, we have heard recently that Agrajag has left, so it's
probably back to being the name Red Five releases his modules under!
** DIGITECH **
This is a demo crew with 4 members as far as we know. They are Shift and Data-
both coders, and another member we don't know much about. We are told that they
have done a guest screen for Dimension Zero's STOS demo- but they're an
assembler group, so I assume their guest screen's also in assembler! Agrajag
has recently joined this group, and we hear of another coder joining, making
Digitech a 4 coder group! Shift has recently bought an Amiga, and is becoming
involved with an Amiga group as well.
** TOUR DE FORCE **
We didn't know too much about this group except that they have a coder called
Darkman and they are supposed to be writing a guest screen for the Untouchables
'Cheese and Biscuits' demo. We then got a letter from Darkman, who said that
Tour De Force were dead, and he and another member were now in....
** DIGET **
This lot do PD/Shareware games in STOS basic/assembler. We've seen a couple of
their productions already, and they're pretty good really!
** NETWORK TRASH **
Not an ST crew, but a secret network crew based mainly in Glasgow University.
See the "story" elsewhere in the magazine. I thought I might as well mention
them! (Anyway, lots of them have STs as well....)
** HOPELESS LAMERS **
I've seen 3 menus from this lot, and I still don't know if they're serious!
They crack ancient games, pack them and stick them on a disk with a ripped
intro, and make them look as though the entire disk is ripped off, but they
also include a DOC file in a folder telling how the games were cracked! Very
strange crew, mainly led by Bip.
** SUB HUMANS IN TURKEY **
Yes, this lot are still going. Three of them turned up at the Ripped Off party
so we know! They used to be know mainly because of their frontman EGB doing
menus for Automation, and the infamous 'Pissflaps' porno game. They all appear
to be in the business of making games now... Maybe expect 'Pissflaps 2'?!?!
** THE FORCE **
This lot do compil[ation] menus of all the "shit hot" (Their words) cracks, we
don't know if they're still going, but we did meet Skelly and Leasky from the
group some time ago!
** G - FORCE **
I've still got a couple of menus from these people. They were compil menus made
up by guys at the Barras in Glasgow for their stall. I think they're quite
definately dead now, and are no relation to The Force.
** ST FACTORY **
Talking of stalls compil makers, the infamous ST Factory (As seen in the Daily
Record) stall in the Barras did a couple of CDs under their name, with games
packed and single-filed and a menu added using utilities off their own
catalogue!
** THE NEW GENERATION **
Another games compil maker! I've got 2 menus by this bunch, and they both use
the crappy old Medway Boys menus! But they're relatively up-to-date on games.
One thing that is really annoying is their fixation with Star Trek TNG, up to
the point of calling themselves names like "Worf" and "Picard"! I think they
might be dead as well....
** DARK ANGELS **
A real bunch of sad egomaniac compil makers and no mistake. Their first 'menu'
wasn't a menu at all but an intro made by the 'Intro Concept' creator!!
[Pathetic "demo" creator thingy.] They must have got Easyrider, [Great
disassembler] because they are now using the same ancient Medway Boys menu as
The New Generation! They're always pinching 'Top Tips' jokes from Viz and
putting them in their scrolltexts! Here's a top tip for you lot- please stop!
** RIPP OFF MERCHANTS **
What makes me think this is a piss-take? Perhaps the fact that the person who
does these compils is called 'Dildo'??!?! I've got 3 'CD's from this lot, but
they're numbered 567, 581, and 584 !!! They're apparently PD and shareware
stuff only as far as I can tell, but it's quite well packed anyway.
** BIRDY **
Oh this is really ancient! Birdy was a lone cracker and was fairly well known
and disliked by loads of other crackers. He does nothing now.
** QUARTEX **
And thought it was an all English crew! No, there's a Scottish member in
Ruthless' ill-fated group.
** KICK IT IN SOFTWARE **
If you think Ruthless [Don't ask!] is bad, you should see this - Kick It In
Software ('Kick It In' is supposed to be a reference to Simple Minds [the pop
group] incidentally....) just take CDs and rip the menus off! The best example
of this is their 'CD 6'- they have just ripped the scroller! The graphics are
still the same, and say: 'LSD / WAS NOT WAS MENU 10'!!!!! The scrolltext
actually gives away what college this lamer goes, and the name of one of his
lecturers and one of his tutors! We had our suspicions about who this guy was
and we checked with someone studied the same subjects at the college, and we've
confirmed his identity, but we won't reveal his name. Let's just say that Kick
It In Software CD 6 was very much ripping without imagination!
