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submit to you:
Mr. Pez's Rambling about Textfiles
which naturally leads to a discussion
about Leeching.
by:
Mr. Pez
~~~ ~~~
Written:
13 March 1987
10:55pm
i. opening rambling/background
Well, here I am again. All the boards I feel like calling are busy, and I
felt this needed to be done. I just realized that I now have roughly 1400
textfiles, which puts me as the person with the second-largest collection of
textfiles in our nation. The person with the most textfiles is one Jason
Scott, and he's responsible for at least half of my textfiles. He runs a
board called the Works!, whose number will be posted at the end of this
exercise in creative rambling. So sit back, and enjoy this file, if it
turns out to be the kind of thing you dig.
I'd like to point out that this is what I listened to while writing this
textfile.
"Duty Now For The Future" Devo
"Celebrate The Bullet" The Selecter
"Say Yes To Another Excess" Yello
"Abraxas" Santana
ii. textfiles and related discussions
I think the textfile is on the rise. While Anarchy inc. may have disbanded,
their legacy of fine and humorous files lives on, especially on Jason
Scott's board (whose number, as previously stated, will be at the end of
this file. So hold yer horses!), where there is an entire section devoted
to them. (Devoted...reminds me of last year in school, when I wrote "I am
devoted to darkness" on all the desks that I sat at. You'd be surprised at
how many people have a great aversion to Satanic stuff, especially when the
writing is accompanied by evil drawings. "Satan is my pal" was another fave
of mine. Someone wrote, "Well, God's mine!" after that, which gave me many
rich laffs. I was a sick freshmen. But I digress...) Now, who remains? The
Neon Knights aren't seen around too much anymore, either. But without a
doubt, the most well-known of all textfiles is the Phrack. Started by Taran
King, it's just grown incredibly. The next issue will be number 12. I was
very annoyed to get Phrack 11 quite soon after it came out, and was all set
to start u/ling it everywhere, when I noticed Thomas Covenant did the same.
So he stole any recognition I might get from u/ling the latest Phrack.
Another thing that proves my point about the textfile world. There's a mad
race, when something new comes out, to distribute it. Much like the "new
warez" of a couple of years ago. Only, it's looked upon in rather poor
taste to add your board number and stuff to the end of a Phrack, or an LOD/H
Technical Journal, like you could once do with games you cracked or
distributed. (Speaking of the LOD/H TJ - I was very early in getting it, and
began uploading it to places quickly. This one I beat both Thomas Covenant
and Jason Scott to, since it was only out in 'packed' format for Apples.
This thrills the hell out of you, I'm sure.) Anyway, the textfiles world is
pretty tough. I do think, however, that the quality of the work coming out
is improving. Take a look at "Sex Change" from Thomas Covenant of Phido
Phreaks - now THAT is some excellent work. Let's not forget Tristan Farnon,
either. Anything from him can be expected to be of a very high quality.
The fact that he's the only member of his group, Starry Night Productions,
could serve as evidence that even groups like my two (which I did make up,
although there is one other person in it), which are made up by the only
member can produce high quality stuff. I'm not sure this stuff I'm coming
out with is of any great quality. There are some who think I'm funny, and
others who find me to be like a pesky parasite, what with 50-line paragraphs
like this one I'm currently writing. Personally, if you don't like this
file, I wish I could say I didn't care, but it really will bother me a
little if you, the reader, vote this a bomb. You'll notice that while I
write this, I use big words, and write like a textbook. That's just the way
I write, especially on essays, but sometimes on textfiles and occasionally
messages. Right now, it's 11:26, and I still haven't really said anything
of value. That's why I get such great grades in English, since the
requirements for a 450 word essay can be met in just the opening paragraph
sometimes. I think I'll start another paragraph now, just to break the
monotony. (And if you don't think this is monotonous, bless you!)
