AMIGA-TREK 4.1! (leaves no sticky film!)
From: Mike Smithwick <mike@rahul.net>
To: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu
Subject: Re: AmigaTrek?
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 09:52:18 -0800
Here's AmigaTrek episode 4.1, copyright 1990 by Mike Smithwick.
---------------------------------------------------------
Just when you thought that it was safe to go into HyperSpace!
AMIGA-TREK 4.1! (leaves no sticky film!)
WARNING : Reading the following may cause damage to unborn children.
--------------------------------------------------------------
When we last left our doleful band of playful Byte Warriors, the StarChip
EnterBoing had just been pre-empted by a roguish unsigned character, Baron
Piechart Von Windshield, the great "Notorious Intergalactic Scoundrel", (or
so it says on his business card). Piechart was needing a StarChip to fulfill
two lifelong goals : #1 - to find out just who this GURU guy really was, and
why he had to meditate so darned much. And #2 Why was Manuel Noriega so
darned ugly. For the time being, we'll concern ourselves with the first
question, and leave the second to the dermatologist of the world.
"Captain's Log, Boing Date, oh who really gives a damn. We've been trapped
in the evil grip of Piechart for several days now. Coming fresh from the
Ham-Paint wars, the crew was tired and anxious to get home so as to enjoy
the most recent copies of .Info magazine. Being redirected to nodes unknown
was not in the plans. Well, at least it gives me some extra time to play the
new hit games SIM-UNIVERSE, Zork -37, Before Zork, Way Before Zork, and Even
Before the Zork's Author's Grandparents were Even Born."
Captain Dale sat back in a wait-state, and began to toy with one of the new
games. The first screen came up, "What is the 4,229th word on page 9976 of
the manual?". A half-hour later he tapped in "and". Another requestor popped
up, "Now add the numerical equivalent of the characters, take the logarithm
of the results, subtract it from the 2,551th word on page 712, divide it by
your age, divide that by your dogs age. . What? You don't have a dog? Tough!
Get one. Everyone oughtta have a dog. Now multiply that by the Cosine of
1.570796 radians and type in the answer". 45 minutes later, as the somewhat
confused captain was beginning to wonder how he ever got the job, the sirens
began to whoop. "Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! This whoooping sound is Copyright
by the WhooopPerfect Inc. and may not be used, or heard without the
expressed written consent of WhooopPerfect or the commissioner of the
National Baseball League, or else we'll come over and kick your dog
senseless. . ."
At the sound of the Whoooping ( (c) WhooopPerfect Inc), the Captain
jumpstarted from his chair and darted onto the Bridgeboard. The eyes of the
crew were Locked onto the forward Digiviewer.
"What's going on?" asked Dale.
Bryce spoke up, "Oh, it's YAGFFIS".
"Huh?"
"Yet Another Ghostly Figure Floating In Space".
As they watched, the vapor-like form began slowly took shape. It appeared to
be that of a large older man, with pearly-white hair. He was holding
something in his hand.
"A drumstick! It looks like a drumstick!" shouted Jimm.
The crew could now clearly make out the confused regular-expression on the
face of the figure. His mouth slowly began to move, as if he was talking to
himself. He took a bite out of the drumstick, and began to speak.
"Mmmm,boing, hmm, warning. . hmmmm, Dale, mmphmmm, kick your dog".
Dale approached the screen, wishing he was back in the Spectrum-HoloDeck
testing out the Playmates of Rigel database. "Ghostly figure, we mean you no
harm. Plus, we can't understand a darn thing you're saying."
"Oh, sorry about that fellows, it's just that I haven't had anything to eat
for years and I'm famished. What I was trying to say was, " he now struck an
ominous pose, shaking the drumstick at the ship, "Beware of he who seeks the
GURU, for all manner of plagues shall come upon him." He took another bite
of the meat. "And should, mmph, should he succeed, he shall be, mmmph, his
wildest dreams, mmmmph." The form glanced at his watched. "Ooops, sorry guys
but I gotta go. There's a ship of Nintendoids that I must terrorize and hold
in my ghostly clutches until they can think of a clever and dramatic way of
escape. I tell you, this ghostly-figure gig just isn't what I thought it
would be. Long hours, lots of travel. You get to meet alot of people, but
they end up hating you. Even being a Pagestream Beta-tester would be more
fun. Cheerio. And if you ever need my services, here's my card!".
With that, the figure vanished in swirling rainbow clouds, his card drifting
to the floor of the bridge. "Have Warnings, will Travel" it said.
The captain looked around. "Piechart? Hey, where'd the ferocious Baron go?".
