172 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
172 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
Well, after finally reading all the textfiles and buffers and
|
||
such on DERF, with "Tcrow" and Hairy, I think it has finally come
|
||
to time for me to add my two cents, but then, why throw in only
|
||
two cents when you can toss in a whole quarter?
|
||
|
||
By the way, my freestyle writing style has been adapted from
|
||
Hairy Leech and our endless babbles on, yes, the one and only,
|
||
Angel's Lair. So if this file sounds anything like something
|
||
Hairy might have wrote, well, now you know why...
|
||
|
||
Okay, let's start with me, and oh sure, its a very common story
|
||
to tell. Surely I got interested in computers like the rest of
|
||
you by watching shows such as "Whiz Kids" and all the friendly
|
||
garble... Well, sd to say, it goes back for me as far as fourth
|
||
grade... see, my elemtary school got in these cool-o top of the
|
||
line Commodore 64's (which were all networked to ONE 1541 disk
|
||
drive, if you could imagine that... ) And I was amoung the few
|
||
honors students in the school to have regular access to them. My
|
||
innate creative abilities which I now apply to prose writing
|
||
allowed me to take a novel approach to programming, and I
|
||
addapted to it rather quickly. ( IronHorse's views on DERF, or
|
||
the origin of IronHorse himself, you decide. ) I got so "computer
|
||
knowledgeable in the school that when the principal had a problem
|
||
running the schools computer, he call ME down. ( I must mention
|
||
here that my rep there was greatly exaggerated, for once I got to
|
||
the principals computer, I had no idea what was going on... but
|
||
if I only knew then what I do know now... ) Anyway, so that was
|
||
my first taste of the computers, I'm sure you all have similar
|
||
stories to tell. Then, oh wonder of wonders, my father bought a
|
||
cool-o TRS-80 MC-10 ( I still have it, I think I use it as a book
|
||
end or something... ) This computer was lame, but it was MINE.
|
||
and so I did many things with it and soon I was taking it beyond
|
||
where it was designed to go. ( Any good BASIC programmer could do
|
||
things like that in those days... ) And I was moving on, into
|
||
middle school and then high school... when I got a job. Let me
|
||
interrupt here to say I live in a very unsociable neighborhood
|
||
and before I got a job and had money to actually go places, I was
|
||
a stereo-typical geek you could get. I played with my computer, I
|
||
went to school, I hung out with my, what, 3 friends. So, with the
|
||
job I spoke of brought money, at about the same time I also met
|
||
what was soon to be my five best friends. I tried of course to
|
||
assimilate those old three to the new five and only one survived,
|
||
but change brings change. What bearing does this have? Well,
|
||
you'll see... Anyway, like I was saying, I got a job, and so I
|
||
had money, and for $300 dollars used I bought what I was always
|
||
longing for, a Commodore 64, 1541, and this weird little box
|
||
called a modem ( I think that is the matching book end to the MC-
|
||
10... ) Well, at this time I was also subscribed thanks to a gift
|
||
from my sister, to this k-rad computer magazine, K-Power. Well,
|
||
in it I finally found a number to call in north Jersey. I called
|
||
with that nifty modem thing, and the number replied with a
|
||
CONNECT 300 ( yes, 300, I had a 300 baud modem... remember
|
||
those? ) The board, I believe, was the Iron Cross ( it's still up
|
||
today in fact ). The usual new caller log on spiff went by and
|
||
then it asked for a "handle".. A what? I knew not what to use,
|
||
then I realized my favorite tv show at that time was "War Of The
|
||
Worlds" and a way cool character on there was Lt. Crnl. Paul
|
||
Ironhorse... and, alas, IronHorse was born. ( I never knew til
|
||
many years later that the computer hack on the show was named
|
||
NORTON, and now that name is all to familiar, isn't it? ) Well,
|
||
obviously Iron Cross ( and the soon many local to it boards I was
|
||
calling ) was long distance, but I didn't care, I had a job, and
|
||
mom and dad paid the phone bill yet anyway... Ah, and we roll on,
|
||
see, that was not the greatest of my folly... somewhere along the
|
||
line Compuserve was mentioned to me, and I just had to have it...
|
||
of course, it ran into a whole lot of money and I dropped it, no
|
||
sooner to join GEnie.. which also ran into a lot of money, and I
|
||
dropped that... but all the while I was still faithful to Iron
|
||
Cross... then, one day, while reading the back pages of K-Power
|
||
(ooh what a cool magazine <g> ) I saw an ad, "DMBBS new owner,
|
||
blah, blah, blah, modem line (908) 341-0945." 908?!?! 341?!?!?
|
||
Well son of a biscuit! Thats local to me! From what I was
|
||
thinking in those days, I was the only person on the Jersey shore
|
||
with a computer ( IBM and Commie alike... ) Ahh, a local
|
||
number... so I called it... and poof, IronHorse the local legend
|
||
was born... I babbled on their that I only called LD boards and
|
||
someone gave me the number of many other (oh my god!) local
|
||
boards that I could call. Wow oh wow oh wow. One of them ( drum
|
||
roll please ) was of course, Angel's Lair. Well, I got on there,
|
||
and like so many of the previous TANJ files will suggest, Angel
|
||
was flirting with me ( by this time I might add, those group of
|
||
friends were forming still, but we weren't quite our own little
|
||
clique yet... ) And begin a lamer, I found this quite
|
||
interesting... of course, the playing rolled into chat and such
|
||
and at this time I began calling another local BBS... November
|
||
Emergency. ( Remember that all? Commie BBS? Now one of the TANJ
|
||
lines I think? ) Anyway, the usual, to use an Angel Baby quote
|
||
"lowlifes" were there, talking about the Sunday role-playing
|
||
games and the drugs and such, all of which (at least the drugs) I
|
||
was not interested. Well, I got to talking to NeoPlasm and ended
|
||
up doing as much as drawing c/g ( you know, Commodore ansi-like
|
||
screens ) for his BBS... and, 'gan to hear about AB. ( Now, lucky
|
||
for me I guess, this was after the first talhell shit. ) He
|
||
hinted things were perhaps not as good as they seem, and at least
|
||
me being a little wry at the time, I was able to tell AB had Kaos
|
||
Kidd as boy friend at least... which, in chat, she down played...