** IMAGINATION **
But this lot win the sadcase award! They just sector edited some cracks to slag
off the Dark Angels, and edited their DOC files, then added a desktop file with
loads of disk icons saying that they are 'Glasgow's no. 1 demo crew!' Actually
we now know the identity of the man behind this lame escapade, and we think
you'd be better sticking to running your stall! (If you haven't been bust yet!
[Actually, he wasn't, I just found that out!])
** FAT TULIP **
This appears to be just one person who occasionally releases disks of utilities
and not much else, though he did claim to be trying to join Cynix at one point!
(And don't you deny it! We have the text file to prove it!)
** PRIESTS OF PLEASURE **
A new Edinburgh based demo crew, and the coder is called -Dodo- !!! They've
done an intro for Ledgers disk mag (issue 13), and Dodo appears to code using -
get this - TURBO ASSEMBLER!! [Really old/crappy assembler for ST!]
** EGB'S SMELLY SOX **
This person along with Rich Tea did the -really amazing- 'Perpetual Dawn' Demo.
Not only is he a brilliant coder and really nice person, he is also standing
immediately behind me while I type this! Aaaarrrgh! Get off! Aaaaaarrrgggh!
[Get the "Perpetual Dawn demo" for the ST by anonymous FTP at
archive.umich.edu in directory "atari/Demos" (PDAWN.ARC)]
** PIRATE STUFF **
There are three main outlets for pirate stuff. (This is for informational
purposes only of course!)
1) Mail swappers- groups and group contacts swap all their latest stuff as
soon as they get it. Usually the first to get the latest disks. If you have
any mail swapper contacts- lucky you!
2) Pirate bbs - We're certainly not going to give any numbers away here, but
this is also a fairly up-to-date way of getting stuff, if a little
expensive phone-bill-wise. In fact, we know a certain well known group get
all their stuff now from some boards!
3) Markets- any big market can be expected to have a pirate stall in it
somewhere, though I wouldn't recommend going one in the weeks before or
after Christmas, as that's the most likely times when FAST comes round...
In Scotland, the Glasgow Barras is the "place to be", since there's space
for loads of pirate stalls all about the place. We don't know any market in
Britain never mind Scotland where this is the case, even after that major
bust that happened recently, but if you know better, then tell us about it!
** PD/SHAREWARE STUFF **
You can get PD through mail swappers or bulettin boards as well, and also
through various PD Libraries, so we'll give a mention to some PD places in
Scotland:
FLOPPYSHOP - in Aberdeen. Really big, it's even got it's own bbs! (STatic)
CALEDONIAN - in Inverness. It's a bit expensive, but it's got great
contacts, in fact it was one of the first in Britain to get the
Phaelon Gigademo!
STATE 808 - in Carluke. Mainly intrested in music/sample demos.
PHOENIX PDL - This is an unsual one. It's not a normal PDL but a PD stall run
in the Glasgow Barras on weekends. Given that, it's got the
best PD list we've seen- almost as big the the old TLB library!
It's also good for a chat and the odd coder or MIDI expert
hangs around to see what's new. One of our contacts tells us
that the coders from Digitech, Wheee The Fibble, and even
occasionally DML from Black Scorpion Software appear at the
stall!
MICRO ZONE - Another PD stall at the Argyle Market. We've only just heard of
it, but it does PD for ST, Amiga and PC formats!
So we hope you like this look at the Scottish Scene. If you thought there was
hardly anything happening north of Carlisle, we hope we've enlighted you a bit!
<Genie!>
5/12/92.
updated 5/12/93
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NOTE FROM GENIE- Quite a lot of this comes from a conversation between myself
and Bip which started after he slagged off the Radical Bandits for being a
"bunch of lame fucks who can't crack for toffee". We started arguing about the
actual meaning of the word "lame" and if it's getting overused or not. Don't
worry, he'll explain who the "Radical Bandits are in the article.
==================
GLAD TO BE LAME?
==================
A "sociological" examination by Bip of Hopeless Lamers.