Dale caught sight of him hiding behind the captain's chair. "Uh, I think my
contact lens is around here somewhere."
"You don't where contacts!"
"Well, if I did, one of em would be around here. . ."
Without a moment to lose, Leo spoke up. "Hi guys, did you know that we've
been followed by a sinister looking StarChip for the past 2 pages or so?"
"Digiviewer on reverse."
The view now looked behind the EnterBoing.
"We're gonna get killed!" screamed Piechart.
"Oh StuffIt!", snapped Dale, since the viewer showed absolutely nothing.
"There sir!" And anxious Dave pointed to a dot of light coming into view.
"Magnify a zillion times".
"Magnification, one-zillion".
"Oh poo."
On the screen now the old nemesis of the EnterBoing became visible.
"Message coming in sir"
A sinister voice snap, crackled and popped over the speaker. "EnterBoing,
this is the SS-Odyssey. Captain Scullee speaking. We're going to sue you
down to your shorts boys. We warned you in the last episode to go back to
the game-zone where you belong"
"Engines to overscan!"
"There closing sir. And they've armed their Injunction guns!"
A worried Bryce glanced up. "How can they move so fast? I thought we were
the speediest StarChip in this and all other stupid yet popular parodies?"
Dale placed his hand on the young ensign's shoulder, and in a somber tone he
replied. "We were son.". He could be seen holding back tears. "Let's face
it, back then, our superior technology kept us ahead. But now its only
cleverness, luck, shear determination and my monumental good looks.
Somewhere along the line, Mousefleet has simply dropped the trackball. . ."
Crackle, snap, "EnterBoing, Halt! Or we'll fragment your heaps and dispose
of your handles! Hah hah hah hah!. Let's see if you're a Quickdraw or not!"
The Enterboing raced on closely trailed by the Odyssey. "They're gaining
sir!"
A blinding beam of fruit-shaped decals shot towards them, striking the
'Boing on the starboard, or is it port side, I always get them mixed up. Out
of habit the crew leaned this way, then that. The lights flickered on and
off. "Quick, the flickerfixer!".
"Darned contacts!" said Piechart.
The ship lurched again. Dave knocked his header on a console and was
rendered unconscious.
"Take him to the diskdoctor. . ."
The ensign leapt to his feet. "No!"
Dale smiled, "works every time".
"Oh no, they trashed the Copperman list." shouted Bryce.
"Patch in the Supra-drives, plug in the Accelerator cards. . ."
"Still gaining ground sir. Great looking monitor they got, huh."
Dale looked down. "Well, I guess we'll have to go to our only advantage, our
secret weapon"
"We have a secret weapon?"
"Sure, no StarChip captain worth his weight in Stickybits comes prepared
without his secret-weapon. Press that big red button on your console.device
ensign!"
"Oh, I've never noticed that before!". Jimm punched that Big Red Button that
said "Secret Weapon" in large friendly letters underneath. There was a
shudder throughout the ship, and immediately they were enveloped by a solid
>>Price-Barrier<<." At that very moment the Odyssey fired a stream of
Fillpats, PortBits and grafPorts towards our crusaders, only to be deflected
back towards the attacking ship. The beam was sucked up into the
event-queue. Activating the program launcher, they fled trailing a wake of
dialog boxes behind them.
"So you see Ensign, this old ship still has a few hypercards up its sleeve.
But I'm afraid our time may be running out."
Meanwhile the EnterBoing sailed on towards Distant Suns, where their
ultimate destiny awaited them.
"Wait, none of this destiny stuff, we just want some hot babes!"
***************************
Chapter 2
With their latest battle over, the crew decided to kick back and take a
rest. Ensign Dave finally had a change to catch up on the latest issue of
AmigaWhirl Magazine. He casually began to flip through the pages, looking
for something to read, but something was wrong. He couldn't find any
articles! The Index to Advertisers was 4 pages long! In fact, the entire
magazine was nothing but advertisements, stuffed among 2142 response cards.
Finally he discovered the editorial which totalled a single line. It said
simply, "Since we have nothing to say, we'll just say nothing!"
Meanwhile Jimm was playing with Basic++, and Leo was finishing up installing
some patches to the ships user interface. "Hey guys, I've just added Voice
Recognition to this ship thing of yours, using the new Hear It! Do It!
software from SpeakEasy Enterprises. This is definitely the wave of the
future, no more of this mucking around with this mouse thingie, merely speak
your command and it will be done." Leo turned towards the front of the ship
and slowly addressed the EnterBoing. "Ship, Digiviewer On!". There was some
whirring, and the combination word-food processor opened up its door to
deliver a hot cup of coffee. "Uh, I think it still has some bugs". The food
system door shut then opened up again with a plate full of bugs, cockroaches
mainly.