Three groups to watch are Phido Phreaks, OctoThorpe Productions, and this
one (if I may be so immodest). They're all new (well, Octothorpe just
started doing stuff), and have some good writers in them. Phido Phreaks has
Thomas Covenant as well as the Silver Ghost, who has to be mentioned for the
sheer volume of stuff he puts out. Pretty good stuff, too, unlike this file
which I'm starting to realize is getting more and more disjointed. That's
entropy, you know. The natural tendency for things to drift towards
randomness and chaos. An idea which I think will replace anarchy in a
matter of months. I was going to change my group(s) to Entropy Associates
(which was on a dump truck in this filmstrip I saw in Chemistry supposed to
illustrate the concept of entropy. That name really had an effect on me.),
but I thought it'd be pretty lame, since you might have already seen RM/MM
on that other file I wrote (which I won't name, since I'm not Captain
Goodnight). Although, when I write 10 files, if such an event happens, and
am met with some success, I might change the name to Entropy Associates
(e.a.) if I actually get some members besides my friend Zack. OctoThorpe is
the group started by Jason Scott (the Slipped Disk) when he started his
board up. It sat there, in file directory 1, for at least 10 months, until
Jason's friend, The Mathematician, discovered modeming and textfiles and
writing textfiles. Some of his stuff is pretty good, too. And Jason's
stuff, with the backing of having read all 1500 textfiles of his, is good,
too. Then The Cruiser started writing for Jason's group, and it began to
get some members. The Cruiser has written some fairly good stories, but
also some unabashed edits of existing files. On The Works! (home of
Octothorpe, Jason's board. But you know that by now, right, genius?), my
file (um, what was that called?) was distibuted under the Octothorpe banner
as "Uncut, Unedited, and Unwanted". Which afforded me a couple of laffs.
Lastly, my group, of which it's too soon to tell. See if this file helps
you.
Shit, my word processor just asked me if I wanted to save the file. And
upon doing so, it wrote 8,400 bytes. Which is a fucking lot. My last file
was 15,000 bytes, though...let's see how long this one turns out to be.
Actually, I should probably be doing my social studies, which is a report on
Aztec History, which I could frankly give a flying fuck about. But it's
only 11:50, the night is still young...
The thing I hate are "anarchy" textfiles that are formulas for how to make
drugs and stuff. I really could not care less about how to make DMT from
banana peels or whatever. I also don't like countless typed-in portions of
the book "The Poor Man's James Bond" by Kurt Saxon. The anarchy files that
I like are the kind that make me laugh. The ever-present (at least in this
discussion) Anarchy inc. wrote good stuff like that. And I was laughing my
ass off (if such a thing is, in fact, possible) at the file "Random
Senseless Violence" by Count Nibble (his board, Terrapin Station, will be
included at the end of this file), which was great. I also like his file
"Spray Paint" (or whatever...I can't remember the exact title, ok?), which
had me a'chucklin'. I also like 'l00zer' files to a point, but then they
start repeating themselves, as the Silver Ghost succinctly satirized in his
file "Parodies". It's 12:05, and I'm getting kind of tired, so I'll get
some sleep and start a fresh new part tomorrow. Part III. Look for it.
But not too hard. (Note about parts: I have not written three files called
"Ramblings", I've just separated this file into several parts just to be
interesting.)
iii. 9:57 am on the 14th and time to talk about text graphics
I think they're making a comeback, personally. I dig them. Take a look at
the cover of this file. (Unless you're V)iewing it on some AE, in which the
text graphics won't look very nice. (Due to the fact that the pseudo-Xmodem
adds linefeeds, so the whole file is double-spaced.) But let me assure you
that they look pretty cool, especially the "Red Menace" one.) I like that
sort of stuff. In fact, I basically like text graphics. For instance:
|||||||||||
/ \ ||| ||||||||| |||||||||
| o o | ||| ||| //||| ||| //|||
| | | ||||||||| ||| /// ||| ||| /// ||| |||||||
| / \ | ||| ||| ||| /// ||| ||| /// ||| ||| |||
| ||||||||| | ||| ||| ||| /// ||| ||| /// ||| ||| |||
\ ~~~~~~~ / ||| ||| |||/// ||| |||/// ||| ||| |||
\_________/ ||| ||| |||/ ||| |||/ ||| ||| |||
m r . l i d d y |||||| ||||||||| ||||||||| ||||||||||
|||
||||||||
Well, that was damn fulfilling. I'm sure it looks really spiffy on the ol'
AE, too. Um, anyway, maybe text PICTURES aren't that great. But I really
like those graphics I put in the beginning of my textfiles. For some
reason. Anyway, it's now 10:45 exactly, and I still haven't said anything
of merit. So, what should I talk about? Perhaps another section is in
order? Yeah, that'll work. One on leeching, which is how I got all my
textfiles.
