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Well, after finally reading all the textfiles and buffers and
such on DERF, with "Tcrow" and Hairy, I think it has finally come
to time for me to add my two cents, but then, why throw in only
two cents when you can toss in a whole quarter?
By the way, my freestyle writing style has been adapted from
Hairy Leech and our endless babbles on, yes, the one and only,
Angel's Lair. So if this file sounds anything like something
Hairy might have wrote, well, now you know why...
Okay, let's start with me, and oh sure, its a very common story
to tell. Surely I got interested in computers like the rest of
you by watching shows such as "Whiz Kids" and all the friendly
garble... Well, sd to say, it goes back for me as far as fourth
grade... see, my elemtary school got in these cool-o top of the
line Commodore 64's (which were all networked to ONE 1541 disk
drive, if you could imagine that... ) And I was amoung the few
honors students in the school to have regular access to them. My
innate creative abilities which I now apply to prose writing
allowed me to take a novel approach to programming, and I
addapted to it rather quickly. ( IronHorse's views on DERF, or
the origin of IronHorse himself, you decide. ) I got so "computer
knowledgeable in the school that when the principal had a problem
running the schools computer, he call ME down. ( I must mention
here that my rep there was greatly exaggerated, for once I got to
the principals computer, I had no idea what was going on... but
if I only knew then what I do know now... ) Anyway, so that was
my first taste of the computers, I'm sure you all have similar
stories to tell. Then, oh wonder of wonders, my father bought a
cool-o TRS-80 MC-10 ( I still have it, I think I use it as a book
end or something... ) This computer was lame, but it was MINE.
and so I did many things with it and soon I was taking it beyond
where it was designed to go. ( Any good BASIC programmer could do
things like that in those days... ) And I was moving on, into
middle school and then high school... when I got a job. Let me
interrupt here to say I live in a very unsociable neighborhood
and before I got a job and had money to actually go places, I was
a stereo-typical geek you could get. I played with my computer, I
went to school, I hung out with my, what, 3 friends. So, with the
job I spoke of brought money, at about the same time I also met
what was soon to be my five best friends. I tried of course to
assimilate those old three to the new five and only one survived,
but change brings change. What bearing does this have? Well,
you'll see... Anyway, like I was saying, I got a job, and so I
had money, and for $300 dollars used I bought what I was always
longing for, a Commodore 64, 1541, and this weird little box
called a modem ( I think that is the matching book end to the MC-
10... ) Well, at this time I was also subscribed thanks to a gift
from my sister, to this k-rad computer magazine, K-Power. Well,
in it I finally found a number to call in north Jersey. I called
with that nifty modem thing, and the number replied with a
CONNECT 300 ( yes, 300, I had a 300 baud modem... remember
those? ) The board, I believe, was the Iron Cross ( it's still up
today in fact ). The usual new caller log on spiff went by and
then it asked for a "handle".. A what? I knew not what to use,
then I realized my favorite tv show at that time was "War Of The
Worlds" and a way cool character on there was Lt. Crnl. Paul
Ironhorse... and, alas, IronHorse was born. ( I never knew til
many years later that the computer hack on the show was named
NORTON, and now that name is all to familiar, isn't it? ) Well,
obviously Iron Cross ( and the soon many local to it boards I was
calling ) was long distance, but I didn't care, I had a job, and
mom and dad paid the phone bill yet anyway... Ah, and we roll on,
see, that was not the greatest of my folly... somewhere along the
line Compuserve was mentioned to me, and I just had to have it...
of course, it ran into a whole lot of money and I dropped it, no
sooner to join GEnie.. which also ran into a lot of money, and I
dropped that... but all the while I was still faithful to Iron
Cross... then, one day, while reading the back pages of K-Power
(ooh what a cool magazine <g> ) I saw an ad, "DMBBS new owner,
blah, blah, blah, modem line (908) 341-0945." 908?!?! 341?!?!?
Well son of a biscuit! Thats local to me! From what I was
thinking in those days, I was the only person on the Jersey shore
with a computer ( IBM and Commie alike... ) Ahh, a local
number... so I called it... and poof, IronHorse the local legend
was born... I babbled on their that I only called LD boards and
someone gave me the number of many other (oh my god!) local
boards that I could call. Wow oh wow oh wow. One of them ( drum
roll please ) was of course, Angel's Lair. Well, I got on there,
and like so many of the previous TANJ files will suggest, Angel
was flirting with me ( by this time I might add, those group of
friends were forming still, but we weren't quite our own little
clique yet... ) And begin a lamer, I found this quite
interesting... of course, the playing rolled into chat and such
and at this time I began calling another local BBS... November
Emergency. ( Remember that all? Commie BBS? Now one of the TANJ
lines I think? ) Anyway, the usual, to use an Angel Baby quote
"lowlifes" were there, talking about the Sunday role-playing
games and the drugs and such, all of which (at least the drugs) I
was not interested. Well, I got to talking to NeoPlasm and ended
up doing as much as drawing c/g ( you know, Commodore ansi-like
screens ) for his BBS... and, 'gan to hear about AB. ( Now, lucky
for me I guess, this was after the first talhell shit. ) He
hinted things were perhaps not as good as they seem, and at least
me being a little wry at the time, I was able to tell AB had Kaos
Kidd as boy friend at least... which, in chat, she down played...