An unknown voice came over the message port. "Enterboing! Prepare to be
boarded for Standards Investigation!"
What the crew was in for was a surprise visit from the ANSI Delegation which
enforces standards across the universe. A large confused mass materialized
before them. Limbs poked out in every direction.
"Darn, why did they have to arc themselves!" complained Dave.
Unarc'ing the mass revealed 4 rather humorless individuals, all members of
the ANSI police, each carrying a clipboard. They immediately split up into
four directions. "Hmmmm." Said one. "The colors on this bridge are slightly
off the accepted values. You will have to repaint". Another took out a tape
measure. "The height of the captains chair is 18.33 inches, according to the
ANSI standards manual of StarChip Captain's Ergonomics, page 6, paragraph 3
sub-paragraph 1.2, it should be 18.36 inches". Yet a third was checking over
the flight controls. "That Big Red Button that says 'secret weapon'? Well
the type font is wrong for the label. I'm afraid we're going to have to cite
you on that one!"
Captain Dale heard the commotion and came out of his office. "What's going
on here?" he asked. One of the delegates glanced up from his clipboard and
waved the other towards him. "We must form a committee to answer that
Captain." They huddled, periodically hands were raised as votes were taken.
Finally they broke up.
"Captain, I'm afraid that you have many severe segment violations on board
this ship. For the price it is just much too fast. . ."
"And capable!" said another.
"And capable. Definitely confusing to the uninformed. Too much power for the
average user. Oh by the way, your uniform is too large. We'll have to cite
you for that. Beards aren't allowed either, neither are capes". He glanced
over to Leo. "Marketing people just don't know how to handle capes".
Another delegate spoke up. "And we've decided that you're going to have to
get rid of this AmigaDoss stuff you use. There's the new WeenieDos, designed
to simplify stuff for the user. It has one command, 'dir'. . ."
"But a very good 'dir'. . ."
"If you can't do what you want with 'dir' its just too complicated. . ."
"For the average user. . ."
"For the average user. We'll head back to our ship gentlemen to fill out our
reports, and we'll see you tomorrow. Good-day, or, er, night, or
whatever-the-hell-it-is when you're in space."
The delegation re-arc'ed themselves and dissolved in a whirlwind.
Dale pondered the meaning of their visit, and how to escape. Simply firing
up the drives would be much to easy. Nah, he'd earn his pay on this one.
The crew gazed out the X-windows at the ANSI Ship, wondering if they would
all have to learn how to use 'dir'. Just then they noticed a ghostly form
appear before them.
"Hi guys! Nice to see ya again!"
"Hi ghostly god-like creature, what are you doing here".
"You'll never guess! No longer do I have to go around terrorizing innocent
starchips, I quit that job, now I deliver interdimensional singing
telegrams! I have to sing happy birthday to someone on that craft over
there". He pointed his drumstick towards the ANSI ship.
"Well. . ." the captain said slyly, "Did you know that everyone on that ship
is having a birthday? All 1,203 members of the crew and delegation? Amazing
coincidence, isn't it?".
"Oh really?". The figure's face lit up. "Maybe I should sing happy birthday
to each of them, then I'll make alot of friends!".
"You do that! You do that."
"Ciao!". The form vanished, only to appear in front of the other craft. Thru
the vacuum of space, the crew could hear an agonizingly clumsy rendition of
"Happy Birthday", sung to each of the ANSI people in alphabetical order. He
was only down to "Alan" when Dale thought it was safe to back away.
"Gee, that sure was clever sir. But what's to prevent them from coming after
later on?"
"Simple, I sent them a message asking them to clarify 'TermCap'. That should
tie them up for years."
*********************************************
Chapter 3
Captain's Log-33-24-33 : It's been 2 days since our escape from the ANSI
police, our uniqueness still intact. Jimm just downloaded the latest
demo-reel from ReallyNewTek, and is looking at their Candied Ham mode.
Kodiak just called up Domino's Pizza to test out their 30 minute delivery
promise. Piechart feels that we should be nearing the lair of the GURU Real
Soon Now. . .
"Blat, blat, blat" sounded the alarms, following the StarChip alarm bell
definition document precisely for when a ship enters regions of a
particularly high danger flux.
"Captain! We're headed towards the great Word Boundry!"
