Microserfs Secret

 

by Lawrence You

The following contains the decoded text, seen below between the lines, and the binary data.

When I was reading the book, I was near Mendocino on vacation. After discovering that the characters were in the 0x41-0x7F range, I realized that they must have been ASCII. So I decoded the first few characters and decided to see if I could read the rest. I typed in maybe a hundred bits. The only tool I had was ClarisWorks so I created a spreadsheet with a table of the 7-bit codes and their corresponding characters to decode it.

After I got home, I copied the pages, sent them to my faxmodem at home, ran them through OCR. There were spurious 1s and 0s and missing ones as well so I made sure that the characters aligned as best I could, resulting in the enclosed file, "p. 104-105 wrapped." (NB: the additional line on top that I used just to line up the columns.) From that I wrote a small HyperCard stack which read in the file, processed it and wrote out the result to a text file, which gives you the contents of "Microserfs, Decoded."

I didn't bother correcting the text because I thought it quite apropos for the message to be not completely clear.

Someone pointed out to me that the credo sounds much like something from Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick but unfortunately my neurons don't seem to have high data persistence anymore.


I heart Lisa Computers

This is my computer
There are many like it,
but this one is mine.
My computer is my best friend.
It is my life.
I must master it, as I must master my lif%.
Without me, my computer is useless.
Without my computer, I am useless.
I must use my computer true.
I must com}ute faster than my enemy who is trying to kill me.
I must outcompute him before he outcomputes me.
I wlll.
Before God, I swear this creed.
My computer and myself are defeo22_9 of this countrx^
We are the mastexs of our enemy.
We are the savioury of my life.
So be it until there is no ene-y,
but peace.
Amen.

Tinned peaches
Yttrium
San Fran




765432107654321076543210765432107654321076543210765432107654321076543210

010010010010000001101000011001010110000101110010011101000010000001001
100011010010111001101100001001000000100001101101111011011010111000001
110101011101000110010101110010011100110000110100001101000011010000110
100001101000011010000110101010100011010000110100101110011001000000110
100101110011001000000110110101111001001000000110001101101111011011010
111000001110101011101000110010101110010000011010101010001101000011001
010111001001100101001000000110000101110010011001010010000001101101011
000010110111001111001001000000110110001101001011010110110010100100000
011010010111010000101100000011010110001001110101011101000010000001110
100011010000110100101110011001000000110111101101110011001010010000001
101001011100110010000001101101011010010110111001100101001011100000110
101001101011110010010000001100011011011110110110101110000011101010111
010001100101011100100010000001101001011100110010000001101101011110010
010000001100010011001010111001101110100001000000110011001110010011010
010110010101101110011001000010111000001101010010010111010000100000011
010010111001100100000011011010111100100100000011011000110100101100110
011001010010111000001101010010010010000001101101011101010111001101110
100001000000110110101100001011100110111010001100101011100100010000001
101001011101000010110000100000011000010111001100100000010010010010000
001101101011101010111001101110100001000000110110101100001011100110111
010001100101011100100010000001101101011110010010000001101100011010010
110011000100101001011100000110101010111011010010111010001101000011011
110111010101110100001000000110110101100101001011000010000001101101011
110010010000001100011011011110110110101110000011101010111010001100101
011100100010000001101001011100110010000001110101011100110110010101101
100011001010111001101110011001011100000110101010111011010010111010001
101000011011110111010101110100001000000110110101111001001000000110001
101101111011011010111000001110101011101000110010101110010001011000010
000001001001001000000110000101101101001000000111010101110011011001010
110110001100101011100110111001100101110000011010100100100100000011011
010111010101110011011101000010000001110101011100110110010100100000011
011010111100100100000011000110110111101101101011100000111010101110100
011001010111001000100000011101000111001001110101011001010010111000001
101010010010010000001101101011101010111001101110100001000000110001101
101111011011010111110101110101011101000110010100100000011001100110000
101110011011101000110010101110010001000000111010001101000011000010110
111000100000011011010111100100100000011001010110111001100101011011010
11110010010000001110111011010000110111100100000

011010010111001100100000011101000111001001111001011010010110111001100
111001000000111010001101111001000000110101101101001011011000110110000
100000011011010110010100101110000011010100100100100000011011010111010
101110011011101000010000001101111011101010111010001100011011011110110
110101110000011101010111010001100101001000000110100001101001011011010
010000001100010011001010110011001101111011100100110010100100000011010
000110010100100000011011110111010101110100011000110110111101101101011
100000111010101110100011001010111001100100000011011010110010100101110
000011010100100100100000011101110110110001101100011011000010111000001
101010000100110010101100110011011110111001001100101001000000100011101
101111011001000010110000100000010010010010000001110011011101110110010
101100001011100100010000001110100011010000110100101110011001000000110
001101110010011001010110010101100100001011100000110101001101011110010
010000001100011011011110110110101110000011101010111010001100101011100
100010000001100001011011100110010000100000011011010111100101110011011
001010110110001100110001000000110000101110010011001010010000001100100
011001010110011001100101011011110011001000110010101110010011100100100
000011011110110011000100000011101000110100001101001011100110010000001
100011011011110111010101101110011101000111001001111000010111100000110
101010111011001010010000001100001011100100110010100100000011101000110
100001100101001000000110110101100001011100110111010001100101011110000
111001100100000011011110110011000100000011011110111010101110010001000
000110010101101110011001010110110101111001001011100000110101010111011
001010010000001100001011100100110010100100000011101000110100001100101
001000000111001101100001011101100110100101101111011101010111001001111
001001000000110111101100110001000000110110101111001001000000110110001
101001011001100110010100101110000011010101001101101111001000000110001
001100101001000000110100101110100001000000111010101101110011101000110
100101101100001000000111010001101000011001010111001001100101001000000
110100101110011001000000110111001101111001000000110010101101110011001
010010110101111001001011000000110101100010011101010111010000100000011
100000110010101100001011000110110010100101110000011010100000101101101
011001010110111000101110000011010000110100001101000011010000110100001
101010101000110100101101110011011100110010101100100001000000111000001
100101011000010110001101101000011001010111001100001101010110010111010
001110100011100100110100101110101011011010000110101010011011000010110
1110001000000100011001110010011000010110111001100

Webmaster's Note: 1) The story has been editted to integrate the two original messages on this story and 2) Lastly thanx a lot to Lawrence who told me this story and let me put it on the Web to share with everyone else.