|
||
they weren't getting along or some such crap. Well, I'm not the
|
||
type to blatantly steal another man's g/f, so I just acknowledged
|
||
her and moved on. Well, come that ceremonious boycott of the
|
||
boards, and I chose to stay middle ground and call both... And,
|
||
by this time my friends were starting to get together and role
|
||
play of our own accord, so I had other things as well to take up
|
||
my time. Well, hell-fire and brimstone came down and all the
|
||
stuff spoke of in the other files happend to their finales, and I
|
||
was pretty much a loyal Angel's Lair supporter. ( Note, by this
|
||
time I had yet to actually meet her. ) I was a Commodore user, I
|
||
had no access to the IBM bbs world ( in those days, and quite
|
||
still many an IBM bbs won't format for shit on a C-64 ) And then
|
||
of course, came my first DERF meeting ( 2 1/2 I think? I do not
|
||
know, though when I compare it to the past files, I think maybe I
|
||
WAS there for some of this big sha-bang. ) Anyway, I went, there
|
||
was me, Lone Wolf, (Commie user, cool guy... I think anyway..)
|
||
and a whole bunch of other folk I can't remember. Well, I met
|
||
Angel ( wow, talk about shattered images! ) and Derf, who I
|
||
thought was rather odd, but okay... Ah, but these were definitely
|
||
NOT my kind of folk. ( aside in a psychiatrists voice: now we see
|
||
the origin of IronHorse's BBS meet phobia... <g> ) Okay, on we
|
||
go, more into the inter-tangled web I wove. At the next hyper-
|
||
lame meet they had, which was on Halloween, I met a girl, who was
|
||
going out with another derf we locals all know and love, sysop of
|
||
the Commie board The Final Frontier... Well, he was treating her
|
||
rather shitty that night, and it ended up that me and she were
|
||
together... far be it from me to know that she was, for lack of
|
||
any clearer terms, well, a slut. Well, we didn't last all that
|
||
long... she wanted to date me, I know she did, because I thought
|
||
more of her then just a slut, but she was a slut at heart, and
|
||
since we were not doing anything along those lines, it ended
|
||
rather abruptly. Well, anyways during the time that me and she
|
||
were, Admiral Kirk ( sysop of FF ) understandably hated me.
|
||
(Well, for that, and his little sister, which is not what you're
|
||
thinkin<EFBFBD> an<61> ma<6D> becom<6F> <20> textfil<69> o<> itsel<65> someda<64> soon..<2E> <20>
|
||
And, beyond my knowledge, KK, AB, and AK were all speaking of me,
|
||
how fond AB and KK were I do not know, but their opinions of me
|
||
certainly lowered as AK entered the picture... But that all
|
||
really doesn't matter, you all are going to love this... while
|
||
driving KK to a party of Final Frontier ( to wit I was going only
|
||
because the girl was going to be there ) KK actually tried
|
||
explaining to me the origins behind the derflink itself! Okay, I
|
||
suppose this will be the latest description of it, so I'll tell
|
||
you what he said, he said via a commodore interface called a g-
|
||
wiz I think and a few IBM parts he would be able to make an
|
||
adapter for the Commodore 128 so that it could support 8 lines. I
|
||
listened, but was lost ( not only because it was beyond me, but
|
||
it was also in derf-speak ), but I knew it was a load, a
|
||
commodore would most likely explode if it had 8 phone lines
|
||
coming into it, and having had 3 years of high school electronics
|
||
by this time, I knew he was shoveling it. But, so be it. ( And
|
||
now I hear that is was supposed to be a CMD from his first
|
||
ramblings? Where is this mans sense of patronage? <g> )
|
||
Well then of course, as all the locals know, all hell finally
|
||
broke loose in the BBS world and Cyberchat was born. This forced
|
||
me to get a modem for that IBM, and then I started calling those
|
||
IBM boards and I finally read a text file, and now look, I'm
|
||
writing one...
|
||
Oh, and one other thing to help you locals love AB and KK some
|
||
more... back in August of '92 I was going out with one of the
|
||
girls from the CyberChat area, and I happened to cross paths with
|
||
KK and AB while I was with her because I was selling some of my
|
||
old Commodore stuff to them because I was going to college...
|
||
well after I got back I was talking to an old friend ( that
|
||
little sister I was telling you about... ) and she said that AB
|
||
said I was going out with some "fat, ugly chick." Well, yeah, I'm
|
||
really a fan of AB's now... (talk about hypocritical!). I have to
|
||
say that AB was full of it, the girl I went out with, in my
|
||
opinion was not a "fat, ugly chick," but that goes with out
|
||
saying, for no one would go out with someone they considered a
|
||
"fat, ugly chick." Ahh, but thats my views, life, the universe,
|
||
and everything... I do believe my next text shall be of the more
|
||
fictional nature... 'til then,
|
||
To thine own self be true...
|
||
|