Up ahead the crew made out the wreckage of many of previous craft, long
since vanished. There was the USS Aegis, the StarChip Infinity, and even the
fabled NCC-MicroForge, all scattered about in this, the StarChip graveyard.
All ships which had sought to taste the fruits of the GURU, yet lost to the
foolishness of others.
Dale took his seat, "Standby gentlemen, we'll get through this. Ok, set the
relocation bits, activate GOMF, and prepare to execute a JSR at my call. . ."
The crew broke out the byte-padding and strapped it on. The ship lurched
forward as it crossed the Word Boundry, but up ahead was a Page Fault,
followed by corrupted address Space and dangling file-descriptors.
"Let's detach our process and reallocate ourselves to free-disk space. . ."
The EnterBoing was now shaking unmercifully as it plummetted down through
and endless nodelist, jumping helplessly from one pointer to the next.
"Hoollllllldddddd onnnnnnnnnn!" shouted Dale, barely audible amidst the
confusion and spectacular sound effects.
The passed through layer after layer of hidden rastports, followed by
undocumented registers. Just when the violent oscillations threatened to
unstructure their code, they were cast out onto the other side of the great
barrier and sailed on into a free memory pool.
In the distance ahead was their quarry, the great Mother Board. Golden in
appearance, spinning ever so gracefully, it bore the marks of true
enlightenment. The EnterBoing was mysteriously nudged over to a DMA channel,
where it was linked up and redirected towards their goal.
Our heros got up, dusted themselves off.
"Boy, that really flushed our buffers, captain" stated Kodiak as he
interlaced his shoes.
"What are our mouse coordinates? I can't find our location on the keymap",
asked Kodiak.
"I believe gentlemen, that over there we shall find the GURU himself"
replied the Baron. He took his position standing in front of the bridge,
hands clasped behind his back. An erie light bathed the bridge as they
approached their target.
Dale spoke up, "Shall we make an autorequest to see him?"
"No, that won't be necessary, I've already sent him an IDCMP message.
EnterBoing stopped at the steps leading to RoboCity. And faster then you
could say "hello world", Dale and Co. were swapped out only to find
themselves taken to the front of an ornate structure. Tall stately columns
framed a long stairway. Standing at the execbase of the singlesteps was a
wise old man.
"Hey, you look just like Jay Miner!" exclaimed Dave.
"Maybee that's because I am Jay Miner"
"So you're the GURU, we should've known. . ."
The crew feel to their knees. Bowing their heads in deep appreciation they
chanted various error codes.
"Get up you chowderheads! I'm not the one you're looking for. I've just come
to take you to him however. . .". Jay turned around, motioned them to follow
him as he slowly made his way up the steps through the massive doors and
into what appeared to be a stately sanctuary.
In the center was an ancient 3 1/2" disk resting on a marble pedestal
underneath a crystalline dome. Kodiak bent down for a closer look. He
glanced back at the others, "Fred Fish #1" he whispered.
Jan again motioned at them, "The guru is anxious to meet you."
They came up to a second set of doors, all black and quite closed. "Doors,
open" Jay commanded them. Looking back at the crew he commented "Object
oriented doors, you have to ask them to open themselves".
The gang wondered through the entrypoint into a long, narrow corridor.
Directly ahead two guards stood, ready to block any I/O. Jay faced them,
held up his left hand and said the secret password "Hi Toro". The guards
stepped aside and the doors slowly swung open.
Hesitantly the crew stepped into yet a larger room even more glorious than
before. The sounds of an angelic choir where softly playing in the
background. Colorful silks hung down from the ceiling and separated at the
bottom draping themselves loosely to either side of a simple throne inlaid
with Digiview gold. The crew's eyes were quickly drawn to that throne.
"Of course, how could we have not known" Leo whispered reverently. Dale
approached the figure sitting in the chair, "You? You're the GURU????" he
said with somewhat less reverence. For on the throne sat. . .
[ABEND error code $4ff76]
----------------------------------------------------------
Can you guess the GURU? Do you really give a damn? Well if you can and if
you do, let me know just who you think this GURU guy really is, okay? The
first one to guess thanks from me, mention in the next episode of AmigaTrek
(if there is one) and a free trip for two to Disneyland. No, just kidding,
hah, hah. However I will give him (or her) a free copy of my wonderful
program no right-thinking Amiga owner or red-blooded patriotic American
should be without, >>>Distant Suns<<<. The contest will end somewhere around
mid-March (to ensure everyone gets a chance). Only one guess allowed per
person or alien life form. USENET types, just email me your response, those
without net access can send your answer to Mike Smithwick, 25215 La Loma
Drive, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022.
