R a N d O m A c C e S s H u M o R RAH! RAH! Volume 0 Number 1 October 1992 A rag-tag collection of fugitive humor, some of which is vaguely related to the BBS/Online System world. Editor: Dave Bealer Copyright 1992 Dave Bealer, All Rights Reserved Random Access Humor is an irregular production of: VaporWare Communications 32768 Infinite Loop Sillycon Valley, CA. 80486-DX2 USA, Earth, Sol System, Snickers WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! The "look and feel" of Random Access Humor has been specifically earmarked, spindled and polygraphed. Anyone who attempts to copy this look and feel without express written consent of the publisher will be fed to rabid radioactive hamsters by our Security Director, Vinnie "The Knife" Calamari. TABLE OF INCONTINENCE: Editorial - Data Highway to Heck...................................01 The Joys of Being Me...............................................02 Sharing Those Hard to Find Peripherals.............................03 As the Hard Drive Turns - Pt 1.....................................05 Musical Tech Support...............................................06 The Twit Filter: Modem Vendor Shills...............................07 Grunged Glossary...................................................07 Taglines Seen Around the Nets......................................07 Masthead - Submission Information.................................A-1 Random Access Humor Page 1 October 1992 Editorial - Data Highway to Heck by Dave Bealer It's been a long and rainy month here in Lake Winnebago, my home town. Oops, wrong script! Anyway, I've been up to my wazoo in File Requests, so word about RAH must be getting out. We've picked up several distribution sites this past month as well. It's nice to actually have RAH available in places that aren't on one of the coasts. Everyone likes colorful BBS names, and some are more colorful than others. We are now privileged to have on board as a gateway one of the most colorfully named systems I've encountered. "The Depths of Hell" is located in Bayonne, New Jersey. Some might think this an attempt by the Sysop, Eric Knorowski, to make a comment about Bayonne, or perhaps New Jersey in general. Others may think it a sign that Eric needs professional help. Of course, everyone involved with this newsletter probably *does* need psychiatric help, especially you, the readers. I spent my birthday flying to Birmingham, Alabama for a business trip. What a present that was! At least I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the highlight of the Birmingham social calendar, the annual Paint Drying Festival. The flight home became interesting when the pilot engaged in some Air Combat Maneuvers somewhere over the Carolinas. Or maybe he was just doing bomb damage assessment. I'm not knowledgeable enough about this flying stuff to be sure. Once safely home and washing the peanuts out of my hair, I began thinking about all this talk about a national data highway. I'm not entirely sure this is a good idea. Having high speed comm lines going virtually everywhere is a good thing, but first comes the construction phase. I keep having nightmares about the cones set out along the fibre optic cables. All of us with V.32bis modems crawling along at 300 baud, giving us plenty of time to read those dreadfully stupid "Temporary Inconvenience, Permanent Improvement" signs. This one has me waking up screaming every time. Vaporware Communications made an important addition to the RAH staff this month with the hiring of Bernard Krumb, well known investigative reporter, formerly with PC Weakly. Bernie's talent at witch-hunting, er, that is, ferreting out corruption wherever he thinks he'll find it...will be a welcome addition to this new cutting edge publication. Random Access Humor Page 2 October 1992 (Editor's Note: The following article was submitted by VaporWare's illustrious CEO. It has been published unedited, in its entirety, on pain of death.) The Joys of Being Me by Luther Lecks The moron that edits this rag said you folks might like to know a little more about me, the guy what runs this joint. I can see that, since everyone loves me and wants to be like me. First off, it's great to get a chance to bare my soul to you, the little people. You have absolutely no idea how wonderful life is for me. You never will either, 'cause you'll never be as great as me. My story starts in Sausalito, California, where I was born and raised. My mother was an artist, and we lived in Sausalito because it was an artist colony kinda place. She also wanted to be near my father, who was doing time in Alcatraz. When I was sixteen I borrowed a car and started to drive around, seeing America. In New Mexico I met the man who changed my life, Ronald Frump. Ronnie could sell anything to anybody, and taught me how to land the mark everytime. Ronnie even smoothed it over when the fuzz came lookin for that car I borrowed. Eventually Ronnie moved to Las Vegas to make his fortune in gambling, which he did. Fact is, Ronnie is one of the very few people on Earth who is richer and better than I am. Ya know, I oughta have that editor puke do a story on