429 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
429 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
BEGIN LINE_NOIZ.7
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I S S U E - & J A N U A R Y 9 , 1 9 9 4
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>LiNE NOiZ< >LiNE NOiZ<
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/| +-----+ +-----+ | |
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| | | LiNE | | | |
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CYbERPUNk I N f O R M A t i O N E - Z i N E
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////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
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<><><><><><><><><><><><>< L i N E N O I Z ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
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\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ////////////////////////////////
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I S S U E - & J A N U A R Y 9 , 1 9 9 4
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: File !
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: Intro to Issue 7
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: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>
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: File @
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: Virtual Light review
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: <bcclark@igc.apc.org>
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: File #
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: REALITY?
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: The Electric Phantom <phantom@cyberspace.com>
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: File $
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: Third Floor Garden Of Eden.02
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: "Paige" -2038
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: Andrew Mays <masya@knuth.mtsu.edu>
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: File %
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: Bandwidth 01/01/94
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: Steven Baker <steven.baker@atomiccafe.com>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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File - !
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I would like to apologize for the lateness of this issue. I've been really
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busy lately. This issue could have been out alot sooner, the only thing
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holding it back was an article I was writing. So I have decided to hold off
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the article till issue 8 and send this out now.
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Submissions are pretty slow. I would like to recieve a few more things from
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people. Issue 8 or 9 will have a large thing on CyberPunk music, so I'd
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like to hear anybody's defenition, opinion or article related to the subject.
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Till next issue,
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-Billy Biggs, da nerd.
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-*- Subscription Info -*-
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Subscriptions can be obtained by sending mail to:
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dodger@fubar.bk.psu.edu
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With the words:
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Subscription LineNoiz <your address>
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In the body of the letter.
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Back Issues can be recieved by sending mail to the same address with the
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words BACK ISSUES in the subject.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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File - @
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>From: bcclark@igc.apc.org
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The following review of VIRTUAL LIGHT is by
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Brian Clark, and is reprinted from PUCK:
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The Unofficial Journal of the Irrepressible #10
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(Jan 1994).
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An Engine of Sum Difference
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William Gibson, Virtual Light. Bantam, cloth, 325 pages, $21.95, 1993.
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Gibson's new novel is an outgrowth, more or less, of his short story
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"Skinner's Room." That story (which can be found in the collection Burning
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Chrome) really sparked my imagination, as it rests on the presumption that
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after an earthquake called the Little Grande, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay
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Bridge is unusable. Fenced off and just sitting there, the street people
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bust through the barriers and make it their new home. Soon it is festooned
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with every (and some un-) imaginable building material. Bits of it frequently
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fall off in the damned ever-present wind that stalks the head of this
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peninsula. And you don't want to wander off onto Treasure Island, for the same
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reason you wouldn't want to now: it's full of toxins and radioactive gloop and
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crazies. Gibson came back from two weak novels (his second and third, Count
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Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, completing the "Sprawl" trilogy) to collaborate
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with Bruce Sterling on the meticulous and exciting The Difference Engine.
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Engine has a focus that was lacking in the previous two books, for reasons
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both obvious and subtle but beyond the scope of this mini- (though see also
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Lance Olsen's monograph on Gibson's literary output, recently out from
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Starmont, and you can write or e-mail me for access info). I'm just leading
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to the point that VL is the best Gibson yet. Fuck it: this is a mass market
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book by a best selling author, and shouldn't even be reviewed in these
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tattered pages, but Gibson, here, is painting on an edge of the envelope that
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we're only beginning to adumbrate. How do. Virtual Light is a tech, a software,
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that makes you think info without pinging photons at your brain receptors. VL
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is something else, less mediated, more direct, and the means of a
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nanotechnology that will transform the earth, in other words, a plot! See,
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there's these glasses, and this grrl gets'em, and hey, that's all, OK? Buy the
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book yer own self, borrow it, steal it, we're talking education as enterprise
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here, free market, right? What I like best is what Gibson does best: social
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speculation. The guy's a natch-born philosopher of knowledge, folks like him
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can see traces or patterns going through histories of peoples, know how to
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speak of the moment. Plus I was a skip tracer for a few shifts, which is no
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damn good. I still believe that me and my moll disabled that biz's paper
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database. C ya on the Bridge. Wait a minute, has anybody seen the BridgeI?
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Dark side: the type of the body text of the novel is set in a lovely semi-sans
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face, with commas that look like periods, and periods that look like flea
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shit. A hold over from the seventies, when nobody cool wanted to use
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punctuation. Designers in 12 Step programs beware!