To: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu
Subject: Re: AmigaTrek?
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 09:52:18 -0800
Here's AmigaTrek episode 4.1, copyright 1990 by Mike Smithwick.
---------------------------------------------------------
Just when you thought that it was safe to go into HyperSpace!
AMIGA-TREK 4.1! (leaves no sticky film!)
WARNING : Reading the following may cause damage to unborn children.
--------------------------------------------------------------
When we last left our doleful band of playful Byte Warriors, the StarChip
EnterBoing had just been pre-empted by a roguish unsigned character, Baron
Piechart Von Windshield, the great "Notorious Intergalactic Scoundrel", (or
so it says on his business card). Piechart was needing a StarChip to fulfill
two lifelong goals : #1 - to find out just who this GURU guy really was, and
why he had to meditate so darned much. And #2 Why was Manuel Noriega so
darned ugly. For the time being, we'll concern ourselves with the first
question, and leave the second to the dermatologist of the world.
"Captain's Log, Boing Date, oh who really gives a damn. We've been trapped
in the evil grip of Piechart for several days now. Coming fresh from the
Ham-Paint wars, the crew was tired and anxious to get home so as to enjoy
the most recent copies of .Info magazine. Being redirected to nodes unknown
was not in the plans. Well, at least it gives me some extra time to play the
new hit games SIM-UNIVERSE, Zork -37, Before Zork, Way Before Zork, and Even
Before the Zork's Author's Grandparents were Even Born."
Captain Dale sat back in a wait-state, and began to toy with one of the new
games. The first screen came up, "What is the 4,229th word on page 9976 of
the manual?". A half-hour later he tapped in "and". Another requestor popped
up, "Now add the numerical equivalent of the characters, take the logarithm
of the results, subtract it from the 2,551th word on page 712, divide it by
your age, divide that by your dogs age. . What? You don't have a dog? Tough!
Get one. Everyone oughtta have a dog. Now multiply that by the Cosine of
1.570796 radians and type in the answer". 45 minutes later, as the somewhat
confused captain was beginning to wonder how he ever got the job, the sirens
began to whoop. "Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! This whoooping sound is Copyright
by the WhooopPerfect Inc. and may not be used, or heard without the
expressed written consent of WhooopPerfect or the commissioner of the
National Baseball League, or else we'll come over and kick your dog
senseless. . ."
At the sound of the Whoooping ( (c) WhooopPerfect Inc), the Captain
jumpstarted from his chair and darted onto the Bridgeboard. The eyes of the
crew were Locked onto the forward Digiviewer.
"What's going on?" asked Dale.
Bryce spoke up, "Oh, it's YAGFFIS".
"Huh?"
"Yet Another Ghostly Figure Floating In Space".
As they watched, the vapor-like form began slowly took shape. It appeared to
be that of a large older man, with pearly-white hair. He was holding
something in his hand.
"A drumstick! It looks like a drumstick!" shouted Jimm.
The crew could now clearly make out the confused regular-expression on the
face of the figure. His mouth slowly began to move, as if he was talking to
himself. He took a bite out of the drumstick, and began to speak.
"Mmmm,boing, hmm, warning. . hmmmm, Dale, mmphmmm, kick your dog".
Dale approached the screen, wishing he was back in the Spectrum-HoloDeck
testing out the Playmates of Rigel database. "Ghostly figure, we mean you no
harm. Plus, we can't understand a darn thing you're saying."
"Oh, sorry about that fellows, it's just that I haven't had anything to eat
for years and I'm famished. What I was trying to say was, " he now struck an
ominous pose, shaking the drumstick at the ship, "Beware of he who seeks the
GURU, for all manner of plagues shall come upon him." He took another bite
of the meat. "And should, mmph, should he succeed, he shall be, mmmph, his
wildest dreams, mmmmph." The form glanced at his watched. "Ooops, sorry guys
but I gotta go. There's a ship of Nintendoids that I must terrorize and hold
in my ghostly clutches until they can think of a clever and dramatic way of
escape. I tell you, this ghostly-figure gig just isn't what I thought it
would be. Long hours, lots of travel. You get to meet alot of people, but
they end up hating you. Even being a Pagestream Beta-tester would be more
fun. Cheerio. And if you ever need my services, here's my card!".
With that, the figure vanished in swirling rainbow clouds, his card drifting
to the floor of the bridge. "Have Warnings, will Travel" it said.
The captain looked around. "Piechart? Hey, where'd the ferocious Baron go?".