iv. mr. pez and leeching
Leeching. It still exists, trust me. It will always exist. There are just
some boards which are destined to be leeched from. The Works! is one. I
have sysop access there, so I get to read the callers log. I see: BRUCE
GOLDMAN downloads about 50 files or so, until his time (99 minutes a day) is
up. I look at bulletin 5. He's downloaded 532 files, uploaded 8. Which is
damn bad. But then again, I downloaded 350 from the Works!. But my
difference is that I contributed with messages, so I wasn't just clogging
the board, leeching. (I was contributing to the message base and leeching.)
Similarly, AE's will ALWAYS be leeched from. I mean, if you don't have to
give a name, why upload? Or, if sysops can't see what you're doing, who
knows what you download? (They do know what you upload.) On AE's, since I
can't get programs since I have a veryfine IBM, I V)iew a lot of stuff.
That, in itself, is sort of leeching. It assures me of a supply of AT LEAST
three new textfiles a day. I have to edit them, but that's no problem. A
scary new kind of AE is something called "TransPhor", which is in itself, an
AE. I mean, the guy who wrote it, Brew Associates, wrote his own AE
program. Anyway, this thing takes note of what you download, upload, and
(get this) V)iew. Is that a riot or what? That's how I get my AE
textfiles, through V)iewing! Oh well.
Of course, when you leech, you have to think about disk space. I don't,
though. Well, I'm starting to, since my hard disk slowly grows smaller...
less and less space free every day. (Since I get a couple new files a day.)
You know, on a PD board I'm on, I just got my access lowered because my
ratio fell below 5 downloads to one upload. And the damn sysop has a 20 to
1 ratio on The Works!, which is kind of funny. I pointed this out to him.
Haven't seen his reply yet. I posted it at 12:30 (pm - yes, I am starting
this at night again because all the boards are busy.), and it's only 1:00
(exactly) now. (The 12:30 was an approximation, it is now exactly 1:00.
Wow, this must really pump yer 'nads.) Still, what's the limit for sysops?
I mean, you have to be somewhat tolerant of leeching (see, look what I've
grown to be by leeching!), but what's the limit? Jason Scott is awful
lenient about his board, but the sysop of that PD board was too tough about
it. There's at least three boards better than his in the area. (spiteful,
vindictive.. isn't it fascinating, the leeching mentality?) Anyway, I just
cleaned up my hard drive some. I have the things that must stay on the
drive, which take up about 5 megs. That includes Procomm (my communications
program), DOS, the Norton Utilities, the ARC programs and other file
utilities in \DOWNLOAD, my father's stuff like Lotus 1-2-3 and the programs
he's working on (he paid for the drive, I have to put up with his stuff.
Only takes about a meg, anyway.). But I have the ARCs of all Jason's
textfiles on the drive, which take up about 5 megs (which I haven't put on
disk for a very simple reason - I don't have any disks.), and I have a few
games on disk, too. Also, I have two BBS systems online, ARCed in suspended
animation, until I get around to testing them. [Editor's note - This has
gone on long enough. What ARC is is a utility that will allow you to take a
bunch of files and put it into one. It also compresses files, and textfiles
crunch to about 50% of what they were - another reason why textfiles are so
great!] I have a code hacker program (Brew Associate's CodeThief v2.2) in
\DOWNLOAD\UPLOAD [ed's note - \ is a path.] and three word processors, one
in its own directory. Well, now that I've given you my whole fucking hard
drive map, I might as well start talking more about leeching. My
communications program, Procomm, has a command file language which'll let
you program it to do stuff like log on to BBS's, and download stuff (which
is the relevance of this line of thought). That's why I can have passwords
like "f#duq!53" and not have to write them down. Also, I have a different
password for nearly every BBS I'm on. Pretty safe, eh? The other great
thing about command files is their effects on leeching (and uploading, when
it is advisable). I don't want to bother doing it on AE's (where I'd have
to open a log for everything, and then WAITFOR "(>" to close the log.
(WAITFOR is a command which does almost exactly what you think.) But PCBoard
software, which is what The Works! runs on, is very easy to leech from.