Ronnie sometime. Anyways, I found out that I could only handle so much desert living and moved on to greener pastures. Eventually I buckled down and got my college degree from The Degree Factory in Cleveland. I was thinkin of getting my masters right away, but was a little short of cash at the time. I was workin in the insurance business in Venice Beach when I became interested in computers and electronics. My specialty was burglar alarm systems. Around this time I met this real smart Chinese guy, Kung Hoo. Kung was workin on one of his doctorates at USC and used to come down to Venice Beach sometimes to chill out for a few hours. The guy is a real workaholic and will probably die young. Kung had some real nifty ideas about electronics, so we started talkin about a business deal. Kung had the technical background and I had the business smarts and salesmanship. It turns out we made a great team. Dr. Hoo, as most people call him, already had several patents to his name. I saw to it that all his future patents were obtained in the name of our company, VaporWare Corporation. This was purely for his protection, of course. Random Access Humor Page 3 October 1992 After Kung finally finished school, we moved north to the SillyCon Valley. This area wasn't nearly as developed as it is today. I didn't really care where we were, as long as we made money and it wasn't a desert. Kung wanted to be near Gilroy, so he would have a steady supply of fresh garlic for the stir-frys he makes in his laboratory. VaporWare started out small. We went from sales of a few hundred thousand in 1973 to the industrial juggernaut you see here today. We're now listed on the stock exchange and take in hundreds of millions each year. This is just the beginning, though. We have some great new products in development that could revolutionize the entire computer industry. Provided, of course, Dr. Hoo ever manages to get them working correctly. Well, I got lots of important stuff to do, so I gotta stop writing now. If you're lucky I'll have time to write more some other time. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sharing Those Hard to Find Peripherals by Dave Bealer These days it seems that every organization boasting more that two PCs has them wired together in some fashion, at least to share some peripheral devices. For readers who are unfamiliar with peripheral devices (commonly just called peripherals), they are electronic devices connected to computers by wires. The peripherals themselves cannot be seen when looked at directly. You can only see them out of the corner of your eye. How eyes can have corners, I'm not sure. In fact, the only certain way to locate a peripheral is to find a wire coming out the back of your PC that you think leads to a peripheral, then follow it until you come to something which feels like a small, warm plastic box which may or may not be vibrating. This is not always as easy as it sounds, since the area behind most PC workstations resembles the nest of some great prehistoric bird. A bird that uses all sizes, colors and lengths of wire and cable as building materials; all tightly braided together, of course. A machete may therefore come in handy during this search. For maximum safety a rubber-handled machete should be used. The most popular peripheral device is the printer. Printers take the information which the computer has sorted, collated and julienned and writes it out in a form which, at least in theory, is readable by humans without electronic aid. How accurate this theory is depends greatly on the type of printer being used. The first PC printers were dot-matrix printers. These still remain in wide use due to their relatively low cost. Modern dot-matrix printers are capable of producing "near-letter" quality output. This usually means that the characters produced are slightly better formed than letters written by a relatively backward four-year-old. The four-year-old would be slightly less noisy as well. Random Access Humor Page 4 October 1992 Daisy wheel printers were very popular during the early phases of the PC revolution, mainly because they produced true typewriter quality output. Unfortunately they also tended to sound like jackhammers, which are not commonly found in an office environment, and for good reason. Although still recommended by the manufacturers of earplugs and aspirin, daisy wheel printers are mercifully rare these days. Today the most popular printer is the laser printer. They are quiet, and produce very sharp, clear output. Many small companies, and work groups within larger organizations, share a single laser printer between several PCs. No matter how many people share a laser printer, none of them ever seem to know how to change the toner cartridge, assuming someone actually remembered to order spares. Even adding paper seems beyond the capabilities of many laser printer users. The excuse most often given is that the user can't find the printer in the first place. Of course, they all seem to be able to find the printer when they need to retrieve their output. It can be quite a humorous sight, watching users make their way along a printer