Dale caught sight of him hiding behind the captain's chair. "Uh, I think my
contact lens is around here somewhere."
"You don't where contacts!"
"Well, if I did, one of em would be around here. . ."
Without a moment to lose, Leo spoke up. "Hi guys, did you know that we've
been followed by a sinister looking StarChip for the past 2 pages or so?"
"Digiviewer on reverse."
The view now looked behind the EnterBoing.
"We're gonna get killed!" screamed Piechart.
"Oh StuffIt!", snapped Dale, since the viewer showed absolutely nothing.
"There sir!" And anxious Dave pointed to a dot of light coming into view.
"Magnify a zillion times".
"Magnification, one-zillion".
"Oh poo."
On the screen now the old nemesis of the EnterBoing became visible.
"Message coming in sir"
A sinister voice snap, crackled and popped over the speaker. "EnterBoing,
this is the SS-Odyssey. Captain Scullee speaking. We're going to sue you
down to your shorts boys. We warned you in the last episode to go back to
the game-zone where you belong"
"Engines to overscan!"
"There closing sir. And they've armed their Injunction guns!"
A worried Bryce glanced up. "How can they move so fast? I thought we were
the speediest StarChip in this and all other stupid yet popular parodies?"
Dale placed his hand on the young ensign's shoulder, and in a somber tone he
replied. "We were son.". He could be seen holding back tears. "Let's face
it, back then, our superior technology kept us ahead. But now its only
cleverness, luck, shear determination and my monumental good looks.
Somewhere along the line, Mousefleet has simply dropped the trackball. . ."
Crackle, snap, "EnterBoing, Halt! Or we'll fragment your heaps and dispose
of your handles! Hah hah hah hah!. Let's see if you're a Quickdraw or not!"
The Enterboing raced on closely trailed by the Odyssey. "They're gaining
sir!"
A blinding beam of fruit-shaped decals shot towards them, striking the
'Boing on the starboard, or is it port side, I always get them mixed up. Out
of habit the crew leaned this way, then that. The lights flickered on and
off. "Quick, the flickerfixer!".
"Darned contacts!" said Piechart.
The ship lurched again. Dave knocked his header on a console and was
rendered unconscious.
"Take him to the diskdoctor. . ."
The ensign leapt to his feet. "No!"
Dale smiled, "works every time".
"Oh no, they trashed the Copperman list." shouted Bryce.
"Patch in the Supra-drives, plug in the Accelerator cards. . ."
"Still gaining ground sir. Great looking monitor they got, huh."
Dale looked down. "Well, I guess we'll have to go to our only advantage, our
secret weapon"
"We have a secret weapon?"
"Sure, no StarChip captain worth his weight in Stickybits comes prepared
without his secret-weapon. Press that big red button on your console.device
ensign!"
"Oh, I've never noticed that before!". Jimm punched that Big Red Button that
said "Secret Weapon" in large friendly letters underneath. There was a
shudder throughout the ship, and immediately they were enveloped by a solid
>>Price-Barrier<<." At that very moment the Odyssey fired a stream of
Fillpats, PortBits and grafPorts towards our crusaders, only to be deflected
back towards the attacking ship. The beam was sucked up into the
event-queue. Activating the program launcher, they fled trailing a wake of
dialog boxes behind them.
"So you see Ensign, this old ship still has a few hypercards up its sleeve.
But I'm afraid our time may be running out."
Meanwhile the EnterBoing sailed on towards Distant Suns, where their
ultimate destiny awaited them.
"Wait, none of this destiny stuff, we just want some hot babes!"
***************************
Chapter 2
With their latest battle over, the crew decided to kick back and take a
rest. Ensign Dave finally had a change to catch up on the latest issue of
AmigaWhirl Magazine. He casually began to flip through the pages, looking
for something to read, but something was wrong. He couldn't find any
articles! The Index to Advertisers was 4 pages long! In fact, the entire
magazine was nothing but advertisements, stuffed among 2142 response cards.
Finally he discovered the editorial which totalled a single line. It said
simply, "Since we have nothing to say, we'll just say nothing!"
Meanwhile Jimm was playing with Basic++, and Leo was finishing up installing
some patches to the ships user interface. "Hey guys, I've just added Voice
Recognition to this ship thing of yours, using the new Hear It! Do It!
software from SpeakEasy Enterprises. This is definitely the wave of the
future, no more of this mucking around with this mouse thingie, merely speak
your command and it will be done." Leo turned towards the front of the ship
and slowly addressed the EnterBoing. "Ship, Digiviewer On!". There was some
whirring, and the combination word-food processor opened up its door to
deliver a hot cup of coffee. "Uh, I think it still has some bugs". The food
system door shut then opened up again with a plate full of bugs, cockroaches
mainly.
