------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "stream of thought" a theoretical self-purging from count lazlo nibble written in the early hours of the last monday in february 1987 while listening to kate bush's cd hounds of love (buy it and be reborn) edited for typos but nothing else enjoy it while you can (frankie say) bang ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ a note from nibble. i wrote these words at a time in my life (a fleeting hour or so ago) when i was in turmoil and unsure of where to turn. therefore, read this as not so much a firm commitment to the stands i take here, but rather an opening-up of my soul, and a purging of what troubled me within. if all else fails, heed it (and me) no mind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What can I say? Terrapin Station is now textfile-only. Not because of fear of being busted or anything like that. More simple. With a decent established 40M AE (Binary Sixx) now within local caling distance to me, I don't feel any real responsibility to anyone anymore. Sixx can carry the load, hell, she could put my entire board on one of her large volumes! Why should I keep up the gnu warez runaround when fcp and the sider have turned the modem xfer world into a totally new animal at least compared to early 1985, when Terrapin first went up? Geez, I can hardly believe that it's nearly been TWO YEARS already! and so much's changed . . . . when I went up for the first time, 300 baud was slowly falling out of favor as 1200 became really widespread, Catsend was the hot 202 xfer program (does anyone out there even REMEMBER 202 transfers? What with the //c and //gs and lawsuits and the world of rs232 modems finaly squeezing out the last of the Apple-Cat fanatics?) So I went out and bought a Cat 212 system with $350 of money that I'd actally earned, and that night, Terrapin went up. Well, not that night. It took me awhile to figure out that, uness you put the 212 card in a special configuration you couldn't use it without pre-booting with the software that came with the modem. I still have the software, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called . . Well a FEW nights later the board went up. When I first wanted to put it up, it was going to be called the Planet 10 ae, pw:GOMEZ. from "Buckaroo Banzai". Well my 212 problems prompted me to change the name. I felt that "planet 10" was a jinx . . . but what to call the board? there was this grateful dead album that a friend had played for me. . . . really nice stuff, lyrics were like a fantasy book or somethig, and i was heavy into fantasy at the time . . .. so . . . "terrapin station" was born. Not a bad name, really, no harder or easier to figure out than most, I suppose. Obscure enough that it as neat to meet another person who knew what it meant and well-knonwn enough that I could feel superior to someone if I had to explain it to him. SO where was I? I think whe early days of the board. Well they don't matter much now. I might mention that I actually bought my copy of ae:tac (are you out there, you twisted motherfucker who wrote it? where's TAC 3.0, you asshole?) So many others didn't. I guess I have this innate moral line that I just can't cross. I don't pirate infocom games either. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I've designed a few adventure games in my time. (I got started with computers on a PDP-11 running RSTS 7.0 and we had a hacked copy of DUNGEON (the precursor of the ZORKS for you micro-born types) and I eventually got into the database and changed things around and it was great fun...the way it should be when you first play with computers, not some spreadsheet or phoney WP program or something, but games and timesharing and personal interaction with other people, and things like that which I really miss in the AE/BBS community of now. I guess you can't go home again.) So why am I going tfile only? Oh yes. I'm tired of the new wares runaround, and having to have everything first or second in the country to keep people happy, and not having enough space to keep **myself** happy with what I'm doing. I alwys wanted to be liked, I guess, and putting up an AE was an easy way to get that. Now I want more than that. No, not to revered as a god (tho' I certainly wouldn't complain . . . who would?) but to feel like I'm actually contributing something of real value to someone, somehing more tangible than some old ware that will get deleted six weeeks later but information, knowledge that can be passed along not only on apples, or in digital form, but on photocopied flysheets and in walls and on 64s and trash-80's and over the tv and ham bands, between friends or posted where everyone can see. The old packrat-i've-got-it-and-you-dont-mentality is breaking down within me. I don't feel like trading wares is any **fun** anymore, it's so mechanized and artificial. I don't know who you are that call my board...just a handle (that maybe tells me a little) and a password and four nebulous digits that may or may not be the last four of your phone numbers. but it doesn't convey anything about you. I want to meet you, to know you, to hang out with you and cruise the main drags on hot summer nights hanging out the car windows and waving to the babes. Whcih you could even be for all I know. So I'm going with the tfiles. I think that, at their best, tfiles give you a window into someone's soul. If someone really writes a file, takes what he knows and turns it into bits and bytes and transmits it over the modem, a little of him goes with it wherever it might end up. I feel like I kind of know the members of anarchy, inc (RIP) and, for better or worse, the neon knights . . . and even the little rugrats who get books from Paladin press and type them up. They're living their walter mitty fantasies (like the knights or the rugrats) or exposing their absurdist feelings to the world (like Ai), or maybe trying to overthrow the system, like mark tabas and the people behind the lod/h files or phrack (though those too are mechanized in their feel; they have no real soul to them but that too says something about those behind them . . perhaps they're slowly becoming too organized; a twisted mirror image of what they're fighting against). With wares, I need a whole two drives to give the people something that will affect them. With a good textfile, I can do it in 20 or 30 or 40 sectors. I like to think I've affected a few people with the files I wrote before I quit school and started to work and brought in the bucks but lost the spark . .. can the "digital gang" or the "star league" or any of the little crackers' clubs say that? I'll always remember the neon knights, but who can remember who cracked a ware, even five minutes after they've started playing it? Does arctic fox make you laugh? can you jerk off to thoughts of gemstone healer? I don't think you can or maybe would want to but is that ever the point of wares? it isn't but it's the point of textfiles. so this is the final line. no more wares on my board. i want to get users who can pass on what they know, who will pretend to know what they don't, and who use computers as a tool, not as mindless escapist entertainment. in physical terms I feel the board has some way to go before it's what I want . . . . yes I'd like more space but I won't steal it. but I think that once the changes are in place, the *feel* of the board, its *karma* if you want to get silly and spiritualist about it, will be right where I want it. I hope you want it that way too. From Terrapin Station, home of kate bush, sigue sigue sputnik, books and comics, scooter and the sacker and Leaping Weasel, thoughts, and ideas, and friends I can count on, this is count lazlo hollifeld-nibble /\/oo\/\ ----------------- it doesnt hurt me do you want to feel how it feels do you want to know, know that it doesn't hurt me do you want to hear 'bout the deal i'm making you, you and me and if i only could i'd make a deal with god and get him to swap our places be running up that road be running up that hill be running up that building if i only could... you don't want to hurt me but see how deep the bullet lies unaware i'm tearing you asunder ooh there is thunder in our hearts is there so much hate for the ones we love tell me we both matter dont we you you and me you and me won't be unhappy and if i only could i'd make a deal with god and get him to swap our places be running up that road be running up that hill be running up that building if i only could... you you and me you and me won't be unhappy c'mon baby c'mon darling let me steal this moment from you now c'mon angel c'mon c'mon darling let's exchange the experience... and if i only could i'd make a deal with god and get him to swap our places be running up that road be running up that hill with no problems if i only could be running up that hill with no problems --kate bush