cable, glancing sideways, trying to catch an actual glimpse of the laser printer as they move towards their quarry. The stealth characteristics of peripherals have been much discussed, and have found their pinnacle in the laser printer, which has the added advantage of being fairly quiet. The probable reason for this feature recently came to light when it was revealed that laser printers are all components of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Yes, that's right! All those innocent looking (when you can see them, that is) laser printers actually contain a second laser, which can be fired skyward to defend our nation against incoming enemy missiles. Now you know why all laser printers have those labels in them that say "Danger: no user serviceable parts inside." Every laser printer repairman you've ever met is actually an Air Force technician. Recent federal budget cuts may explain why it's so impossible to get a laser printer repaired these days. -------------------------------------------------------------------- (9/18/92, East Entropy, SD. (TCP/IP)) The International Association of Moderators announced today the creation of new multi-network conference, to be called OFF TOPIC. The *only* messages which will be on topic in this conference are messages informing some user that their previous message was off topic. A spokesperson for IAM stated that this conference was designed to meet the needs of moderators suffering from withdrawal symptoms caused by a dearth of off-topic messages in their own conferences. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sound Byte: Was Wile E. Coyote a member of MENSA? Random Access Humor Page 5 October 1992 As the Hard Drive Turns - Pt 1 by Rob Novak SysOp, Outside the Wall (1:261/1093@fidonet.org) Behold - what follows is a tale of such strife and woe that some squeamish readers may want to have some sort of bucket handy. Parts of this can get pretty graphic. Easily offended readers should probably zark off and go read the TECHHELP echo. A SysOp is the lonely, dreary beast who in a fit of madness decides it would be fun to let total strangers abuse his/her computer equipment. This fit soon turns into an obsession, wherein most SysOps pawn their blood, cars, and sell members of their family in order to pay for system upgrades. SysOps are easily distinguished by the bloodshot eyes (from staring at a monitor for hours at a time), cramped fingers (from hand-typing BBS configuration files), profusive drooling, and tattered pocket-protectors. They are wretched souls, indeed. Dan was an ordinary human until he bought a modem. He talked to his friends on a regular basis, he attended social events, and even took his girlfriend out on occasion. The modem changed all that. The day he brought it home and unpacked it, the modem was a gleaming silver box with a plethora of lights winking and blinking across the front panel. Dan marveled at the wonder of it all. He began calling BBS's at an alarming rate. He had a great time. Free downloads, lots of interesting conversation on the message areas - it was all that he could ever ask for. Then came the offline readers. Dan started downloading large message bundles on a regular basis. His girlfriend was ignored, he stopped going outside, and his eyeglass prescription tripled in strength. The mountain of paper on his desk grew so high that when it finally collapsed, it wiped an entire colony of paper mites out of existence and injured the cat. Still, Dan typed furiously at the keyboard night and day. The dark cloud grew over his head. Then one day he spotted BBS software available for download on a local board. "Wouldn't it be neat if...." he thought. The moment the idea flashed through his brain synapses clicked, neurons welded together, and thought processes were warped inter-dimensionally. He sat in a daze for a half-hour while a small puddle of spit formed in his lap. His brain, overwhelmed by the idea of running a BBS, had turned into the consistency of cold oatmeal. The file transfers began. After a number of hours, all the necessary software was in a subdirectory on his hard drive. Warning bells were ringing in his head. He ignored them and typed "PKUNZIP MAX200-1". From that moment on, he was doomed. (To be continued in Part II - The Installation!) Random Access Humor Page 6 October 1992 Musical Tech Support by Bernie Krumb Technical support is a problem for most companies in the PC industry and VaporWare Corporation is no exception. One of the most pressing problems facing most technical support departments today is the recruitment and training of qualified, motivated staff to man the phones. There was a shake-up in the VaporWare personnel department recently after a slight misunderstanding caused serious problems. The recent rapid expansion of the various VaporWare divisions caused the need for a greatly expanded Tech Support force. The Personnel Director, Merrill Wainscott, thought he had scored a major coup when he managed to secure the services of a group of Silican monks to form the backbone of the expanded support department. The Silican monks are widely known, of course, for their