118 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
118 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
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)( A Bridge over Troubled Waters Presentation )(
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It all started one day while I was sitting at my desk, comtemplating the
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load of Lotus support utilities which had been sent to me for review. I was
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wondering what a "spreadsheet compiler" was when the phone ring.
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"Mr. Spector," said the woman's voice on the other end. "I've got a hot
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tip for you. If you can come here right away, I can giv you the biggest
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news story of the year."
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"Where are you?" I asked.
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"On the telephone," she answered before hanging up.
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Interesting. In response to a perfectly reasonable question, she had
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given me an answer that was 100% correct but totally useless. I figured she
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worked for IBM.
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I got there as fast as I could. A security guard asked me for
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identification and I handed him my card. He glanced at it, and suddenly
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pulled his gun on me while pressing a button. An alarm sounded as a voice
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came over the PA system, "Press infiltration. Repeat: Press infiltration.
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Destroy all uncoded data."
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Before I knew it, three additional guards had me covered. At this
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point, I did the only thing a man of my temperament could do in this
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position; I fainted.
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When I came to, I was in a nicely appointed office, apparently unhurt.
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A professional-looking young woman was putting away a bottle of smelling
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salts. "I apologize about that reception you received," she said. "The
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folks in Security sometimes lose their heads about the press. They never
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checked to see that you had been okayed.
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"I'm the woman who called you," she continued as she extended her hand,
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"my name's Edna Purvience. Mr Spector, IBM has decided that, of all the
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journalists specialized in computers, your writing style best suits our
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corporate policy. You have therefore been selected for the major scoop
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everyone has been waiting for."
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"The Clone Killer?" I asked eagerly.
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"We prefer calling it 'copy protection'," she corrected me. "In fact,
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our original design, the IBM PC QT, required the end-user to insert a
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special uncopyable key chip in order to boot up." She smiled. "For added
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protection, the licensing agreement forbade altering the motherboard or
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adding any peripherals to the system."
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"You mention the QT in past tense," I commented. "What happened to it?"
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"The copy-protection proved faulty. We were on our second month of
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beta-testing when someone released a product called COPYAPC."
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"Sounds like your competitors were on the ball."
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"Mr. Spector, IBM doesn't have competitors, only usurpers."
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"Sorry," I apoligized, sufficiently rebuffed. "So if the QT was
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dropped, what are you releasing?"
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"A machine that will never be copied, the computer of tomorrow." She
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handed me a brochure. "Meet the IBM PC MT! Due out in three months.
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"Our studies have shown," she continued as I thumbed through the
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brochure, "that the proliferation of expansion cards for the original PC
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and its followers have encouraged the imitations we are trying to stop. No
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such boards will be necessary therefore for the MT. The motherboard will
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include graphics, ports, and a modem, all basted on new standards of
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course, plus three megabytes of RAM."
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"Three megabytes of RAM?" That impressed me.
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"Of course, our new Predatory Operating System will only address 256k,
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but we'll find a use for the rest."
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"New operating system?" I asked. "Then you're not going to be using
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ADOS?"
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"Current estimates are that fully five perfect of existing programs
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will work on ADOS. We are not interested in compatability."
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"So what new programs will work with the new system?"
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"Nothing at the present time, but we should have some software out by
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late next year. The MT's ROM BIOS, of course, will only accepted programs
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with our copy-righted code."
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"Of course. How fast will this computer be?"
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"We're locking it down to 6 MHz. We're figuring that if we allow it to
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run faster, other companies will be tempted to duplicate it."
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"Let me get this straight," I said. "You're releasing a computer that
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cannot be expanded, is not compatable with anything, can only run your
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software - which isn't even out yet - and runs at half the speed of others
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on the market?"
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"That's correct!" she said proudly. "We figure that way no one is
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likely to clone it."
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"Yes, but will they buy it?" I asked.
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"Of course they'll buy it." she said. "It's IBM."
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----
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Lincoln Spector is employed in the Technical Support Department of
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800-Software in Berkeley, California. "Behind the Blue Door" was reprinted
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from the March 24-April 6 1987 edition of Computer Currents magazine
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without permission. Typed in by Rocky Racoon of A Bridge over Troubled
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Waters Presentations.
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[] The Dark Side AE/BBS.. 408/245-SPAM, 3/12/24, 45 megs. Located in South
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Sunnyvale, California Sysops: S Bunker and Someone Else
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:)(:
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(>
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