they weren't getting along or some such crap. Well, I'm not the
type to blatantly steal another man's g/f, so I just acknowledged
her and moved on. Well, come that ceremonious boycott of the
boards, and I chose to stay middle ground and call both... And,
by this time my friends were starting to get together and role
play of our own accord, so I had other things as well to take up
my time. Well, hell-fire and brimstone came down and all the
stuff spoke of in the other files happend to their finales, and I
was pretty much a loyal Angel's Lair supporter. ( Note, by this
time I had yet to actually meet her. ) I was a Commodore user, I
had no access to the IBM bbs world ( in those days, and quite
still many an IBM bbs won't format for shit on a C-64 ) And then
of course, came my first DERF meeting ( 2 1/2 I think? I do not
know, though when I compare it to the past files, I think maybe I
WAS there for some of this big sha-bang. ) Anyway, I went, there
was me, Lone Wolf, (Commie user, cool guy... I think anyway..)
and a whole bunch of other folk I can't remember. Well, I met
Angel ( wow, talk about shattered images! ) and Derf, who I
thought was rather odd, but okay... Ah, but these were definitely
NOT my kind of folk. ( aside in a psychiatrists voice: now we see
the origin of IronHorse's BBS meet phobia... <g> ) Okay, on we
go, more into the inter-tangled web I wove. At the next hyper-
lame meet they had, which was on Halloween, I met a girl, who was
going out with another derf we locals all know and love, sysop of
the Commie board The Final Frontier... Well, he was treating her
rather shitty that night, and it ended up that me and she were
together... far be it from me to know that she was, for lack of
any clearer terms, well, a slut. Well, we didn't last all that
long... she wanted to date me, I know she did, because I thought
more of her then just a slut, but she was a slut at heart, and
since we were not doing anything along those lines, it ended
rather abruptly. Well, anyways during the time that me and she
were, Admiral Kirk ( sysop of FF ) understandably hated me.
(Well, for that, and his little sister, which is not what you're
thinkin? an? ma? becom? ? textfil? o? itsel? someda? soon..? ?
And, beyond my knowledge, KK, AB, and AK were all speaking of me,
how fond AB and KK were I do not know, but their opinions of me
certainly lowered as AK entered the picture... But that all
really doesn't matter, you all are going to love this... while
driving KK to a party of Final Frontier ( to wit I was going only
because the girl was going to be there ) KK actually tried
explaining to me the origins behind the derflink itself! Okay, I
suppose this will be the latest description of it, so I'll tell
you what he said, he said via a commodore interface called a g-
wiz I think and a few IBM parts he would be able to make an
adapter for the Commodore 128 so that it could support 8 lines. I
listened, but was lost ( not only because it was beyond me, but
it was also in derf-speak ), but I knew it was a load, a
commodore would most likely explode if it had 8 phone lines
coming into it, and having had 3 years of high school electronics
by this time, I knew he was shoveling it. But, so be it. ( And
now I hear that is was supposed to be a CMD from his first
ramblings? Where is this mans sense of patronage? <g> )
Well then of course, as all the locals know, all hell finally
broke loose in the BBS world and Cyberchat was born. This forced
me to get a modem for that IBM, and then I started calling those
IBM boards and I finally read a text file, and now look, I'm
writing one...
Oh, and one other thing to help you locals love AB and KK some
more... back in August of '92 I was going out with one of the
girls from the CyberChat area, and I happened to cross paths with
KK and AB while I was with her because I was selling some of my
old Commodore stuff to them because I was going to college...
well after I got back I was talking to an old friend ( that
little sister I was telling you about... ) and she said that AB
said I was going out with some "fat, ugly chick." Well, yeah, I'm
really a fan of AB's now... (talk about hypocritical!). I have to
say that AB was full of it, the girl I went out with, in my
opinion was not a "fat, ugly chick," but that goes with out
saying, for no one would go out with someone they considered a
"fat, ugly chick." Ahh, but thats my views, life, the universe,
and everything... I do believe my next text shall be of the more
fictional nature... 'til then,
To thine own self be true...