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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File - #
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>From: phantom@cyberspace.com (The Electric Phantom)
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In this short story I depict the future in a unique way
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never before thought of. It is a new and original idea. Living
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in cyberspace; a strange thing to think about. I hope you enjoy-
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REALITY?
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by The Electric Phantom
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Exactly nine months and two seconds after fertilization
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and the child is ready. It slowly works it's way through the
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artificial birth canal. He makes it throug the process painlessly
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and is ready for surgery when he comes out. While unconscious
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his nervous system is prepared for the permanent jack in; the
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P-Jack. A quick 2 hour sugery installs the trode plugs.
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Exactly four hours after birth. The baby is in the ninth
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and newest of the great domes on Antarctica. The housing place
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for Cyberspace's citizens. He is brought in by a self moving cart
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and laid down on a P-Jack bed. He is fitted with a tube for feeding
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and a mini-computer is hooked up to his brain. The computer auto-
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matically signals bodily functions at the right time. His muscles
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are stimulataed frequently so they won't deterirate. The same with
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his bones. The mini-computer sends the message, not to wake, con-
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stantly. Finally the dermatrodes were locked onto the plugs the
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surgery had inserted on his head. He jacked.
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Just a 3-D computer image. It was a creationon but it was
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in the form of a crib. Suddenly a baby appears within that image.
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A mother looks down at the baby. She has a huge pyramid for a nose,
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golde circles for eyes, and many other interesting features.
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"I simply adore this form we chose for him, don't you?"
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"It is handsome," the father returned."
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"I'm also happy with the name we chose."
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"Chibo does have a nice ring to it"
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Three years later, after Chibo's first month or so of kinder-
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garten, he asks a very unusual question.
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"Mom, what's Reality?" Chibo asked.
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"Where'd you hear about that, sweetheart?"
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"Oh, just at school."
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"Well I'm not sure if it really exists but some historians say
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thousands of years ago humans lived back in this place even more real
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than our universe, Cyberspace. It was called Reality. You couldn't
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evan get to Cyberspace back then. It's like another dimension. It was
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horrible. You'd have constant pains called irritations and itches, plus
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whenever you had an accident you'd have extreme pain. All matter had
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already been formed. There were no creationons; you could not make your
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own matter. Those historians even say that Cyberspace is imaginary, and
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we still live in Reality. Our brains are just being transmitted to
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Cyberspace. They say that all our needs in the Universe are being attended
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to by robots! Hah hah, what a joke! Whenever we make a decision here or
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change things it get changed back in Reality too. For example if you take
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this banana and eat it you are being fed a banane mush in Reality. When
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you go to the farm console and plant something a little while later it
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appears in the creationon, meanwhile it supposedly was grown in Reality.
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Personally I think it's all a myth."
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Chibo was 13 now. His previously programed features are beginning
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to form more clearly. He has a pyramid for a nose like his mother. He
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has black diamonds for eyes and four arms. He lives in a large house set
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for 0-G. The house is in a town of pure luxery. Nothing has to be done.
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Almost no work at all, although a few adult have to do some important
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decision making. Other than that it was all fun. Chibo often programed
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quick toys with his own creatinon he got for his birthday. Once he even
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made a small animal. He uses the toys with his friends.
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Chibo has never touched an object that, when touched, stimulated
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pain nerves. It was illegal to make pain objects in his town. Even his
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home was pain free. He could punch a wall as hard as he wants and he'd
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feel nothing.
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The cart is rushing by, taking the newest born to an open P-Jack
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bed. Just a half inch off course. It rams into Chibo's P-Jack bed and
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the mini-computer malfunctions. The locks on the trodes open and he's
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disconnected. The mini-computer shuts off. He slowly opens his eyes.
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No, not the pain of the tubes sticking out of his stomach. Not
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even the painful one in his lungs hurts him. Before any of this can reach
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his brain the shock of feeling his own weight; the feeling of flesh and
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guts inside him kills him.
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Author's Note
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Many "Cyberpunk" authors gave me these ideas. The idea of being
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able to 'jack in' in the future is now a common idea among us CP fans but
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nobody has ever though about living in Cyberspace. It's so short and not
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very well writen I wouldn't really call it a story. More of a new thought
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I'm presenting to you all.
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Phantom
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November 1993 Distibute this file freely. Please don't tamper mutilate
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or otherwise change this file when distributing.