It would make you wonder if you were ever proud to be a hacker. People who
haven't seen each other, never mind talk to each other, and only know each
other by crap pseudonyms, violently slag each other off over some little
piffling detail like the exact differences of each other others hacked
programs. As soon as that starts, you can bet anything you like that they will
start to call each other "lamer".
It's not just in the shadowy twilight world of the pirates, but the
shadowy twilight world of demo-coders. They spend day and night coding just to
get a crappy little scroller going, and what's the first thing they do? That's
right! Write about 32K worth of greetings and then slag someone off and call
him or her (If that ever happens. Computer buffs are usually male.) a "lamer",
or even worse give him or her a "mega/giga fuck" (Though presumably this
does not extend beyond the scrolltext stage. At least there are no examples I
have heard of.)
It seems that the whole non-commercial programming scene is filled with
usage of the word "lamer", even more than certain extremely naughty swear-
words like 'fuck' and 'cunt'! (Perhaps we should be thankful.)
The use of this death-word started with the hackers on 16-bit computers,
as the developement of high tech computing facilities available to hackers
allowed them to display their hacking abilities in a suitably high tech
fashion, in particular, the "compact menu" which compacted one or more
games onto a single disk, and a selection menu was added, with that most
imfamous of programming inventions- the scroller!
Now it was used as a message board to allow any pirate group to say how
brilliant they thought they were, and give greetings to their friends and
"mega and giga fuck" to their "lamer" enemies.It's not a coincidence that
anyone with anything less than a 16-bit computer were automatically "lamers"!
(Presumably most of the population count in this category.) Also, there is a
rivarly between the users of all the 16-bit computers, in particular, the
Commodore Amiga vs the Atari ST, so we can safely expect "lamer" to be thrown
about a bit there as well.
The word itself basically means "inexperienced" or "wet behind the ears".
That is not the end of the story however. There are further connotations
contained within the application of "lamer". There are inferences to fashion
and upbringing. To put it more simply, The Computer Lamer is basically a
computer equivalent of the American-derived word "nerd" whilst the non-lamer
knows where he/she is going, what he/she is doing, etc., etc., ....
BANG! "You lamer!" CRUMP! "Aaaaarrrgggllll!" Well, at least, that is the
image that is supposed to be cultivated. The word "lamer" is supposed to be
the worst insult imaginable to any "serious" computer buff.
Or is it? It seems that "lamer" is getting used as a repetitive jibe to
the extreme by certain groups who themselves would be called "lamers" by
others!
One example would a group I've heard of called The 3 Dimensions (Neat
name, huh?). The only reason I know of them is because I got an updated
version of their menu-ripper. (That's 2 lamer points to start with- non-lame
groups do their own menus, and don't rip off others code.) They apparently
collect other peoples cracked games into their own menus. (3 more points-
they're supposed to crack it themselves!) The original version of their
program was bugged (2 points-you can at least test your own programs!!) and
the STOS source code had to be virtually re- written for it to work. (3 points-
STOS???!?! You're supposed to do it in 68000 assembler!!) So, the 3 Dimes get
a full 10 out of 10 for lameness. But what do they say in their scrolltext?
The 3 Dimes give a big welcome 'too [sic] all you lamers'!!!
Another group- favourite targets at HLHQ- try another approach entirely.
The 'Radical Bandits' (Or the 'Radical Lamers', as I like to call them.) hail
themselves in the scrolltexts of their 'menus' as 'the number one group in
serious software'! What is this 'serious' software? Yes, you guessed it,
business type software and utilities. In short, stuff you don't need to crack
to put on a menu!! In fact the menus usually exist as an ego-trip for this
sad bunch, as most of their programs are GEM based. In fact, I'm not sure
that their menus are not ripped off someone elses code!! I notice, though,
that they haven't had that much midi software on their menus. Is this, I
wonder, because the price of the software has meant that software house have
started putting protection on their disks? Don't worry though, Radical Lamers!
If you have a problem making Cubase 3 work without a dongle, just ask me to
crack it, won't you?
We all know one or two hilarious examples of 'lameness'. However, you
might well ask, how far can we take this? If someone uses someones elses
packer, does that make them a lamer? We could quite easily point out that
hackers, demo writers, etc., don't quite do everything by themselves. They
invariably use someone elses code. Thus, it could be argued, we are all lamers
to some extent.
