From: cpbeaure@napier.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Beauregard)
Subject: The Interfacing
Date: 9 Aug 92 22:14:03 GMT


The writing's a bit jerky.  It's been quite a while.  Mostly playing
with the idea though...Anyhow, read and enjoy.


The Interfacing

--

Eventually, they implanted my 'trodes. Only one true test was left. The
Interfacing.  If I passed, I would become a full Brother of Babbage.
Failures weren't discussed.

The day came about.

Answering a knock on the door of my cubical, I was met by the Brothers
Karp and Dmitry dressed in full ceremonial clothing.  Long black robes of
silk covered in Schematics and festooned with vacuum tubes, microchips,
and other relics of ages past.	I'd been previously briefed in the
ritual.  I bowed my head and accepted the Hood, a black cover
embroidered inside and out with some of the greater Schematics of the
System.  As we walked to the Service Entrance, I was supposed to meditate
on how every single Brother had worn this same Hood in this same ritual.

Chanting the Eternal Code, they guided me through the halls of the Lab.
We travelled for what seemed like hours, up and down stairs, twisting
mazes, several elevators, and even an ancient drop tube.  Eventually, I
heard chanting in the distance.  I made out the Recursive, and knew we
were approaching the Service Entrance.

The Brothers pulled me to a halt, and pulled the Hood from my head.
I stood in the center of a large room.	The lights were dim, but I could
make out most of the Brothers in the glare of millions of LEDs and CRTs.
Directly in front of me, for the first time, I beheld the System.

In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't the System itself, but only
a small and relatively unimportant part.  Still, I fell to my knees,
chanting the Eternal Code, hooked fingers in the Home Position.

--

The Eternal Code

	loop goto loop

>From "Teachings of the Brothers of Babbage"

--

Eventually my escorts pulled my body to its feet and my mind back to
reality.  I raised my eyes.  In front of me stood the Senior Analyst,
Brother Micheal.  A scraping sound came from behind, and then Brother
Karp beckoned me into the chair.  Brother Rielly came over and handed a
test box to Micheal.  Micheal knelt in front of me, and from
within his robe removed a set of interface cables.

"We are gathered here to see this Candidate on his final test, the
Interfacing!" he yelled over The Recursive, and plugged the cables into
my temple.

"Semic," intoned those gathered around me.

Brother Micheal placed the test box on the floor between us.  "In this,
the Candidate will prove himself worthy to the Order of Babbage, and to
the Holy System!"

"Semic."

"The Candidate has proven his mastery of the Holy Code, and has
successfully applied himself in the Techniques of Structure as taught
to us by the Holy Ada!"  Brother Micheal plugged the ends of the cable
into the test box, and powered it on.  "But the Candidate must be warned
that anything less that full mastery will undo him in the Interfacing!"

"Semic."

Micheal tapped a few keys on the box, and then looked me full in the eyes.
"Candidate Darwin, you are to find the heart of the System and Interface.
Failure will be Erasure.  Your 'trodes are operational.  Begin!"

The rest of the gathering echoed "Begin", and Brothers Karp and Dmitry
guided me through the Service Entrance.

--

The Recursive
	recurse call recurse

>From "Teachings of the Brothers of Babbage"

--

The door closed behind me.

Erasure.  I still don't know exactly what he meant by that, and given
the look of fanatical zeal Micheal gave me when he said it, I
honestly hope never to find out.

I got to my feet, and took stock.  The Brothers had given me a satchel
of food.  Inside I also found a small canteen of Caf.  Other than that,
all I had was the interface cable Brother Micheal had left with me.

In the dim light of the service passage, I noticed on the wall a
Schematic.  It took some time for me to realize it was not a true
Schematic, as it showed no Components I recognized, but a schematic of
the tunnels.  A red arrow was scrawled upon it, a heinous crime on
a true Schematic, and next to it read "Service Entrance."

Babbage forgive me, but I presumed that indicated my location in the
System, and set out looking for the heart of the System on this strange
Schematic.  I could not find it, and somehow felt comforted that the
heart of the System was not reduced to some scrawled arrow and name.

I decided that my best chance was to go straight to the center of the
System as represented, and if Fate was with me I would find what I
needed there.

--

The System

	And the Holy Ada created the loop;
	The loop was given unto Lord Babbage;
	And Babbage then created the Engine;
	Which in maturity became the System;

>From "The Book of the System"

--

It was as I wandered through the System that I truly understood what it was.

I knew the history of the System by heart.  I could recall every single
component of the original Analytical Engine of 2063 that formed the heart
of the System.  I knew the day, month, and year of every major and most minor
hardware additions from the electrical relay circuits of Brother Demius to
the newest biological interfaces of our own Senior Analyst.

Knowing what the System was and understanding what it meant were complemtely
different things.  Not until you actually see a vacuum tube array wired
directly to an IC controlled gear array can one truly understand.

One must admire the System Designers and Implementors who managed to keep
it from falling apart.

--

	The Brothers guarded the System;
	And external threats were defeated;
	But there were threats internal;
	For the Components of the System were man-made;
	And the most perfect of men can fail;
	As did their Components;

	So Brother Demius was charged with Maintaining;
	And he lived outside the Holy Code;
	For one cannot both Hack and Maintain;

>From "Teachings of the Brothers of Babbage"

--

I met my first Maintainer four days later.