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Written by The Electric Phantom phantom@cyberspace.com
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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File - $
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Third Floor Garden Of Eden.02
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"Paige" -2038
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"Blake tells me about the time he sees Alexia spending in the
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Botanical Gardens; he watches her sleeping in the cool grass from within
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the matrix.
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"'Day dreamer,' I used to call her. 'Daydreamer with the golden
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hair.' I never imagined that she would graduate The University with a
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bachelor of science in bioengenineering; and now she tells me of her
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approbation as a senior level worker in the research and development
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branch of botany.
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"Her father works within the matrix and I myself as an
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administrative assistant in the systems-operations division here at the
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University of Haiku Medjiama Where Alexia gets her love for biochemistry
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I may never know. Although, in retrospect it seems that she always has
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loved that garden. It fascinated her as a child, and so I suppose that
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it is only natural that she would choose to work in the gardens where she
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has already spent the majority of her lifetime.
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"Alexia is so determined. She gets that from Blake. He is
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stubborn as a self aware program that you are trying to eliminate.
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Alexia is like a rock. I can remember when she was 17 and determined to
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get a nueral web installed. She ran off one night and traveled to see a
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doctor on the black market. She was all set to have the operation until
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the doctor contacted Alexia's father on the net. As it turns out they
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were old friends, and so Doc wouldn't install the hardware. He said it
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was to risky to preform said operation on a child of said age, and so
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Alexia sulked home....and was promptly grounded for a week from the network.
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"I can still remember watching her make her first run into
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cyberspace though. I ran an audio/visual cord out from her new cyber
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deck (we bought it for her on her 18th birthday) and then I watched
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through the VR viewer. She was so excited to finally have the freedom to
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move around in netspace, she swirled and swam through the bright neon
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light in our local grid. After interfacing with her father she traveled
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to the VR replica of the BioGardens; and was obviously displeased. But
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it thrilled her to know that she was in a virtual reconstruction of
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something very real and dear to hear. 'It's like going shopping on line'
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She explained later, 'Nothing beats the reality of traveling to the
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store, having to walk in, walk around, and all that. But knowing the
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virtual shop is there is. Well. Comforting I guess.'
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"She seemed very uncomfortable in the reconstruction and quickly
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left for the Electronic Library Databases. That was about the time I
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disabled the Virtual Reality Feature on the viewer screen, and began to
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prepare dinner. 'Something special for a special day,' I recall saying
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to her after she logged out and told me that she'd read about four
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volumes of study journals and graduate papers.
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"'And another thing mother.' She'd said. ' I've decided to go into
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bioengineering. I want to be in that garden.' Yes. That was the day she
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decided that her major would be declared in the sciences. And that was
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the night she had the first dream.
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"She's had them ever since too. Long, strange dreams that she
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awakes from with a start, her body drenched in sweat. Exhausted she
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stumbles into the kitchen and scribbles down a few figures or an idea and
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then, half asleep, returns to bed. Come morning time she reads the notes
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and finds that she has found the solution to the morning's botanical
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creation. Or that she has come up with an idea for a whole new creation
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of an animal or plant life. Why my apartment is full of Alexia's
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creations, the result of her odd dreams. Some are sitting, some are
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hanging, all are beautiful; more the work of her mind then of her hands,
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she is truly an artist.
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"Alexia calls the dreams inspiration. I think it's very strange
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myself. But the dreams don't seem to bother her and often times I have
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heard of creative people having dreams like this. Perhaps President
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Medjiama himself was tormented by dreams. Or do the ghosts of the
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network dream? I'll have to ask Blake about that."
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**********************************************
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Next time:
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03 -"Blake" @2045
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One foot in the future,
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Andrew Mays
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masya@knuth.mtsu.edu
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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File - %
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>From: steven.baker@atomiccafe.com
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=- BandWidth -=
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01/01/94
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by Steven Baker
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OoOoO
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Compuserve has at least 690 accounts of copyright violations pending
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against them for allowing users to download the MIDI version of
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"Unchained Melody", by Alex North and Hy Zaret. The song dates from
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1955 but its best known use was a 1965 version by the Righteous
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Brothers. This case could have far-reaching implications, but they
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have not been realized as of yet. Currently it has been filed in the
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US District Court for the Southern District in New York City.
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If CompuServe is legally incorrect by allowing users to download the
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MIDI files from its music forum, then music will have attained the same
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legal protections as software. MIDI files will have to be purged from
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all of the thousands of bulletin board systems that now post them, not
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just Compuserve. Massive education campaigns and raids on computer
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users homes could be the result of the court case.
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Software Piracy is a big problem with the software industry. A lot of
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progress has been made in ending software piracy, but not near enough.