And quite rightly so, I say! For too long, other users have been abused
and sneered at by people with huge bloated egos. Why should the word 'lamer'
be such an insult? It surely proves that we are all mortals in the end. (It
might sound corny, but that's life.) Those that are first to shout 'lamer' are
about as lame as everyone else, even if only because of their hypocracy (in
using someone elses code.) and arrogance (in assuming that they are more
important than others.) . Indeed you could throw the use of the word itself
into doubt. After all, isn't the word 'lame' intolerant to disabled people?
It's about time that people started taking the piss out of what has
become an 'establishment' frame of mind. If there's no-one who doesn't stand
up to the yardstick by which one might be a 'lamer', then there really should
be no shame attached to this label. Indeed, it's becoming so much of a parody
of itself, that it's absolutely worth taking the piss!!
In this light, there is nothing wrong with calling our own group the
'Hopeless Lamers', even if we're considered less 'lame' than other people. Just
look at the name- a complete piss-take if ever there was one. It's also pretty
easy to live up to the label 'we're Hopeless Lamers', much easier than the
usual crappy 'we're the best crew!' and 'fuck all lamers' nonsense you see in
scrolltext after scrolltext after scrolltext. Not that we don't see the huge
egos of demo-coders and crackers as another aspect of the computer world
worth pillioring. (In fact we do it an awful lot in our scrolltexts.) Well,
why not? If more of these people had a bit of humility, it would at least make
for more interesting scrolltexts.
Another important point to remember is that in the long term, it won't
matter who is the best, and who the lamers are. Experience has shown that
computers move on. The coders who laugh at the 8-bit machine users of
yesteryear, will themselves be laughed on by the demo-coders on the home
computers of tomorrow. The An Cools and Manikins of the demo coders world,
and the Aliens and Mighty Clogs of the hacking fraternity will have to learn
new operating systems if they wish to continue on their merry way, or else
they will become the new 'lamers'.
Meanwhile in the twilight zone of computing, another pirate group slams
'lamers' on their menu, which was coded by someone else, but of course they
won't tell you that.
== /---\ /---\ =============================================================
== I I ---< =============================================================
== \___/ \___/ =============================================================
And now..... (drum roll!) the moment so many of you have been waiting for!
* THE VERY BITS ... *
??? No? How about...
* THE VERY -COMPLETE- VERSION OF... *
***** ***** * * ***** * ***** ***** *****
* * * ** ** * * * * * *
* * * * * * * ***** * **** * ****
* * * * * * * * * * *
***** ***** * * * ***** ***** * *****
***** ***** ***** ***** * *
* * * * * * * *
* **** ***** ***** *****
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * ***** * *
F - R - O - M
* * ***** ***** * * ***** ***** * *
** * * * * * * * * * * * **
* * * **** * * * * * * * **** **
* ** * * ** ** * * * * * **
* * ***** * * * ***** * * * *
***** ***** ***** ***** * *
* * * * * * * *
* **** ***** ***** *****
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * ***** * *
(T H E * S E R I A L)
ORIGINAL DOCUMENT BY THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS
OF -NETWORK TRASH-
Genie, Torg, Warlock, Revlis, and Zog the Destroyer.
PART 1 OF A SQUILLION PART FILE.
********************************************************
* WARNING! THIS TEXT FILE CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT *
* SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE!!!! *
* (WELL, WHAT A FUCKING SHAME, EH?) *
********************************************************
==============================================================================
* INTRODUCTION * TO THE..... * INTRODUCTION *
Hello, this is Genie, one of the writers of this amazing work. I've edited
this down a bit for space reasons, but basically what happened is that somehow
Agrajag of Blue Harvest/Digitech got a copy of the original version of the
"Complete Trash from Network Trash" story, started going on about how great it
was on Fidonet F&SF echo, and then did an edited version with his own comments,
and uploaded it to his bbs. The bbs sysop apparently thought it was crap,
because he didn't put on the board. (Fuck you, Donald!) So over to you EGBSS...
==============================================================================
* INTRODUCTION * TO THE..... * INTRODUCTION * (PART 2)
Hello, this is EGB's Smelly Sox, and I had seen the original version of
'Complete Trash...', and I was thinking of converting it to the ST! Then I
heard that this Agrajag person had been going about it on Fidonet. THEN I go
down to the Ripped Off Party, and guess who turns up.... Right! It's Agrajag!
