If life gives you lemons, build market-cap and IPO quickly.

[hirez]

I think... No, I know today has been a good one.

To save time, let's get the traditional 'Fuck's sake H-R, don't you know anything?' statement out of the way: So. I gravely underestimate the impact I have on the universe. There's also some side-rambling about the interconnectedness of all things, how one can't fight one's genes and why it's best to make that a good thing, but that can wait. Or indeed I can forget to write about it.

Anyway. Belted to Milton-Friedman-Maynard-Keynes, world centre of infernal geography and twatty driving, for tea, arm-waving and shoe-fondling. My original 'plan' was to go view the Cardington airship sheds, but it transpired that they're mostly closed to the public since they're filled with airships and test housing, so we went to Bletchley Park instead. For maximal entertainment value, we forced sushidog into the back of the car at cake-point as well.

I'm not much of a one for 'plans'. It seems to me that the more one plans something, the more the likelihood of something going terribly wrong tends toward one. I am happiest when able to go cheerfully and near-randomly with naught but a good car and a functional credit-card to guide me. If that sounds like an unfamiliar JH-R, then you've probably only met the unhappy one. Happy-go-lucky with a known-working backup and steel-cored resolve that things will go well.

Meanwhile, back in Bletchley...

... There'd been mithering elsewhere that the place wasn't worth the money and it was all terrible and the computer exhibits were shite.

Well, fuck that.

The place is... Look, without wishing to get mystical or sound like a twat or anything, it's the spiritual centre of hacking. If you don't wander into the mansion and immediately get hit by a sense of history, continuity and of being at home, then you are Not One Of Us and you're wasting your time. I was wandering from room to room, grinning like an idiot and bathing in the cluon flux. If you're desperate, you can wander off to one of the far blocks where they've got a set of shonky old computers ranged on school benches, but I've worked on Superbrains and old Apples and 380Zs and TVI CP/M boxes. They were shit then and they're shit now. 10 PRINT "dave is ace" 20 GOTO 10. It was just like being in Cheltenham WH Smiths in 1982. The half-built Bombe in the corner was much more fun to look at, as was the PDP, LSI-11 and HP 3000 cordoned off in the other corner. Can't have the terrible public lifting bits of the only interesting kit in the room.

Meanwhile, out the back of the NAAFI...

... It felt like something halfway between Portmerion and Labs. It felt like home.

Walking into the Royal Oak in Gretton felt like a daft idea. On the other hand, there was Dave, Chainsaw Ed Price looking like I was the last person he expected to see and Rob (ex guru and spiritual mentor, though he'd laugh and demand beer if I said that out loud) smirking from the bar like he expected all this to happen. I'm not the sort of person to have A Past. I have a set of randomly interconnected Presents that aren't obviously contiguous.

Tired now. I would just like to thank my co-conspirators, sushidog, aoakley, red_mel and girfan for accompanying me on that path of cake, shoes, enlightenment, time-travel, beer and cluons.

Comments

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

I've still got a bunch of PDP's and LSI's; every so often I toy with the idea of porting Linux to them.

[beermat]

and opening Bletchley Park (southern branch prediction) ?

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

More like a refuge for old coders; no flat graphics, no harsh LCD screens allowed. Just the warm glow of curvaceous CRTs, text-mode terminals and an accompaniment from proper (clacketty-clack) keyboards...

[beermat]

a hall of KSR-33s, cheerfully punching paper tape and teletypewritering clackety clack...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

... And a pile of ear-defenders at the door.

[beermat]

for when one goes into the steam turbine hall.

Life on the Diesel Decks, by A J Rimmer...

[Bad google, naughty google]

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

...and the occasional sample (http://hazeii.net/media/mywork.mp3) playing in the background

[hirez.livejournal.com]

What in hell is that?

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

It goes back to the Lawnmower Man (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104692/), that clip is from the start of the Prodigy's Music for the Jilted Generation (http://www.brainkiller.it/prodigy/jilted.html) though.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ah. Right. The drone's dead good. One hears it all over certain psychelelic records, but I still have no idea what makes that noise. A man in a factory and it's sold by the yard, I imagine.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Any time; I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[zotz]

I'm very glad to hear that the report was wrong. I certainly had a great time when I went there, and I think that went for everyone I was with too.

[beermat]

have been to visit the shrine several times in the past.
Must visit again to pay homage to the Colossus.

