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Install Disk
you know the uneasy feeling you get when you have to rely on someone else's install disks? when you're depending on software that comes on disks without labels, or worse, tattered labels with several generations of scrawled titles written over each other? i regarded the disk she'd left on my desk; a single 1.44 meg MS-DOS floppy with a scarred, dark grey label unevenly attached to the front. the label only just covered another label, the Sunburne Corporation logo just visible under one edge. the uppermost sticker had the words MSH: and "anti-anti-viral utils 2.3" in glitter-green fabric paint; someone had tried to scratch that off, scrawled over the top of it `concrete boot records 96' in what looked like dried blood and around this, purple text (her tiny, neat handwriting), "hardware autosense/config". the fact that there was a skull-and-crossbones drawn on a blank part of the disk's cover in pencil didn't reassure me at all; neither did the grinding noise that the disk made when i put it in the drive. still, after an uncomfortable delay, a:\config.exe started up. once it was actually running, i felt better. within seconds it had retrieved a profile of the machine i was running it on (a box we were setting up for a client - a particularly fussy and pushy individual who'd brought the machine back twice, the second time because he didn't like the desktop colour scheme we'd chosen. you know the type; using this technology because he was afraid of being left behind, and hating it every second). unlike every other bit of software on the machine, this program correctly identified the alien bastard mutant soundcard and even the weird combination of memory chips we'd jammed into it. it drew a row of buttons along the bottom of the window; second from the last was `Identify Hardware'. i cautiously moved the mouse pointer over this button and clicked the mouse. the hourglass appeared briefly, flickered back to the pointer, then became an hourglass again. the floppy drive whirred, the screen flickered, the speakers attached to the soundcard clicked; there was a pause before the LED on the cd-rom drive flashed during which, i presume, the program was searching the machine's innards. a window appeared, listing the devices one by one. at the bottom of the window, a button labelled `rescan' was drawn, and next to it the outlines of two more buttons; i expected that these would be filled in with something like `exit' and `ok' when the program had finished searching. it dragged on. every time i was tempted to close the program down, something would happen - the floppy drive would whirr, or the sound-card would make a wet kind of farting noise or a helium-giggle, or the internal modem would go on- and off-hook. i'd reach for the mouse and just as my hand was about to touch it - before i'd had a chance to move it, even - the program would realise that its life was hanging in the balance and would do something to justify its existence on the system. fifteen minutes went by. all at once, the program filled in the remaining buttons and it had finished. i examined the list of devices; all appeared to be in order... except the last device: INTERRUPT 31 "i don't remember installing that," i muttered. i got on the phone: "Goss, what's this 'infralooker' device in Trent's machine?" "I don't know. I'm not a hardware person, remember - I'm soft." i coughed, embarassed. "yes, very. well, i dunno. maybe it was in the machine when he bought it. any idea who he bought it from?" "i think he bought it from Michael." "oh." there was a respectful pause as we both considered the implications. "in that case, i'd better just leave it alone and let Trent deal with it." i hung up and glanced at the machine with a new-found respect; you'd expect odd things of a computer assembled by a Discordian SubGenius Ceremonial Magickian who firmly believed he was the Emperor of Terra Australis. the name "Margaras" tickled my memory, but i couldn't for the life of me remember where i'd heard it before -something to do with cats. i considered doing a Lycos search before i remembered that the sysadmin had taken the server down that afternoon and was still tinkering with it. i tried to forget about it, but the mystery kept coming back and annoying me. Trent wasn't going to come in and pick his machine up until tomorrow... plenty of time to test the machine... |
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