So I corner him and he admits converting it to the ST and he says he gave it to
Mat of the Untouchables for the next issue of Ledgers! [ST Disk magazine] So, I
manage to get a copy of the two files off him- well, not off him directly, but
sneakily copying this disk at the dead of night while he's asleep! Thanks for
the files, Agrajag! If the next issue of Ledgers ever comes out, you might see
the full thing! I wouldn't bother though- it's a load of shit anyway. Anyway,
here's an edited form of what he wrote.
[ Oh BTW, since we wrote this in January, Agrajag has contacted us and said
that he was actually going to send us a copy!! Ledgers diskmag stopped
around September 1992, so it was never actually published there. SO
basically, we've now got permission to use what he said here! -<Genie!> ]
=== Begin Quote ==========================================================
* COMPLETE TRASH FROM NETWORK TRASH: BACKGROUND INFO.
This was the first line of CTFNT:
'Length so far: 10 Chapters / 49 pages / 19181 words 112715 chrs.'
Apart from a half finished Chapter 11, that's how far the story has gone!
Any member of NT who wishes to write a chapter of CTFNT is presumably given
free rein to write whatever he/she wants. However, if you actually look at the
people who have written the chapters, then it appears that after the first few
chapters, it's clear that 3 members are in charge of writing here. Let's look
at who wrote what:
Chapter 1 : Genie
Chapter 2 : Warlock
Chapter 3 : Zog the Destroyer.
Chapter 4 : Revlis
Chapter 5 : Torg
Chapter 6 : Genie
Chapter 7 : Warlock
Chapter 8 : Torg
Chapter 9 : Genie
Chapter 10 : Warlock
The half-finished chapter 11, as if you haven't guessed, is by Torg!
* SETTING *
The area of Glasgow University around Queen Margaret Gardens and Lillybank
Gardens. At the join between the two roads there is a small but wide pedestrian
walkway, straddled at either side by Glasgow University Queen Margaret Students
Union (The 'QM' to all hip-dudes) and the Boyd Orr Building, mainly used by
science students. The room numbers are mainly of the format:
BO <Floor number><room number>
eg BO511 is the eleventh room on the fifth floor. The 5th floor is
for the Computing Science labs.
Beyond the Boyd Orr is University Avenue, which goes all the way from
Byres Road to the other student union, the Glasgow University Union (GUU). On
the way, it goes up and down Gilemorehill, meeting the John Macintyre building
(John Mac) and Reading Room on either side. Behind the John Mac is the old
university buildings including the famous Scott tower. Behind the Reading Room
is the Hub, which contains the SRC shop and alledged 'snacks'. Next to the Hub
is the main library building, which is behind the Adam Smith building for
politics and social science students. And a path from behind that leads back
down Gilmorehill to the QM. Phew.
[Apart from the fact that the Adam Smith is BEHIND the library not the other
way around, it's pretty accurate..... <Genie!>]
=== End Quote ==============================================================
** NOW A LITTLE TUTORIAL ON THE MAC BY GENIE! **
Well, as I'm speaking, I'm looking at a Mac LCII. There's a nice multi-coloured
line pattern dancing over a black screen at the moment, but that's the Moire
screensaver, and that'll go away as soon as I jostle the mouse, so let's see
what's on at the moment... Aha. A system error. Well, that's nice incompatible
system 7 on the Macintosh for you. If you haven't used a Mac before, I'll
explain- each Mac demands a system to load: on this one, there's a hard drive
so it loads from that, but Mac Pluses for example, need a 720K system disk in
all the time! It's a bit like tha Amiga in some ways.
Anyway, let's restart this computer, and see what happens. (Beep!) Up
comes the usual 'smiling face' when the system starts loading, then a dialog
says 'Welcome to Macintosh'- of couse you can change your system to say
something different if you want. Usually, it just loads all the desk
accessories then goes straight to the desktop, but this is a Mac in the
Computing Science!
Macs in the Computing Department with a hard drive use a special piece of
software called 'RevRDist' which tidies the hard drive according to a 'clean'
master copy on a server somewhere in Computing Science. Of course, you can
disable it if you want to... Anyway, I want to do something different...
Go to the the 'Apple' menu, and select 'Chooser'. This is a piece of
system software which is used with Appletalk networks. Say you want to print
out from a laser printer that could be anywhere in the network, (assuming
you've got enough left in your quota of course!) you 'log on' to it by
selecting it in the Chooser. In the same way, you can log onto Appleshare
servers. These are real networks! Now, I'll log onto one- I'll select the
'Omneity' Appleshare zone, and the 'Maclib' server. Double click on it and...
