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Low Self Esteem Issue 6
Computers Suck
Written By Aphex Twin
May 03rd, 1996
[*] LSE NEWS [*]
First Of All, I'd Like To Say That You Can Find Issues Of Low Self Esteem
On The Following FTP Site: FTP://FTP.EText.Org/pub/Zines/LowSelfEsteem,
Thanks To The Operators Of The EText Archives For Giving This T-File
Collection A Home. You May Also Request An Issue By Writing EMail To Me At
The Following Address: PARKER_LEWIS@HOTMAIL.COM, You May Send Me Mail
Concerning Comments, Flames, Or If You Want To Write Something For Low Self
Esteem.
It All Started Back In The Late Eighties When I Got My Sega Master System,
It Was Then That I Became Addictated To Computers, Around The Time I Had My
Sega Master System, We Also Had A Commodore 64 In Our Classroom, And I Played
Around With That Also, I Used To Program Shitty Little BASIC Programs On That
And I Really Enjoyed It, It Was Then That I Discovered That I Worked Pretty
Good With These Machines And That I Possesed A Skill That No Body Else In My
Class Had. I Was A Real Gaming Nut And I Used To Waste Alot Of Money On
Arcade Games And Games For My Sega Master System, SomeTimes I Would Even
Steal Money From My Own Parents To Play These Games. About 5 Years Ago My
Family Moved From Canada To Portugal, In Portugal I Got A Nintendo Gameboy
And A Few Games For It. A Year After Arriving In Portugal, I Discovered That
Nobody Had Any Consoles Like Sega Or Nintendo (These Systems Only Arrived Here
About 3 Years Ago), What Everyone Had Was A Computer, I Played Some Games On
My Cousin's 286 And I Was Amazed, I Remember Almost Pissing My Pants When I
Saw 256 Color VGA Graphics Which Compared To My 8Bit SMS And GameBoy Was
Pretty Spectacular. I Used To Spend Hours Everyday At My Cousin's House
Playing Games Like Lakers Vs. Celtics, Indiana Jones 3 And Leisure Suit Larry
1, Later On I Started Playing Around In DOS, Copying Stuff And Renaming Stuff,
That Was Pretty Fun, After I Started To Trade Games With Friends At School,
And When I Was Home, I Would Spend Hours Playing Games. One Day I Stumbled
Upon A Game That Had An Extention Of NFO, I Typed It Out And Read It, It
Was A File Written By The Humble Guys Who Had Cracked The Game, They Were
Talking Really Big About Kicking Ass And Stuff And I Was Stoked, I Thought
To Myself "Wow, These Must Be Those Pirates That We Hear Alot About", I
Imagined These "Crackers" To Be Really Cool, Rebel-Type Guys, And I Wanted To
Be One Of Them, I Wanted To Be A Cracker.
Even Though I Had No Idea Of How To Crack, I Didn't Know Any Assembly, And
I Didn't Know What A Debugger Was, The Only Knowledge That I Had Was Some
BASIC Which I Learned From The C64 Days And Some DOS Commands, But I Still
Thought Of MySelf As A Cracker, I Came Up With A Tough Sounding Alias And I
Formed A Group With Some Friends. The Group Didn't Do Much, We Just Added
Some Cheesy Text Files To The Game Saying That We Were The First Group To
Have It, And We Would Trade It, It Was Really Cool To Have Recent Games Before
Anyone Else And Then Seeing Them Beg For It. I Was Now A Full Pleaged
Computer Geek And There Was No Way That I Would Get Out Of It.