Just WAITFOR the line "Main Board Command?" and send "d;" plus the file you
wish to download, then waitfor whatever it prints when it's ready to send,
and download it. (Shit. Just had to save this file again. It's 17k
already.) And then onto the next line. Of course, I haven't figured out how
to allow for errors, like the file isn't there, or line noise obliterates
the words, so Procomm doesn't recieve them as they should. But I have
trouble programming in BASIC, even. Boo. Anyway, I've leeched about 100
files from The Works! that way. But my leeching from The Works! is
irrelevent now, since Jason came over to my house when I had my going-away
party (which wasn't too radical, as can be imagined, because Andrew Swartz
was acting really hyper because there were X-rated movies and he had never
seen one. I was listening to The DataMaster talking about phreaking, and
didn't spend too much time watching "Looking Good" or "A Cry For Cindy".
Andrew bothered me about it, but I'll just bet he took the words of the
Michael Jackson song and "Beat It" after seeing the movies. I'll just bet.)
in hopes of trading his textfiles for my guitar (bet you had to look back to
the beginning of the parentheses!) along with some dough. My guitar is a
"Harmony" and worth about $50. Jason wanted to give it to a girl named
Donna who he feels something hormonal for. (If I may be so bold.) He was
copying the files onto my hard drive while trying to cajole me into giving
him my guitar. It was a gift, so I never did. But I still have the
textfiles, and read a few every day. It's harder than you think. DOS's
default white-on-black starts jittering around (on the CGA) and your eyes
start doing the funky chicken. (Who knows where I got that phrase.) But
they're mostly pretty good. There's a 44k file of taped conversations
between this guy and important people he met at TAP meetings. Sounds like
something I would do. I occasionally tape my conversations, if they sound
like they're going to be interesting. (Now it's 1:33, and my word processor
just saved the file...it was 19k. Bloated. Plus, you must be going crazy
from staring at this huge paragraph.) But I never type them in. Another
file is a 220k file about D&D. w0w. Another is a 70k file of a Howard the
Duck comic book script. Which doesn't really interest me. But could
interest someone. Anyway, I have more than enough textfiles to set up a
board, but I don't think I have the disk space, if I still want to use
programs on my hard disk. I was going to set it up at my own line (yes, I
have my own line, and pay the bills, which are not that much.), but never
got around to it. Too late now, eh? (I'm moving to Michigan in about 5
days.) I can still leech there, I'm sure. Should be even better, since that
house is really cool. Maybe the other line (my family's line) will be even
closer, so I can talk to people while calling boards. The other (family)
line was in the other room, but my father disconnected it, because I made a
few calls on it, when I "have [my] own line and should use THAT, fer
crissakes!" or something to that effect. Now, I can only make calls by
going into the kitchen or upstairs, which is not good for short files. But
long files, like Phracks, or the LOD/H Technical Journal, can be uploaded
while carrying on a fairly lengthy conversation.
v. is it the end? at last?
The preceding paragraph is 87 lines long - more than a printed page. This
leads me to end this file, and soon. Well, if you're not asleep, tell me
what you think about it. I mean, don't you have to wonder about someone who
can ramble on for 8 fucking pages? (That's how long this file is.) Well,
these boards below earn the official "PEZ" stamp o' approval. W0W, fer
sure.
____N_a_m_e______ ___N_u_m_b_e_r__ __Software__ ___S_y_s_o_p_____ _Baudrate_
The Works! ! [914]-238-8195 ! PCBoard ! Jason Scott ! 300/1200 !
The Darque Side ! [408]-245-SPAM ! WaffleNET ! DS^3 Club !3/12/2400 !
Thieve's World ! [616]-344-2718 ! FIDO ! Thomas Covenant ! 300/1200 !
Terrapin Station ! [505]-865-0883 ! AE:TAC ! Count Nibble ! 300/1200 !
The Brewery ! [314]-394-8259 ! WWIV/Forum ! Beer Wolf ! 300/1200 !
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
vi. info
author: mr. pez
date: 13 march '87 10:55pm to 15 march '87 2:09am
size: 22,227 bytes
for: red menace, mephisto madware, octothorpe, phido phreaks
system: IBM PC, PC-Write WP software (perhaps)
music: see beginning (what a stupid category)
-signifying official PEZ file
"look for more, but not too hard."