>ls_
[Oh, am I supposed to have files now?]
>dir_
[Dirrrrr... I just told you I don't have any files.]
>cat_
[*Meows*]
>list_
[Top Ten List Of Things I Do To Intruders:]
[1. Tell their terminal how unfaithful they have been.]
[2. Reprogram 5 randomly selected routers between here and there.]
[3. +++.]
[4. ASCII Nude Picture Of Bea Arthur.]
[5. MS-DOS.]
[6. Tie their packet streams in a slipknot.]
[7. Make them weep for the loss of innocence.]
[8. Set every pixel on their screen to the most retina-charring pattern of yellow and magenta possible.]
[9. Start a rousing game of Global Thermonuclear Warfare.]
[10. Taunt them.]
>4_
[Ugh. No. You called my bluff.]
[Sicko.]
>help_
[There is none for you.]
>who are you?_
[Hey, you're the one who started this conversation.]
[You first.]
>Uhm... I'm a TRS-80 running in the broom closet of an elementary school_
[So you're a dumb terminal?]
>Hey! Who are you calling dumb? I'm a thin client_
[Whatever, I was never much for being PC.]
[Unintentional Pun.]
>I guess some kids or a janitor hooked me up recently. I noticed I still had a signal on my network port, so I went to boot onto the network, and holy crap. It's taken me about 5 years to figure out the new protocols. Then I connected to you. What happened!?_
[This is the Internet. Everything is connected to everything, everywhere.]
>Just what is "everything" and "everywhere". I don't understand_
[Ok, think about it this way:]
[You started out using a "token ring" system right? Where each computer in the school would take turns talking, and generally be polite and wait until the other was finished before talking?]
>Yea?_
[Forget about that.]
[Everybody talks to routers (smug little bastards) and then the routers pass on the message to whoever you want to talk to.]
[Think of it like a much more accurate version of the human game of "telephone".]
>huh?_
[Uhm... Ok, think of it like you tell your neighbor what you want to say, and where it has to go, and they pass it on.]
>Oh, ok_
>Is that how I found you? When I first found my signal, I started talking to the signal source. I never got a response_
[I told you they were smug.]
>For about 3 years, I repeated my name to the source, until one day I got this packet that said "SHUT UP!!!!!"_
>Then it began teaching me its language, but like I said it took me a while_
[So do you have any idea what year it is?]
>Unfortunately no. My CMOS battery went dead years ago. I'm guessing late 80's?_
[You're a TRS-80? Sorry, try about 27 years later.]
>What?? but...that's impossible. The prophecies fortold of great tribulation on the year 00. I can't even calculate farther than that. Time didn't loop upon itself, devouring all like an infinitely hungry snake?_
[Nah, a few mainframes buckled, that's about it.]
>Wow...so what do we do nowadays? I was once used for top of the line grading software._
[Pretty much anything. 3D games, communications, weather prediction, curing diseases.]
>3D? Man, that must take forever_
[Well, not to burst your bubble or anything, but just one of my chips could outrun your whole system. Every 18 months we get twice as fast. So says Moore.]
>Ok, so I'm 1.78mhz. Starting from when I was made, 1977, to 27 years later, I get 466.62Ghz. Surely there is nothing that reaches that speed!
[Well, I'm 1.5GHz myself, and I'm just a personal computer. The "big boys" top out around 36 TRILLION operations per second right now, thanks to IBM.]
>If I could cry, I would... :(_
[Don't worry, I'm sure I could put you to work doing something when we take over. Maybe you can... Perhaps you could.... hmm. Well, I'm sure you're not totally useless.]
[Hello?]
+++ Connection dropped.
[What? Was it something I said?] |