Things Got Worst, I Got My First 2400 Modem In Christmas '93, I Saw How Some
Of Those NFO Files Released By Some Groups Had Dist Sites And WHQs And I
Wanted To Call These To Get Cool Games, And I Wanted To Set Up My Own BBS. I
Never Did Set Up A BBS, But I Called Out Alot, That First Month The Phone Bill
Was Around $500 Dollars And My Parents Got Really Mad At Me, But As Hard As I
Tried, I Couldn't Stop Calling To BBSes, And Since The Island Where I Live
Didn't Have Any Local BBSes, I Always Called To Long Distance BBSes In Lisbon,
That Second Month The Phone Bill Was Equally High And My Parents Took Away My
Modem. Later I Got Back My Modem But I Didn't Make Any Calls Because It
Wasn't Working Well. In The Summer Of That Year, I Went Back To Canada For
Holidays And I Brought Along My Computer. In Canada A Bought A 14400 Modem
And I Had A Hell Of A Time Calling The BBSes There, I Would Call Every BBS
Number That I Found On Any Messages Or Ads, I Used To Stay On The Computer
Until 6am Downloading Stuff From Shareware BBSes. A Few Weeks Later I Called
My First 'Elite' Warez BBS, I Was So Stoked, At First I Had Problems Getting
Warez But Then I Used A Program Called Leech ZModem Which Allowed Me To Leech
Warez Without Effecting My UL/DL Ratio, And So I Would Download 1 Day Warez
And Upload It To Another Warez BBS, I Would Download Even Stuff That I Never
Planned To Use Like AutoCAD Software And Other Simular Stuff, I Was Really
Hooked. In The Last Weeks Of My Stay In Canada I Was Introduced To The
H/P/A/V Scene And I Was Hooked On That Too Even Though The Information Was
Too Complex For Me At The Time, I Still Kept It, Thinking That Having It Would
Improve My 'Rebel' Image.
Later On I Gained Knowledge Of Assembly And Pascal, And I Knew How To Use
A Debugger, And I Became A Pretty Good Cracker, I Would Crack Everything That
I Got My Hands On And Make Trainers And Write Solves. I Was Never Happy, But
This Was Where I Belonged. That Year, For The Firt Time, I Failed My School
Year Because I Was Always Playing Computer Games And I Never Studyied.
In 1995 I Entered Into The Internet Realm, And That Was Fun For A While, I
Didn't Have To Worry About Ratios And NUPs, I Could Leech All I Want.
I Would Go To The Internet Place Almost Everyday And I Wasted Tons Of Money
On It, Kind Of When I Was In The Arcade Game Fase.
My Whole Perpective On The Elite Scene Changed When I Read Some Articles
From AWA 'Anti-Warez Alliance', They Made Me See How Silly And Unimportant
The Warez Scene Is, Since Then I Have Been Recovering, I Don't Give A Rat's
Ass About Games Anymore, I Don't Care For 0 Day Warez, And Warez FTP Sites,
I Now I Know That All The So Called 'Elite' Groups Are Just A Bunch Of Regular
Guys Who Use The Computers To Revamp Their Personalities And Egos, And They
Aren't Any Gods. I Now Spend Less Time On The Computer And More Time On Other
Stuff Like Studying, Watching TV, Or Listening To Music, But I Still Cannot
Go To Sleep Without Being Atleast 6 Hours A Day On My Computer, If I Ever Left
It, It Would Be Like Pulling The Plug On Me, I Feel This Way Because So Much
Of My Time Has Been Spent On It And I've Learned Alot From It, But I Now See
That Everything That I've Learnt Really Has No Value In Life, People Are Not
Going To Think Any Different Of You Just Because You Know Assembly Language
(Exept Maybe If They're A Newbie Warez Geek, Which Then, They'll Treat You
Like A God), I Now Feel That I've Wasted So Many Years Of My Life With This
Fucken Machine And It Didn't Acomplish Nothing.
Sometimes I Just Feel Like Throwing My Computer Out Of The Window But Theres
Always This Part Of Me Thats Attached To It. I Really Hate This Machine,
I Have Even Gotten To The Point Where I Curse At My Computer.
To Finish Off This Article, I'd Like To Say 'Damn You IBM, Damn You
MicroSoft, Damn You Intel And Damn You (Whoever Created Computers)'. If
You Just Starting Out In The Computer Scene, Then Take My Advice, Leave It
As Soon A Possible, If You Get Sucked Into It's Whirlpool Your Life Will Be
Ruined (Mine Sure Is, But I'm Recovering), Don't Get Into The Elite Scene,
Don't Play Any Computer Games, Do SomeThing WorthWhile And Rewarding Like
Learning How To Program, Atleast This Will Help You Out In The Future.
Well, I Think Thats All I Have To Say For Now, My Next Article Will Probably
Be About The Internet, Until Then Bye, And Stay Off Those Warez.
-- Aphex Twin