Up comes a dialog box asking for a username and a password, so I'll type that
in... And here's the server volumes. So I load stuff off their network like it
was an extremely slow write protected hard drive! But of course I know
somewhere in Computing Science where I -can- write to... Yes, it's the Network
Trash folder!
<Genie!>
== /---\ / I =============================================================
== I I ---I- =============================================================
== \___/ I =============================================================
****************************************************************************
* This file originally appeared in PURE BOLLOCKS #21, by permission of the *
* authors. This may be spread, but not published for profit. *
****************************************************************************
NOTE - Apart from the members of Network Trash, all the other names (including
"real" names) are so-called "made-uppies" ie fictional stuff. Also,
though some of the events may be inspired by real-life incidents,
they're still fictional made-uppy events here, so there.
Complete Trash from Network Trash.
FOREWORD
You know some utter *bastard* wiped this file while I was working on it!!! This
was while ol' Cap Salamander was on, so it better not be you.... [It probably
wasn't, actually, but I didn't know that then.]
This was the old "Book Help" file, to aid Warlock in his quest to write
a story. (I ask you.) I was writing a whole bloody chapter when it got fucked,
so I'm pretty angry... (I'll now keep backups of it just to be on the
safe side.)
To resume.....
My totally brilliant (albiet completely unoriginal) idea was for people to
write a load of crap, then let everyone else write their load of crap carrying
on from your load of crap (assuming you've carried your load of crap from the
previous load of crap.) So whaddyathink? Load of crap? No, I think it's bloody
brilliant! (Beams as if it was an original idea.)
=================================
COMPLETE TRASH FROM NETWORK TRASH
=================================
By
Members of Network Trash.
(Genie, Torg, Warlock, Revlis, Zog the Destroyer.)
DRAMATIS PERSON?
(Guffaw, guffaw, the very *idea*...)
In alphabetical order, incidently..
6025: (Well, ascii order then.) Mean, lean, green, and some
other thing, anarchic and heroic law-breaking hacker who
is not too bad at computers. (Well, obviously.)
Genie: Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking hacker
who pioneered (no, really) the original sneaky network
under the noses of Computing Science.
Ron Irvine: A strange creature who says startlingly obvious things.
Mishka: A mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic
computer simulation of Muffys dog.
Niei: The very cunning villian, who tries and stops every little
Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacking pleasure of the mean, lean, green, anarchic and
heroic law-breaking hackers in this story.
Hotknife: One of the most notorious mean, lean, green, anarchic and
heroic law-breaking hackers in the history of 16 bit
computing. Now he's a mean, lean, green, anarchic and
heroic protection expert, and he makes an awful lot of
money formatting other peoples disks.
Nun Fucker: God (no pun intended), what a stupid mean, lean, green,
anarchic and heroic law-breaking hacker name.
Pioufgh: Almost certainly another mean, lean, green, anarchic and
heroic law-breaking hacker, which unfortunately we don't
know anything about (Even whether it's a he or she- I kid
you not!)
Revlis: A mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacker, who changes his name an awful lot in this story,
with predictably confusing and hilarious results.
Satan: Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacker, who, if this story is to be believed (????!?!?!),
shouts an awful lot.
Stringfellow: Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacker, who is apparently a friend of Nun Fucker.
Torg: Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacker, who founded the original Network Trash. (Cue
chorus of heavenly angels FX.)
Warlock: The mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking
hacker who is to blame for starting all this bullshit.
Raodhogg: We don't know who he is, but he's definitely nothing to do
with ........
Roy Willow: A strange creature who wears exactly the same clothes
every day, except on holidays.
Alan Unturing: A mean, lean, green, anarchic and generally not-very-nice
computer.
Zog the Destroyer: Mean, lean, green, anarchic and heroic law-breaking hacker
who is apparently into 'hectic mating sessions'.
INTRODUCTION
(Cue Stravinsky 'Rites of Spring'.)
(Wow, wot a cultured bastard I am.)
And thus it came to pass that the gods of the Computing Science department
thought it would be a good idea if they updated their servers. And lo, while
they were at it, it came to pass that they granted each year their own server.
It was the year 1989AD.
