**************************************************************************** The following, like many files, expresses an attitude of ignorance and bigotry that is wholly incompatible with the philosophy of this BBS. It is made available as a pathological example of the intellectual largesse of a certain "file writer", who probably wrote this for upload credits and no other reason. -=( TOMMY )=- p.s. no, I didn't write this file. **************************************************************************** A Documentary on a Commodore User... Joe bob smith proudly walks out of toys 'r' us with his brand new commodore64 that he got on sale for $134. On top of the shiny new box is a smaller one, holding a disk drive that cost $350, or twice as much as the computer. He didn't mind though...All his friends used commodores. As you may have already guessed, joe is a loser. The fact that he is buying a commodore shows it. The fact that all his friends have commodores proves it. Along with the disk drive, he also got a professional 110 baud modem, that cost him all of fifty bucks. "What a steal!" He thought happily to himself. Little did joe know that 110 baud modems are more out of style than pedal-pushers. Yes, joe had been victimized by the commodore commercials. He had been brainwashed to think that commodores were the best thing since apple pie. He could hardly wait to tell his good buddies at school. Later that night, he had managed to have his commodore running the beginning software that was included. "Wow!" Joe thought, "it can load a 48k program in one minute!" It is obvious joe is a very ignorant lad. Next morning, joe skipped gaily into school and was greeted by a friend. Joe burst out eagerly: "hey, mark! Guess what? I got a commodore!" He said it so loudly tht a group of would-be computer users came over and asked him all sorts of questions. "Wow!" Said one geek, "how many kilobytes?" "What's a kilobyte?" Joe replied confused. But the geek didn't answer. He had already left. Joe went on to his classes, smiling all the ay. In english, joe was chatting merrily with some more commodore geeks. They all offered t let him copy their pirated software. Joe was eager to play some games, even though he had forgot to buy a joystick. After school was finished, he rushed right over to a friend's house with a box of datalife diskettes, the type most commodore users have so that their disk costs will exceed that of their computers. Joe got all the latest software... Space invaders, dino eggs, and lemonade. New for commodore, anyways. Joe was very impressed with he software; it was the best possible, he was told. Along with the games, he got a list of numbers to call. Among them was the dark side of the moon, the year 2000, sunrise omega-80 and other haunts of commodore users. He plunked the disks down on his filer and booted up his auto-dialer. Half an hour later, the piece of shit had loaded and he was ready. The first number: the year 2000, or the time warper's board, run off the usual one floppy drive. As the letters spewed out of his computer at a magnificent 110 bits per second, joe called mommy over to watch. She ooed and awed, amazed at just how far the computer indutry had gone since univac. When asked for his name, joe thought really fast. He had been advised to get a handle.0 The first thing that came to his mind was "zolt". So, he entered zolt and then "new". The requirements for validation seemed easy enough, so he roudly entered all of his hardware. The whole list comprised of this: one computer, one rca color television, (used by most commodore users as their main screen), one drive, some starting software, and his massive list of games. Then, the sysop, time warper, came on-line chatting. Joe was surprised that such a high and mighty sysop should want to chat with him. Time warper asked if joe had any more software. Joe said no, he had just gotten his computer. Time warper generously offered to swap warez, but joe didn't know what the word meant. Time warper gladly explained, and joe thought it would be fun, so he said yes. His first mistake. The time warper has the reputtion in the san francisco bay area for being the biggest geek next to joe himself, who hadn't built up his reputation yet. * * * The next day, a saturday, joe and the time warper were to meet at the time warper's house. Joe rang his doorbell promptly at the time agreed upon, and time warper answered the summons. He ushered joe into his shitty abode deep inside the richmond slums. Joe copied about ten disks, and then watched as time warper terrorized another commodore geek on his board. Time waper decided to giee joe sysop access, a thing he did for a lot of people, so in effect there were about twenty sysops on his board; not very different from most one drive commodore boards. That evening at dinner, joe told his parents about how much fun he was having with his commodore. They smiled, and told him to say thank you. He did, but he shoudn't have. If you had been sentenced to life imprisonment, would you thank the judge? I didn't think so. After dinner, he rushed back to his new commodore and called a list of boards he had gotten from time warper. All night, until three o'clock, called boards and established himself. He offered to trade "his latest warez," a term he had learned from time warper. Even though he didn't have a transer program. The next morning, he arose bright and early at 6:00 to see if he had gotten any replies. On almost every board he did. Commodore users, you see, think it is buff to stay up late and call boards to improve their image, despite the fact that they own a commodore. All day long, joe was making phone calls to more commodore users who wanted his brand new games. He made appointments, and soon was off into the world of piracy. Time warper had dropped by to drop off a ransfer program, along with a commodore terminal program called "shit-fer 1.0". No one had bothered to try and improve that hopeless program. Slow as a model-t, joe sent out his latest warez, and even got some little ten block programs that made the screen clear and print "hello". These little programs got joe interested in programming. Shoving his external modem aside, he popped in a blank disk and had that sucker formatted in five minutes flat. He carefully scrutinized all the programs he got and learned. Inside an hour,he got his computer to go blank, make a beep, and print hello, using some very sophisticated pokes (or so he thought). Now joe was tired, so he saved his program and shut off his computer. He neatened everything up and went wearily into his room, now plastered wmhh commodore propaganda. He quickly undressed and fell contentedly asleep. * * * During the night, a prowler entered his house stealthily. He shined his dimmed flashlight around the house and saw the commodore. Pity swept over him in a wave. If this family had a commodore, he knew they needed the money. He left quietly and closed the window gently after him. In the afternoon, joe awoke fresh and eager to get back to his commodore. He booted hs program disk onee more, and started up a new program, called "zapterm," designed to be a terminal program as well as a sprint hacker. Zapterm was just shit-fur 1.0 With a few wording changes and a tone generator for the hacking program. He called time warper for sprint's access port, and time warer gladly gave it to him. Joe was now off into the world of wire fraud (as 'm sure you are). He booted up his new program, and by some quirk of fate, it worked perfectly. It called sprint, and entered code after code, call after call. Without a pause between call, zapterm hacked away for over two hours. Then, there came a knock at the door. Joe got up and answered the door. Two men, dressed in smart business suits, stepped in and looked around. Directly in front of them was the computer, hacking away, tones coming loudly out of the speaker. The men approached the computer silently, and examined the screen in detail. Out of 300 codes, joe had found ten codes. They asked politely for his parents and joe showed them into the bedroom. The taller man explained to joe's parent why they were here, and they were shocked. Joe was fined $500 for wire fraud, and another $500 for piracy. His computer was impounded, and his disks cut in half. The computer was credited towards the fine, so joe only had to pay $700. For the next six months, joe worked hard mowing lawns and doing two paper routes. Finally, he had earned enough money to pay back his already impoverished parents. Time warper and joe's frends were visited by the fbi, and charged with wire fraud and piracy. Joe was despised for years to come, because he had talked too freely. And the moral of the story is... You get wha you pay for. Written by The Baron Gts June, 1985 Downloaded from the forbdin project 415-540-6031 X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 Rat Head Ratsnatcher 510-524-3649 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 415-567-7043 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. "Raw Data for Raw Nerves" X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X