Byte of the RAMpire

Anon

There is a strange and powerful change that sweeps over any and all who dare to enter the world of home computer use. First there is only the small spark of pride that gives the user a sly smile every time they pass an ordinary typewriter. Then, slowly but surely, they begin to extol the virtues of the great god Word Processing, and his subordinate spirits, WordStar, Perfect Word, PCWrite, Perfect Writer, etc., etc., etc. These spirits of the CRT pantheon are called forth by priests and priestesses of the AUTOEXEC. Late into the night they can be heard screaming their terrible Dot Commands and crying out for more RAM (obviously some kind of sex cult thing).

I know; I've been to these rites. I was a captive of one of these crazed groups. I was driven mad by the horrible BLINKING CURSOR and was subjected to all kinds of unspeakable error messages.

But I have ESCAPED! Oh my brothers and sisters. And I have come here to tell you the terrors and dangerous pitfalls that lay in wait for any who think themselves so bold or clever that they can enter the domain of that function key riddled world and still remain themselves. Hear my words and heed them well, for I have seen the face of the CRT and it is called MO-NO-CHROME. And it shall take you in with pretty words like High Resolution (does your high really NEED resolving?) and User Friendly (no wonder they need to resolve their highs, with all those Users - they even have User clubs!).

And, of course, that is only the very tip of the iceberg. Soon they will be trying to sell you unholy amulets called Floppies, and protective items like Surge Protectors and Screen Filters! But the worst evil of them all is learned in Programming School. These are for the True Believers who have shown themselves most vulnerable to the promise of being a Power User. I have sneaked into the shadowy rooms, illuminated by CRT screens and heard the strange language incantations muttered by these lost soles. They all looked pale and sick in the green and amber glow of there own individual altars. Most have the unmistakable glassy-eyed look of a Hacker if they have been there for any length of time. I knew that I was doomed if I kept up with my nightly rituals of Data Entry and Interactive Tutorial Interfacing.

I knew I had to escape, but the question I had to answer was the same that is on your lips right now; HOW? So I will share the answer with you here and now before any more fall into the accursed ways of the casual bulletin board user. Oh, sure, you think you are safe. YOU wouldn't be lost. But I tell you, my friends that just as surely as WordWrap comes before RtMargJustify, you CAN wake up down that string of commands and find yourself in a dreaded Closed Loop with no way out. I was lucky: I found a way out. Perhaps they though I would not notice, or maybe that I wouldn't dare to use it. But I did, and I must share the knowledge I was almost too far-gone to use: SAVE & EXIT!!! Yes, my friends, I was SAVED and I EXITED!!!

Now I know that many of you find it difficult to believe that such a simple thing could break the heavy bonds that I found myself in. And I must admit that it seems unlikely to me too, even though I am able to stand here and tell you about it. But let me tell you, brothers and sisters, it really IS that easy! Yes sir-ee, all you gotta do is have faith in that little button that says "SAVE". Just a little faith! Hit that little button, my friends. Just touch it once and have faith and all your data, all your spread sheets, all of the multitude of words that have been spreading their way across that screen WILL BE SAVED!!

Now I know that this may come as a shock to some of you, but there are literally millions of lost souls out there who want to get out and away from their keyboards. Yes, I said millions. But they just don't know how. And it's not their fault, friends. It's not their fault at all. They just have never heard the Word. They sit there day and night, chained by their ignorance to those infernal machines, trying to find files, undelete data, and convert everything to hexadecimals, when what they REALLY need is to get out into the sunshine. They need to EXIT. They can't, brothers and sisters. They can't UNLESS they can be SAVED. And they can't be saved, my friends, unless we help them.

That's why I'm here tonight, my friends. I'm here to ask for your help. I'm here to ask for your pity for these poor unfortunate people. I'm here to ask for you to give these desperate creatures a chance to pull away from their false ways and join us. But this is no easy thing. It will take a lot of work.

AND IT WILL TAKE A LOT OF MONEY!

So I want you to dig down deep into those pockets and give with all of your heart. Remember that there but for fortune... and now it's going to take a fortune. So don't be selfish. Just give - give until it feels good. Send your checks today. Send your cash, your spare change, your credit cards. Send your Mother-in-law! We don't care what you send as long as we can convert it to cash. Tell your neighbors to send us some money, too. Tell the Milkman. Tell the Mailman. Tell him to send all of the checks from Social Security to us! WE'LL make good use of them! Tell the kids to send in their lunch money. Tell your cat to go hungry, you've spent the money on victims of the RAMpire!

But do it now, brothers and sisters. Do it before you think about it. We'll only be at this address a little while longer. We have to move around a lot. But if we don't meet again, remember that YOU can tell the world that YOU had a part in freeing millions from the terrible RAMpire. You'll know just how much that means to them by the look on their faces. And we are sure that you will remember the day you gave all your money to this worthy cause.