An unknown voice came over the message port. "Enterboing! Prepare to be
boarded for Standards Investigation!"
What the crew was in for was a surprise visit from the ANSI Delegation which
enforces standards across the universe. A large confused mass materialized
before them. Limbs poked out in every direction.
"Darn, why did they have to arc themselves!" complained Dave.
Unarc'ing the mass revealed 4 rather humorless individuals, all members of
the ANSI police, each carrying a clipboard. They immediately split up into
four directions. "Hmmmm." Said one. "The colors on this bridge are slightly
off the accepted values. You will have to repaint". Another took out a tape
measure. "The height of the captains chair is 18.33 inches, according to the
ANSI standards manual of StarChip Captain's Ergonomics, page 6, paragraph 3
sub-paragraph 1.2, it should be 18.36 inches". Yet a third was checking over
the flight controls. "That Big Red Button that says 'secret weapon'? Well
the type font is wrong for the label. I'm afraid we're going to have to cite
you on that one!"
Captain Dale heard the commotion and came out of his office. "What's going
on here?" he asked. One of the delegates glanced up from his clipboard and
waved the other towards him. "We must form a committee to answer that
Captain." They huddled, periodically hands were raised as votes were taken.
Finally they broke up.
"Captain, I'm afraid that you have many severe segment violations on board
this ship. For the price it is just much too fast. . ."
"And capable!" said another.
"And capable. Definitely confusing to the uninformed. Too much power for the
average user. Oh by the way, your uniform is too large. We'll have to cite
you for that. Beards aren't allowed either, neither are capes". He glanced
over to Leo. "Marketing people just don't know how to handle capes".
Another delegate spoke up. "And we've decided that you're going to have to
get rid of this AmigaDoss stuff you use. There's the new WeenieDos, designed
to simplify stuff for the user. It has one command, 'dir'. . ."
"But a very good 'dir'. . ."
"If you can't do what you want with 'dir' its just too complicated. . ."
"For the average user. . ."
"For the average user. We'll head back to our ship gentlemen to fill out our
reports, and we'll see you tomorrow. Good-day, or, er, night, or
whatever-the-hell-it-is when you're in space."
The delegation re-arc'ed themselves and dissolved in a whirlwind.
Dale pondered the meaning of their visit, and how to escape. Simply firing
up the drives would be much to easy. Nah, he'd earn his pay on this one.
The crew gazed out the X-windows at the ANSI Ship, wondering if they would
all have to learn how to use 'dir'. Just then they noticed a ghostly form
appear before them.
"Hi guys! Nice to see ya again!"
"Hi ghostly god-like creature, what are you doing here".
"You'll never guess! No longer do I have to go around terrorizing innocent
starchips, I quit that job, now I deliver interdimensional singing
telegrams! I have to sing happy birthday to someone on that craft over
there". He pointed his drumstick towards the ANSI ship.
"Well. . ." the captain said slyly, "Did you know that everyone on that ship
is having a birthday? All 1,203 members of the crew and delegation? Amazing
coincidence, isn't it?".
"Oh really?". The figure's face lit up. "Maybe I should sing happy birthday
to each of them, then I'll make alot of friends!".
"You do that! You do that."
"Ciao!". The form vanished, only to appear in front of the other craft. Thru
the vacuum of space, the crew could hear an agonizingly clumsy rendition of
"Happy Birthday", sung to each of the ANSI people in alphabetical order. He
was only down to "Alan" when Dale thought it was safe to back away.
"Gee, that sure was clever sir. But what's to prevent them from coming after
later on?"
"Simple, I sent them a message asking them to clarify 'TermCap'. That should
tie them up for years."
*********************************************
Chapter 3
Captain's Log-33-24-33 : It's been 2 days since our escape from the ANSI
police, our uniqueness still intact. Jimm just downloaded the latest
demo-reel from ReallyNewTek, and is looking at their Candied Ham mode.
Kodiak just called up Domino's Pizza to test out their 30 minute delivery
promise. Piechart feels that we should be nearing the lair of the GURU Real
Soon Now. . .
"Blat, blat, blat" sounded the alarms, following the StarChip alarm bell
definition document precisely for when a ship enters regions of a
particularly high danger flux.
"Captain! We're headed towards the great Word Boundry!"