I was travelling a small passage between rows of ancient glass vacuum
tubes, nearly fainting from the heat and  out of my mind from the constant
hum of electricity, when ahead I saw a figure.  At first I thought it was
a hallucination, for I was in very rough condition by then.  I stopped and
waited for the apparition to disappear.

I realized after a while that it was still there, and noticed what it
was doing.  Replacing dead vacuum tubes.  Above the hum of electricity,
I made out the Eternal Code.  I approached, but the figure had finished
and took off at a pace which I could not hope to match in my condition.

As I continued on, I thought about the mysterious figure. I could only
assume that it was one of the Maintainers, a handful of holy men
who had dedicated their lives to repairing portions of the System that
passed away.  I shuddered at the thought of spending the remainder of
my life isolated from the Holy Code.

--

Techniques of Structure

	And thy Code shall have Structure;
	Thou shall use Labels rather than Hard Coded;
	Thou shall use Local Variation rather than Global;
	Thou shall not use Goto, but in the extreme or low level;
	Thou shall use the Subroutine, and learn Recursion;
	Thy Code shall have Comments, so thy learnings may be passed on;
	Thy Code shall be Modular, and Compiled separate;
	And thus thou shall prevail over the Bugs of Satan;

>From "The Book of the System"

--

Here, the System ressembled something I was used to.  Thousands of Boards
contained in racks, walls of CRTs displaying cryptic System information.
And in one small cubicle, a figure.

The man was ancient, emaciated.  A set of interface cables ran from his
temple to the panel.  I could see a layer of dust gathered on the cables,
and yet the figure obviously breathed.	I knew about the intravenous
feed built into the cables, but I had never thought how long one might
endure on just that.

Then I considered the possiblity that perhaps the man was kept alive
solely by the force of the Holy Code.  The writings of Brother Milgrad
made reference to the Hackers of old, of Kernighan and Ritchie, of Dale
and Crawford, and many others.	Milgrad wrote that they often spent
hundreds of hours interfaced with their weak imitations of the System,
working with their meaningless Code.  Surely if they could survive that
long on such a thing, a Hacker of today could continue for eternity
sustained by the True Code of the System.

I stopped for a while and meditated in the presence of what for me was,
and still is, a figure whose Holiness ranked with the first Implementors
and System Designers.

--

The Bugs of Satan

	And Reverently, the Lord Babbage built the Engine;
	Of Hardware the most Precise;
	Of Logic the most certain;
	Of Spirit the truest;

	But Satan saw his work, and waited for the Completion;
	And as Babbage closed the Switch;
	Then Satan placed the Moth upon the smallest Gear;
	And the System failed on First Run;

>From "The Book of the System"

--

I came across the Cracker near the end of my travels.  I was deep in
the System, near the heart.  Surrounding me were the gears of the first
incarnation of the System.

Turning into a small passagae, I noticed a bright orange power cable
running across the floor.  Curiosity led me to follow the cable through
a series of turns and down a short flight of stairs.

Lying on the floor of the passage was a man.  Like the ancient Brother
from past, he was interfaced and obviously had been for a long time.

I removed the interface cable from the Crackers 'trodes.

When I inspected closely, I determined that he had bypassed the access
codes of the interface panel using a Black Box similar to our 'trode
test boxes.  Removing the cover of the panel had allowed him to patch
directly in.  The power cable had been used to power a variety of crude
tools scattered about the area.

I waited until the tremors stopped and the man died before continuing.

--

The Founding

	And the Techniques of Structure came to pass;
	Thus the Bugs of Satan were destroyed in time;

	But Satan would not be stopped;
	To weak men, and even Hackers, he offered Code;
	And it seemed good Code, and some took it into their own;

	But this Code was of the Hand of Satan;
	And subverted parts of the Holy System to His will;
	And thus these men and Hackers were dubbed Crackers;
	And their Code Trojan and Virus;

	In time, Babbage saw what transpired;
	Unto the Crackers He said;
	You have betrayed the trust of the System;
	Now you shall be barred from the Holy Code;

	And Babbage created the Access Panel;
	And charged the Brothers with guarding the System;

>From "The Book of the System"

--

I reached the heart of the System.

A small cubicle buried deep within the gearage of the first Engine.  The
first Access Panel of Babbage surprised me.  A crude affair consisting of
a wire wrapped breadboard with Milgrad's prototpe interface panel replacing
the original keyboard.  Other than a few CRTs and the stack of notebooks,
the room was empty.

The notebooks intrigued me.  Half were empty.  The remainder, well, this
will be joining them.  Each represented a Brothers last thoughts before
his Interfacing.  On the front of each, in bold letters, a name.  Milgrad,
Demius, Holister, Porta.  Every Brother from the Founding was represented.

Hopefully, sometime in the future, someone will recognize Darwin.

Erasure.  I think I understand now.


--

Copyright 1992 by Chris Beauregard


Chris Beauregard                                cpbeaure@napier.waterloo.edu
Warning:  These premises protected by reality.