[DeTomaso] NPC on this day

[detomasoregistry at gmail.com]

Bill,

When I was a kid, (1960's) my elementary school received a teletypewriter.
We were told we could communicate with another school.

This BIG box was installed in a closet because it made so much noise when typing.
(You old computer guys know what I refer to.)

After the initial rush of kids trying it out, most quickly lost interest.
I kept at it.  There really was only one "kid" returning our messages anyway.  Her name
was Eliza, or something like that.

She often asked silly, simple questions, and wrote simple relies.
She didn't know too many swear words either.

Eventually I determined it was not a real person.  So I played with the machine that
responded, pretending it was human, and I got it to make some embarrassing mistakes
like swearing...

Then through random chance I found a combination of characters that would make the (other)
machine back-space, to type XXX's over previous text.  Then I found how to advance the 
paper to the next sheet... then faster and faster, until I am sure I got the receiving
machine to zip thru a whole box of paper.  (It would duplicate the response on my
console.)

The next day I got a message from someone new, a real person, I think it was someone in
charge.  He was interested in what I was doing, but also not real happy about the paper
mess I created on his end.

Ah, fond memories.

Chuck



My history with computers is more mundane & physical:  I had a job in my college days
(1965-67) loading freight trucks at night, and every Thursday was the day that the boxes
of computer cards came through.  Each box was about 50#'s, and there were hundreds of
them.
----            My next defining moment was in about 1999, when personal computers were
brand spanking new, and I said, "Who will spend several hundred dollars for a computer to
store recipes, and other such stuff on!"  Ha!!     ---Bill