Stuck on bauds
JIM AUSTIN
Naturally, when I decided to burst onto the internet scene I was stalled by the quantum physics degree required to get hooked up. When I signed on with our local carrier "Sovernet" I was sent a checklist of instructions that seemed workable for your average low-tech like me.
Hah! "Quelle Naivete" to quote the French bard Maurice Richard. I went through the list of instructions with all the insight of a hockey puck. I got stuck on bauds. I thought a "baud" was old English for a guy who hung out at strip joints and drank too much. It turns out that my program has 19,200 bauds. Too many by far for a family computer.
My next step was to call on the services of Daniel Hovis of Putney. Daniel was born with an extra C chromosome which enables him to actually understand computers. Daniel is the head tech-weenie at "Dosolutions". Dosolutions is an Internet Cafe where you don't drop in, you log in, have a coffee and surf the internet for ten bucks an hour. He has oversized monitors and experts to help you with your bauds.
Daniel does not fit the hacker stereotype. No carpel-tunnel wrist braces, or striped trousers with checked shirt. The only evidence that he is not of this earth was his insistence on trying to explain what he was doing to my computer. He told me that my Irqs were screwed up and that my mouse was too fast and why. I nodded like a bobble head doll as he talked, all the while thinking he might as well be speaking Urdu.
Daniel was not impressed by my modem. In case you don't know, a modem is a satanic device implanted in your computer for sending faxes and receiving internet transmissions. He said mine was designed by a low order of lemurs out of popsicle sticks and cheap solder. Daniel stripped it down to its molecular level and remodeled its DNA before announcing that it was junk. He even yanked it out and reconfigured its tiny dooflangers but it was for naught.
Daniel talked to the machine the whole time like it was an obstreperous child. I was reminded of a sci-fi book I read where the computer sent out steel tentacles which tapped into the nervous system of the operator to become one entity.
Just when I thought I was to be consigned to the dung heap of technology Daniel pulled another modem out of his jacket pocket. If you check my pockets you will find some change, a pocket knife, keys and a lifesaver covered in lint. Daniel carries spare modems. He fired that baby into my machine and within seconds I was looking at "Netscape".
A porthole into the world of limitless information was staring out at us. Current football scores, OJ updates, soil temperatures in Ulan Bator, all this and infinitely more. Just as my mind started feeding on the manna of the internet Daniel yanked his modem out of my machine and headed for the door.
As my lip quivered he told me where I could order a proper modem. He said I could call him when it came in and he would perform the transplant. He can be contacted at webmaster@dosolutions.com. No doubt this is the cellular phone number of the mother ship. Jim Austin writes in Putney, Vermont.
Copyright © 1998 Jim Austin/Log Cabin Chronicles/4.98 |