The first and second years found they had been blessed with their own Drop box
server. It was never used, but the gods of the Computing Science had decided
in their infinite wisdom that the mere student mortals might find it
interesting. From this point on, nothing would ever be the same again in the
kingdom of Lilybank gardens. For lo, the students did find it interesting.
Very interesting.
One of those was Don the Cleaner. You could write to it, but not see it, he
said. Then came the turning point. I wonder, he thought, what will happen if
you try and erase these folders. And so he decided to test out his theory. He
dragged the four tutor folders to the wastebasket, and tried to empty it.
There was a brief pause, and lo, they had disappeared. Genie was frightened by
this display of power, and created four new folders with the old names on
them.
And it came to pass that a week had gone by, and nothing had happened to the
folders, and no-one had said a word about anything. Genie tried putting an
application onto the server. It copied across perfectly. He also found that
messages could be put across by creating folders, and renaming them. I think
there's a lot of potential in this, thought Genie. And at last, he did see the
light. 'The Genie Pool' was created.
A fortnight had come to pass, and 'The Genie Pool' was the talk of the mortal
students of Computing Science. Games and utilities were being bartered through
it. The first Server generation had been born: Genie, Don the Cleaner, Satan,
and Captain Salamander. But now there was a problem.
Genie was worried that the stream of traffic on the server might wake up the
sleeping Gods of Lilybank Gardens. He decided that 'The Genie Pool' had to
shut down for a short time. And thus it came to pass that he advertised Daft
Friday as the temporary shut-down date.
There were other problems with people deleting everything, but Genie had
learned the art of keeping a backup of the server structure.
However, Don the Cleaner was not satisfied. It had been found out that CS2
users had the keys to the gates of the Gods own drop-box server. He opened it
up, and it was a wonderous sight. Every diety with a UNIX key had their own
folder. Even better, cs2users had write priveledges. The day was Stupid
Thursday.
And it came to pass that at this very time, Genie was getting preparing the
server for the temporary shutdown. As he did, he logged onto the dieties Drop
Box server out of curiosity. A strange new sight greeted his eyes. Someone had
started renaming every folder. The names 'John Major' and 'Starsky & Hutch'
leapt out at him. Genie created a new folder, and re-named it 'Stop it!'.
Within a minute, a folder responded 'No.'. Genie sent another marked 'Why are
you doing this?'. Another minute passed, and the response came: 'It's OK, I'm
finished now!' And lo, most of the Gods folders had disappeared. And it came
to pass that Genie thought it would be a good time to leave the Boyd Orr
building.
The next day, 'The Genie Pool' had shut down, not by Genie's hand, but by that
of the Computing Science Gods, who had erased the server, and write-protected
it.
Another year, and a new server generation.
Genie and Torg joined forces in conquering the Mac Classics in the kingdom of
the Reading Room. This was to prove very useful, for Torg had a very
interesting thing to tell Genie. It was the month of October in the year 1991
AD
Torg had logged onto the Hawaii: Committee Minutes server. Loading up the
artifact known as 'Microsoft Word 4', he noted a folder in the holy file-
selector that he hadn't noticed before- a secret folder called 'Network Trash
Folder'. And lo, he could save into it. From this point on, nothing would ever
be the same again in the kingdom of Lilybank Gardens.
For now there was a new and wiser server generation. Once they had started
their crusade for a mortals network, they could not be stopped. And thus it
came to pass that Network Trash became a network in it's own right, not
dependent on any of the Gods of Lilybank Gardens.
And thus the server generation had come of age.
<Genie!>
* STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK FOR THE STORY PROPER! *
== I---- I\ I I---\ ======================================================
== I--- I \ I I I ======================================================
== I____ I \I I___/ ======================================================
If you have an ST system, we recommend you try the original ST binary version
of Pure Bollocks! You can obtain it from the following FTP sites:
atari.archive.umich.edu in the directory "atari/Magazines/Pb"
ftp.uni-kl.de in the directory "pub/atari/magazines"
You can also receive a copy by sending an International Reply Coupon plus the
relevant amount of disks (1 disk for PB #21, 2 each for PB #22 and PB #23) to
PB Magazine,
PO box 1083,
Glasgow G14 9DG,
Scotland,
UK.
We have compiled ASCII only versions of these, and archived them using ZIP
v2.0. Each of these fit onto a single PC format disk. Please state if you want
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