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There are still countless boards out there that offer the latest games
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and programs for download. Very few of these boards get in serious
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trouble unless they make people pay for the software, but there are
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some people and businesses that get into legal trouble. In this case,
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however, the plantiffs are trying to simplify their task of enforcement
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by making the online service responsible for the infringements, as
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bulletin board operators are held responsible for postings of
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copyrighted software. The plantiffs attorney was quoted as saying
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"It's too much work" to go after the people uploading and downloading
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such files. They would have to chase the downloaders and uploaders of
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MIDI files all over the country, by going after the systems that post
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such files they simplifly the whole process, and also can potentially
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get more money from corporations. This suit is asking for $100,000 for
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each violation.
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The online world is causing certain sections of corporate America to
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shake in their shoes. They know what has happened to the software
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industry, and the result of having a digital, copyable product. Things
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that used to be confined to a magnetic media can now be transferred
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across modems to anywhere in the world. The MIDI file thing is just
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the tip of the iceberg. The technology is here to allow you to upload
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the contents of a CD and someone else download it. All they have to do
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is channel it to a system set up the right way and you have a pure
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digital copy of the latest music album. The problem isnt transferring
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the music, it is getting the money for the product.
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OoOoO
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APPLE PLANNING TO INTRODUCE ON-LINE SERVICE
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Apple Computer has announced that it will soon launch an on-line
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service to compete with computer networks such as Prodigy and America
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OnLine. Apple says the move could bolster not only Apple but also the
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on-line network market, where leader Prodigy has suffered defections,
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mainly to the aggressice American Online.
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The online business is getting more attractive to industry, evident in
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some of the big names that are doing research on how to enter the field.
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Names like Microsoft, and AT&T are known to be looking. In fact AT&T
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has announced plans to enter the market with an "intelligent' electronic
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mail service. This will be the first product of the futuristic General
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Magic Corporation; a year-old company jointly owned by sic technological
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giants - Apple, AT&T, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Phillips, Sony,
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and Motorola. This line up is the ultimate endorsement of the online
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market.
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Apple's new network, to be called e.World, will debut in April and
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initially target the general consumer market, sources said.
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The announcement could come in January at the MacWorld Expo in San
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Francisco, according to a report in the San Francisco Examiner.
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Some analysts see the service as a potentially less costly expansion of the
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company's successful AppleLink network.
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AppleLink gives customers access to some news services and magazine data
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bases. Analysts expect e.World to provide wider access to more services and be
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less expensive than the existing AppleLink.
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The new service will allow users to send electronic mail, read news
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reports, access data libraries and electronically chat with other users.
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Analysts said there is plenty of room for Apple in the on-line network
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market.
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Apple had already indicated it was looking for ways to expand beyond its
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hardware business, Bajarin and other analysts said.
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"They've publicly acknowledged that the business model for the Newton
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(hand-held computer) is heavily skewed to adding after-market services and
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products to actual hardware," said Bruce Lupatkin, an analyst for Hambrecht &
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Quist brokerage.
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Possible downsides of the new service could include concern by investors
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over Apple's maintaining its focus on its prime hardware business, Lupatkin
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said.
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OoOoO
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Doom , by the makers of ID software, has finally shipped and arrived at
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various FTP and BBS sites all over the world earlier in December. The
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game uses a 3D engine based on the one used in Castle Wolfenstien, also
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by ID software.
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The game has caused quite a stir on the nations networks as users
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scramble to form Doom network games in which up to four people may play
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against or along with each other. The game simulated a military base
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on a planet that has went wrong, your mission is to destroy all of the
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humonoid creatures who have control of it. The intense graphics and
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game play have crippled many networks and Doom is being banned all over
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the country.
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Wolfenstein will soon appear on the Nintendo and Sega game systems,
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with Doom destined to follow. Atari Jaguar is unofficially supposed to
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be introduced with the Doom game on cartridge in a 64bit enviroment.
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FTP to FTP.UWP.EDU to download the shareware/freeware version of Doom.
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-----------------------------------------------
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BandWidth for January 1st, 1994 by Steven Baker
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>> Look for Issue 8, destined to be out shortly (seriously) <<
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>> <<
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>> I want articles on: Cyberpunk music <<
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>> What's new in 1994 <<
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>> Always wanting more sci-fi <<
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>> Write a column! <<
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>> gO CrAyZY <<
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END LINE_NOIZ.7
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--
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Billy Biggs Ottawa, Canada "When all else fails,
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ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca read the instructions"
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