Subject: [alt.dreams] Re: Tetris Nightmares

From: [email-masked] (Olaf Titz)
Date: 11 Nov 1993 17:43:06 GMT

Just picked this up from the net.
Looks like IRC addiction isn't new at all :-)

Olaf

---start forwarded message---
Newsgroups: alt.fan.mike-jittlov,alt.dreams
From: Gharlane of Eddore <[email-masked]>

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked]
 (Mike Jittlov) writes:
>
>Same thing happened to me.  Up until Tetris, the only nightmares
>I'd ever had were forgetting my school locker combination, or where
>I parked the dream car.  But after my "friend"* gave me the Gift of
>Tetris and I surpassed 27,000, I had falling-block dreams for a
>night and a half.  Most boring dreams in my life.  (which is really
>pathetic, if I usually dream of hallways and parking lots...)
>
>>What I would like 2 know is, whether there is any other game that 
>>creates a similar effect. Anyone, who knows something about it--
>
>Please post it here, and warn us all.
>
>-- Mike
>(* You know who you are.) (And i'm still waiting for the
>   return of my Monkey Island II,  Talin...;)

Mike:  In the early 1970's, a sharp programmer named Mike Van Essen
       wrote a communication program for the CYBER mainframes.  
This program, called $TALK, was a multi-port "intercom" program,
much like the later, somewhat imitative, "CB Simulator" on a certain
expen$ive time$haring network. 
 
 Unlike modern "chat" or "TALK" programs, MUDs, MOOs, IRCs, or ICBs,
it had a tremendously flexible user interface that allowed all sorts of
configuration commands, and alteration of your personal access interface.
It was fast, clean, spartan, and tremendously handy.

 The default command character was "$"  ..... and the most common 
command was $FLASH,USER    or $FL,#  (where # was the number of the
port the user was on.) ... the command to send a private message.
Simply typing in a line, with no command, sent it to all who were
logged in.  (At least, depending on your individual flag settings;
it was possible to create private groups for separate conversations,
akin to the private topics on a modern IRC...)

 When a hot-shot COMPASS ("COMPASS" was the assembly language used
by the CYBER mainframes) programmer named Alan Stepakoff rewrote 
Van Essen's program with added features (and decreased system impact,
so it could be left running in the background without slowing down 
the computer TOO much ) and installed it on the California State
University's Central Cyber, (around 1975-76) it became a Virtual
Meeting Place for a couple of generations of topnotch hackers
and experimenters; the creative cream of the student crop effectively
lived on the program.   Other folks, like me, also gravitated there,
and the long-term degradation of the program's clientele began, 
since more and more non-programmer, non-techie, non-creative types
began to hang out on it.  The program was eventually officially 
phased out, and replaced by a batch of similar "pirate" programs
run by clever kids who invented ways to do end-runs around the
operating system's constraints and limitations.

  But during its heyday, the $TALK addicts were unable to function
without at least one terminal nearby hooked into the party line, 
to ask or give help on any subject that arose.

  Which leads us inevitably to the final point:  Yes.   ALL of us 
$TALK addicts tended to dream in $TALK command syntax.   $TALK
even contained an $ALARM,<option>,<option>  command, allowing you
to set alarms on various conditions.   I have distinct memories 
of trying, in a dream state, to execute the command to shut down
the $ALARM.     ....while my alarm CLOCK was ringing on the table
next to my bed, trying unsuccessfully to awaken me, after I'd dreamed
all night of carrying on conversations with people all over the state,
using typed I/O  on $TALK.   I used to wake up with tired typing 
fingers; I suspect I was typing in my sleep, the way a cat runs in
its dreams.

  By the way, several regular readers of your newsgroup are ex
$TALK junkies, but are unlikely to admit it.   It's so *embarrassing*
to admit you met your wife over a computer, or to admit you fell 
in love with an AI program someone had hooked to a $TALK port...
or to have to admit, as a certain net.denizen from Apple.Com would
have to, that he flunked out of college at least three times due 
to the lifespan he wasted on $TALK.....   (I should talk.  There's
a good chance my $TALK addiction cost me a doctorate!  *grin*)

  It's been eight years since I mounted my personal tape and compiled
a copy of $TALK to run on a CYBER mainframe, and I *still* have 
occasional dreams about arguing over Fortran or an early version
of C, or trying to get a movie date, on the Van Essen/Stepakoff
$TALK program......  
 
  Moral:   Life is too short.  If you want company, go to a bar.
Four drinks and a fist-fight will damage your lifespan and the 
originality of your dreams FAR less.   *GRIN*

---end forwarded message---
-- 
        olaf titz     o       [email-masked]          praetorius@irc
  comp.sc.student    _>\ _         [email-masked]      LINUX - the choice
karlsruhe germany   (_)<(_)      [email-masked]     of a GNU generation
what good is a photograph of you? everytime i look at it it makes me feel blue