many scholarly articles and books on computers and data communications. Silican monks would seem to be perfect for the job of tech support, given their deep technical knowledge and their well known patience with even the thickest and slowest of users. Unbeknownst to Merrill Wainscott, however, the monks of the order of St. Silicon take a vow of silence upon joining the order. Well, not complete silence. They are allowed to hum. In fact many of their services involve a great deal of humming. This led to slight difficulties when it came time for the monks to actually start answering the phones. Customers quickly became confused when they called VaporWare tech support and heard nothing but humming on the other end. Some callers though that they had reached a data or FAX line. This caused some consternation in the monks when carrier tones became the commonplace response to their musical answering hum. One of the monks, Brother Serial, found that he could actually make 2400 baud connections with some of the incoming modem calls if he hummed just right. This reporter managed to interview Merrill Wainscott as he picked his personal possessions out of the VaporWare dumpster, where they had been placed for "safe keeping." When asked how this could have happened, Wainscott replied, "I had read their books and articles, which were brilliant. All the arrangements to hire them were made by e-mail. How was I supposed to know they took a vow of humming?" When asked what his plans were, Wainscott admitted that he planned to commit himself to the Danforth Quayle Hospital for the Terminally Confused. To most people outside the computer field the Silican monks are best known by their mascot, the Silican Seal. The seal performs at malls and state fairs though out the country, bringing joy to the hearts of young and old alike. Brother Chip, who cares for and trains the seal, had been a marine mammologist at Sea World of Omaha. He later saw the light and joined the order. The silican seal is a harbor seal named VLSI. Although the name is a little hard to pronounce, the monks hum it beautifully. Random Access Humor Page 7 October 1992 The Twit Filter: Modem Vendor Shills by Dave Bealer There are users out there in the modem discussion conferences who like to shill for their modem vendor. These yoyos bash anyone who even *dares* to think that another modem can compare to the ultimate modem. Said ultimate modem always happens to be made by a company they own stock in or for which they are a dealer. The latest travesty seen committed by one of these bums was the claim that all other vendors make a "commodity modem." Huh? Aren't all modems commodities? Sure they are. Unless your modem happens to be a gold electroplated, gem encrusted reproduction of the original Hayes 300 baud external, issued by the Franklin Mint. This classic comes complete with a certificate of authenticity from the World Modem Historical League. This collector's item is, of course, a limited edition, and will only be available until they run out of people dumb enough to buy them. BTW, I'm saving up for one of those. Meanwhile, all modem vendor shills go into my twit filter. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Grunged Glossary by Dave Bealer Welcome to the Grunged Glossary, a cockeyed look at computer/online terminology. This time the Grunged Glossary covers some common units of time: milliesecond - the amount of time it takes to walk the Presidential pooch. nanusecond - the time it takes Mork of Ork to link-up with Orson. picantesecond - the amount of time the average consumer of "Old Brushfire" Texas Hotsauce waits after eating the stuff before starting to guzzle all the water, beer and other potables in the vicinity. waitasecond - a variable length of time, usually longer than even the speaker had imagined. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Taglines Seen Around the Nets: If I save the whales, where do I keep them? ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI! Captain! The UARTs kenna' take these speeds! Graduate of the Darth Vader School of Personnel Management. Psychoceramics - the study of crackpots. Random Access Humor Page A-1 October 1992 Random Access Humor Masthead: Editor: Dave Bealer Acting Deputy Assistant Editor: Scott White Contact: The Puffin's Nest BBS FidoNet: 1:261/1129 Internet: f1129.n261.z1.fidonet.org BBS: (410) 437-3463 (1200-14400/V.32bis) Regular Mail: (Only if you have no other way to reach us!) Random Access Humor Infinite Loop Communications P.O. Box 595 Pasadena, MD. 21122 USA Random Access Humor (RAH) is published monthly by Dave Bealer as a disservice to the online community. Although the publisher's BBS may be a part of one or more networks at any time, RAH is not affiliated with any BBS network or online service. RAH is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. Random Access Humor is Copyright 1992 Dave Bealer. All Rights Reserved. Duplication and/or distribution is permitted for non- commercial purposes only. For any other use, contact the publisher. RAH may only be distributed in unaltered form. Online systems whose users cannot access the original