Up ahead the crew made out the wreckage of many of previous craft, long
since vanished. There was the USS Aegis, the StarChip Infinity, and even the
fabled NCC-MicroForge, all scattered about in this, the StarChip graveyard.
All ships which had sought to taste the fruits of the GURU, yet lost to the
foolishness of others.
Dale took his seat, "Standby gentlemen, we'll get through this. Ok, set the
relocation bits, activate GOMF, and prepare to execute a JSR at my call. . ."
The crew broke out the byte-padding and strapped it on. The ship lurched
forward as it crossed the Word Boundry, but up ahead was a Page Fault,
followed by corrupted address Space and dangling file-descriptors.
"Let's detach our process and reallocate ourselves to free-disk space. . ."
The EnterBoing was now shaking unmercifully as it plummetted down through
and endless nodelist, jumping helplessly from one pointer to the next.
"Hoollllllldddddd onnnnnnnnnn!" shouted Dale, barely audible amidst the
confusion and spectacular sound effects.
The passed through layer after layer of hidden rastports, followed by
undocumented registers. Just when the violent oscillations threatened to
unstructure their code, they were cast out onto the other side of the great
barrier and sailed on into a free memory pool.
In the distance ahead was their quarry, the great Mother Board. Golden in
appearance, spinning ever so gracefully, it bore the marks of true
enlightenment. The EnterBoing was mysteriously nudged over to a DMA channel,
where it was linked up and redirected towards their goal.
Our heros got up, dusted themselves off.
"Boy, that really flushed our buffers, captain" stated Kodiak as he
interlaced his shoes.
"What are our mouse coordinates? I can't find our location on the keymap",
asked Kodiak.
"I believe gentlemen, that over there we shall find the GURU himself"
replied the Baron. He took his position standing in front of the bridge,
hands clasped behind his back. An erie light bathed the bridge as they
approached their target.
Dale spoke up, "Shall we make an autorequest to see him?"
"No, that won't be necessary, I've already sent him an IDCMP message.
EnterBoing stopped at the steps leading to RoboCity. And faster then you
could say "hello world", Dale and Co. were swapped out only to find
themselves taken to the front of an ornate structure. Tall stately columns
framed a long stairway. Standing at the execbase of the singlesteps was a
wise old man.
"Hey, you look just like Jay Miner!" exclaimed Dave.
"Maybee that's because I am Jay Miner"
"So you're the GURU, we should've known. . ."
The crew feel to their knees. Bowing their heads in deep appreciation they
chanted various error codes.
"Get up you chowderheads! I'm not the one you're looking for. I've just come
to take you to him however. . .". Jay turned around, motioned them to follow
him as he slowly made his way up the steps through the massive doors and
into what appeared to be a stately sanctuary.
In the center was an ancient 3 1/2" disk resting on a marble pedestal
underneath a crystalline dome. Kodiak bent down for a closer look. He
glanced back at the others, "Fred Fish #1" he whispered.
Jan again motioned at them, "The guru is anxious to meet you."
They came up to a second set of doors, all black and quite closed. "Doors,
open" Jay commanded them. Looking back at the crew he commented "Object
oriented doors, you have to ask them to open themselves".
The gang wondered through the entrypoint into a long, narrow corridor.
Directly ahead two guards stood, ready to block any I/O. Jay faced them,
held up his left hand and said the secret password "Hi Toro". The guards
stepped aside and the doors slowly swung open.
Hesitantly the crew stepped into yet a larger room even more glorious than
before. The sounds of an angelic choir where softly playing in the
background. Colorful silks hung down from the ceiling and separated at the
bottom draping themselves loosely to either side of a simple throne inlaid
with Digiview gold. The crew's eyes were quickly drawn to that throne.
"Of course, how could we have not known" Leo whispered reverently. Dale
approached the figure sitting in the chair, "You? You're the GURU????" he
said with somewhat less reverence. For on the throne sat. . .
[ABEND error code $4ff76]
----------------------------------------------------------
Can you guess the GURU? Do you really give a damn? Well if you can and if
you do, let me know just who you think this GURU guy really is, okay? The
first one to guess thanks from me, mention in the next episode of AmigaTrek
(if there is one) and a free trip for two to Disneyland. No, just kidding,
hah, hah. However I will give him (or her) a free copy of my wonderful
program no right-thinking Amiga owner or red-blooded patriotic American
should be without, >>>Distant Suns<<<. The contest will end somewhere around
mid-March (to ensure everyone gets a chance). Only one guess allowed per
person or alien life form. USENET types, just email me your response, those
without net access can send your answer to Mike Smithwick, 25215 La Loma
Drive, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022.
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