Last time was strange - there was a wooden submarine with peeling paint being. well. submariney. on the car park.
Oh, was picking up 20 or so MicroVAXen from one of the guys who works (unpaid, dedicates time to helping collect / setup / refurbish computers) there...

[steer.livejournal.com]

I loved Bletchley but I went several years ago and it much was "under construction" (no Bombe for a start). I did spend so long in the computer room playing pong with dr_doug that we got chucked out at closing time. The whole room was a complete shambles with just a huge bunch of weird old machines some workign and some just rusting quietly.

ZX81 and Spectrum give me nostalgia because they were the first machines I owned but actually they're not that much fun to play with now (the emulators are better than the real things ever were). We had some big old Research Machines CP/M thingies in school which were my first encounter with a real networked system -- they did have one of those in the room two but alas not working. [My discovery that there was email on the system was responsible for a lot of lost class hours -- 13 year olds can be happily entertained emailing "Dave is a wanker" across the room until the floppy that is the only storage for the whole system fills up.]

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed. Had either of the DECs been running RT-11 or RSX, I would have once again been a spotty 18-y-o oik and would have gibbered happily about RL02s and DLV11-Js until I was bodily ejected.

I'd live on site in a second, but I'd end up cannibalising some of the kit to build sentry robots, which would be appropriate, but frowned on by the preservationists.

"But that was a mint ORIC!"
"Yes? And? They were rubbish. That 6502 is going to be much happier as a weapons controller. Anyway, I left you the Microtan-65."

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

Some of us never grew up.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[FX: Gibbering]

Should I ever set foot in your house, make sure I'm never left alone...

(Actually, I just spannered the things. I had to change jobs when I wanted to be a coder.)

[steer.livejournal.com]

(Grin) What part does the ORIC play in the sentry robot? Ammunition?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Weapons subsystem controller. It would probably manage ok as long as there wasn't any more than 255 of any one armament.

Though I suppose one could spit the wee plastic 'keys' using compressed air. Probably only likely to be dangerous if the enemy fell over laughing and did itself an injury.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That was the Jupiter Ace. IIRC, the Oric was designed by the chaps who did the Microtan-65.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Where the hell did my Jupiter Ace end up ? I found the manual the other day.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Beats me. Have you looked under the stairs?

[red-mel.livejournal.com]

your most welcome, was nice to see you so happy and bouncy :)

[edwards.livejournal.com]

There are problems with Bletchley. The home computer exhibits are purely maintained by volunteers, the owners/committee would rather they just went away. The donations end up stored in damp rooms, kids break in and smash things up. It's criminal, really.

I want to go down and visit myself, but it's a hell of a drive.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't surprise me. I suspect that it really needs a hatful of money thrown at it, and the hackers rebuilding the Colossus/Bombes and patiently explaining Enigma/fish/tunny to the semi-interested aren't best pleased by the ideas for Monetizing the Resources that the Suits have.

So nothing new there, then.

[kajia.livejournal.com]

I've been to Bletchley before and am really glad to have gone. I totally agree, it's really cool to be in hacker history...glad you went and had a good time...not sure why people would say it's shite. It's not perfect, but I don't imagine it was at the time either. :-)

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not just me then.

I keep reading accounts from people who hated being kept on-campus. I would have thought that many of the hardcore types would have to have been bodily ejected come demob.

[reddragdiva]

OH MY GOD WE NEED A CAR.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

YOU CAN WALK FROM THE STATION LIKE THE PROPER H@XX0R DUDES AND DUDETTES DID IN THE WAR.

[diffrentcolours]

In fact, I'd imagine that it'd be quicker to walk from Bletchley Station to the Park than to get in a car, drive, park and get out...

[diffrentcolours]

Hmm, I found my Bletchley visitor's handbook thing while tidying my room last night, and was remarking that it was high time I made another visit.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[FX: Tumbleweeds]

[kathbad]

I'm not much of a one for 'plans'. It seems to me that the more one plans something, the more the likelihood of something going terribly wrong tends toward one. I am happiest when able to go cheerfully and near-randomly with naught but a good car and a functional credit-card to guide me. If that sounds like an unfamiliar JH-R, then you've probably only met the unhappy one. Happy-go-lucky with a known-working backup and steel-cored resolve that things will go well.


I feel very honoured that I have obviously met the happy one - and long may he last!

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

My grandmother worked at Bletchley during its active hacking period. I wish I'd found this out before her funeral, mind. It would have made Christmases a lot more interesting...

[bloodnok.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a one for 'plans'

Plans are made to be broken.