binary archive file may offer it for viewing or download in text format, but the text MAY NOT be modified. Many of the brands and products mentioned in RAH are trademarks of their respective owners. Copies of the current issue of RAH may be obtained by manual download or Wazoo/EMSI File Request from The Puffin's Nest BBS (FREQ: RAH), or from various sites in several BBS networks. Back issues of RAH may be obtained by download or file request from The Puffin's Nest BBS. Article contributions to RAH are always welcome. All submissions must be made electronically. File attach your article to a netmail message to Dave Bealer at 1:261/1129. E-mail may also be sent via Internet to: dave.bealer@f1129.n261.z1.fidonet.org Tagline and filler submissions may be made via e-mail. Article submissions should be made via file. Submitted files must be plain ASCII text files in normal MS-DOS file format: artname.RAH; where artname is a descriptive file name and RAH is the mandatory extension. Your text should be less than 70 columns across for widest readability. If your article does not conform to these simple specs, it may get lost or trashed. Also note that such imaginative names as RAH.RAH might get overlaid by the blatherings of similarly minded contributors. If your hardware is incapable of producing file names in the proper format, you may send your article as one or more e-mail messages. It will not be possible to make private responses to any submissions or correspondence received. Random Access Humor Page A-2 October 1992 The editors reserve the right to publish or not to publish any submission as/when they see fit. The editors also reserve the right to "edit", or modify any submission prior to publication. This last right will rarely be used, typically only to correct spelling or grammar misteaks that are not funny. RAH is a PG rated publication, so keep it (mostly) clean. RAH can accept only the following types of material for publication: 1) Any material in the public domain. 2) Material for which you own the copyright. If you wrote it yourself, you are automatically the copyright holder. 3) Authorized agents for a copyright holder (typically an organization) may submit material on behalf of that holder. In writing jargon, RAH is deemed to be given "One Time Rights" to anything submitted for publication unless otherwise noted in the message accompanying the contribution. You still own the material, and RAH will make no use of the material other than publishing it electronically in the usual manner. If you want your copyright notice to appear in your article, place it as desired in the text you submit. Previously published articles may be submitted, but proper acknowledgement must be included: periodical name, date of previous publication. RAH Distribution System: (sites bearing the designation will accept your contributions and forward them to the editors.) The Puffin's Nest Pasadena, MD. Sysop: Dave Bealer FidoNet> 1:261/1129 (410) 437-3463 14400 (V.32bis) (RAH Publication Site) Complete Writers Guidelines: FReq: RAHWRITE Complete Distributor Info: FReq: RAHDIST RAH Gateway Systems: My House -=FBBS=- Cheasapeake, VA. Sysop: Scott White FidoNet> 1:275/6 (804) 424-0394 14400 (V.32bis) RaceNet> 73:108/1 4X4Net> 44:2600/6 SportsNet> 73:108/6 RecoveryNet> 12:2600/6 Flynet> 196:30/0 PetNet> 73:108/6 InterSports> 103:1032/0 Pooh's Corner Fells Point, MD. Sysop: Mark Truelove FidoNet> 1:261/1131 (410) 327-9263 14400 (V.32bis) RBBSnet> 8:936/206 FilNet> 33:410/0 CandyNet> 42:1031/1 The Depths of Hell Bayonne, NJ. Sysop: Eric Knorowski FidoNet> 1:107/813 (201) 437-5706 14400 (HST) FishNet> 21:102/101 CandyNet> 42:1011/1 ChateauNet> 100:5801/100 007LZ Southfield, MI. Sysop: Gary Groeller FidoNet> 1:120/636 (313) 569-4454 14400 (V.32bis) GlobalNet> 51:1400/0 W-Net_fts> 66:636/1 Random Access Humor Page A-3 October 1992 The Edge of Sanity Dearborn, MI. Sysop: Tom Smith FidoNet> 1:2410/279 (313) 584-1253 9600 (V.32) SogNet> 91:7/4279 H*A*L Muskogee, OK. Sysop: Lloyd Hatley FidoNet> 1:3813/304 (918) 682-7337 14400 (V.32bis) RFNet> 73:102/1 RANet> 72:918/21 LuvNet> 77:101/1 DoorNet> 75:7918/205 The Shop Mail Only Flushing, NY Sysop: Steve Matzura FidoNet> 1:2603/203 (718) 460-0201 14400 (V.32bis) ADAnet> 94:7180/1 JayNet> 17:99/100 WorldNet 62:4400/200 MusicNet.FTN> 88:8001/12 1:143/110 (408) 435-2886 14400 (V.32bis) Wit-Tech Baltimore, MD. Sysop: Doug Wittich FidoNet> 1:261/1082 (410) 256-0170 14400 (V.32bis) Da Goober's Place Burleson, TX. Sysop: Don Teague FidoNet> 1:130/82 (817) 447-2598 9600 (V.32) Milliways Pittsburgh, PA. Sysop: David Cole FidoNet> 1:129/179 (412) 766-1086 2400 Supernova BBS Scotstown, Quebec Sysop: Ian Hall-Beyer FidoNet> 1:257/40 (819) 657-4603 2400 Big Bob's BBS Portland, OR. Sysop: Bob Moffatt FidoNet> 1:105/94 (503) 286-9367 14400 (V.32bis) Cold Fire BBS Wichita Falls, TX. Sysop: Bob Lennard FidoNet> 1:3805/14 (817) 696-5771 14400 (V.32bis) The RAH distribution network grew from five systems to fifteen systems in just one month. If we maintain this rate of growth, there should be more than 2.6 million distribution sites for the first anniversary issue next September.