#digital computer controls

[commodorez]

General Instrument rebranded Digital Computer Controls D-116/17

This clone of a Nova 1200 came out of a supermarket and has a number of 60 channel I/O cards in order to talk to all of the cash registers and scanners and check against the product pricing database. This is an incredibly decked-out system.

Large Scale Systems Museum (LSSM) - mact.io - Pittsburgh, PA

[thingsaday]

love to see my little guys get mind controlled 😭

[kirby-the-gorb]

[carbon-fiber-internal-organs]

[daily-smol-silm]

Day #154 - :P

Had no idea what to do today, have Aredhel blep :))

[clumsiestgiantess]

Honestly I don’t feel like finishing the October horror prompts stuff right now…

BUT I have this one short story saved from a while ago that I do really like, and I want y’all to have it! Enjoy!

It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing, being copied.  It’s little snapshots taken from your life — less than a second of living that gets bottled up as information and stored in some vault deep underground.  A security measure, world leaders decided, for when the planet inevitably comes to an end.   

…whenever that will be.

The war ended before the threat of nuclear extinction became reality.  All those years of people scrambling to get implants that would preserve them after death, all the times people had fought with money and power over who would be saved and who wouldn’t — and now you can do it for free.

For a long time, the servers inside the Humanity Vaults went untouched.  Without a fear of mass death lurking in the air, no one was willing to take the information back out once it was stored.  People went on living, kept getting implants and snapshots to give themselves the chance to get another life at the end of theirs.  Or several.  

Just like those desperate rich people who froze themselves to be revived when technology caught up with their ideas, so it seems all of society would do the same — their lives copied and stored until someone found a way to revive them.  And that someone, or rather something was SLT.  Simulated Life Technology.  It gave the digital information a virtual body, processing things a brain, nerves, and hormones normally would through a simulation.

Unfortunately, people were expecting physical bodies and actual brains, not simulations.  So the technology flopped.. until a video game company picked it up.  People became obsessed with their games due to how real the characters seemed.  It was artificial intelligence trained with real, lived-through, human thought.  

That’s where things finally begin, with a program — a game — that lets you simulate running the life of an actual person right on your laptop.

I’d heard about the game before, but never played it myself.  There was no end goal, no story, just some fake person wandering around a screen.  It just didn’t seem interesting to me.  So it was all the more jarring when I went from reaching for the gym doors one morning to stretching an arm into an endless void of white.  

I shrieked at the sudden change, and didn’t stop shrieking as I found no exit to the place — pounding on walls I couldn’t see.  I finally ran out of breath when I turned around and saw the glassy wall of a theater-sized computer screen behind me — some guy staring me down from the other side, mouse in hand and keyboard at the ready.

Choking for breath, I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass.  “N-No,” I managed to squeak out.  I could barely put two and two together as I increasingly got closer to a panic attack, but once I hit the back wall dreaded realization tinged the back of my mind.

It’s supposed to be a simulated me.. not… me me.  Only it isn’t me.  I’m probably still at the gym.  I’m sure the original me didn’t even notice.  

Wait.. so simulations actually have a consciousness!?  

“HELP!  Please!  There’s been a mistake!  Simulations aren’t supposed to be actually alive!  No one said these stupid computer people were conscious!”  I rushed to the glass to bang on it and demand my release, but was immediately deterred by the very large form of a person reaching for me.  I yelped and ducked down expecting to be snatched up, but his finger only tapped the screen.

In seconds, soft carpet seems to grow up from beneath the floor, and a little living room takes form all around me.  A table pops up from the floor; a shelf slides in from the wall to my right.  Something bright bubbles into existence behind me and I find a window on the opposite wall.  

A window!  I race across the room and try desperately to open it and escape that way, but even when I do I find a fake landscape lit up on the wall behind it.  The sudden and jarring lack of exits sends me stumbling backwards, staring blankly at the false background.  Oh fuck, this really is a computer.  How am I inside a-?  

“Hello?”

I flinch so badly I trip on my leg and nearly fall to the floor again.  My hands slam over my ears as he speaks again.  “Sorry, I don’t think my mic was on.  Why are you- oh!  I turned the volume up all the way when it was off, my bad.”  There’s a brief pause of blissful silence.  “Is this better?”  I look up at the collosal stranger with tears in my eyes, but they either don’t notice or don’t care.

“Alright, first things first…” he mumbles, “Let’s get your sanity bar back up.”  My legs weaken and I have to brace myself on the fake couch beside me in the fake room.  “What.. do you mean?” I ask in a shaking whisper.  “You know, your little hunger, hydration, and sanity bars?  Ohh wait this is probably a tutorial.”  He shrugged off the interaction so nonchalantly it made goosebumps lift across my arms.

Glancing around the room, I try to find the stats he’s talking about, but all I can see are structures and furniture.  They’re all nearly real, save for the slight pixelated fuzz on the very edges of everything.  It’s like looking through a headset.  My stats must only be visible to the player.  The real person.

If it’s all fake — some video game — then… but I’m not some made-up character!  I’m real!  I- I have to be.  Only real people can think like this, right?  This is only supposed to be some simulated bullshit that draws on my memories, which I won’t even know they have.  Not.. not another entire me.  With shaking arms, I lift my hands up to my face.

They’re tinged with those same fuzzy pixels.

I’m not real.  Wh- Why?  Does real me know about this?  I didn’t know about this.  Are there OTHER me’s?  How many times have I blinked and become a fake reconstruction?  

“Woah!”  I’m startled out of my thoughts by that guy — that player’s — voice.  “Your sanity’s tanking!  I know the intro said to ease you into it or your sanity would plummet, but I thought I did ease you into this place.”  Before I can get a word in he gasps an ‘ohhh’.  “My mic was muted!  You didn’t hear me introduce myself!  That’s probably why.”

I sneer involuntarily.  Like introducing himself would’ve done anything to soften the blow of: I’m not real.  

“Let’s try again; my name’s Sam, but-”  He hesitates.  “Just call me Sammy.”  I turn to speak, but my mouth goes dry.  What is my name?  It can’t be Rhea.  That’s whoever-is-still-out-there’s name.  But who else would I be?  I’m not supposed to be anyone else.  “Rhea,” I answer abruptly.  I don’t know what else to call myself.

“That’s a nice name!”  “Do you think I’m real?” I blurt, then immediately regret it as he gives me a strange look.  “I mean.. I just…  I feel real.  This isn’t real.”  Sammy goes quiet for a moment, leaning in closer to the screen to look at me.  I want to run away, but I hold my ground.  There is a wall between us, after all.

“You feel real?” he repeats, “Well.. I mean, you are real — a real SL.  But is that what you mean?”  An SL, a Simulated Life, is that all I am?  My head shakes in slow shock.  “I guess you might feel like you’re whoever they took your life data from,” Sammy suggests, “But it’s.. kinda hard to believe you’re real when you’re a flashing image on my laptop.”

A sharp pain seizes my chest and I unsteadily fall onto the couch.  It feels real, but it isn’t.  And I’m the same.

“What do I do?” I ask quietly, more to myself than anything.  Minutes tick by with my face buried in my hands before the feeling of a cold hand on my back sends me across the room screaming.  “What the-?!”  “Sorry!” Sammy calls before I can go into a full panic, “I meant to pat you on the back.  You know.. like: ‘it’s going to be ok’?”  He sighs, “I’ve never been good with people.”

I rub my hands over my arms and cautiously peer around the couch.  “What was that?”  “My clicker,” he admits, as I watch him move around a mouse outside the screen.  I can feel my mouth drop open, “You can interact with all this?”  He nods as I gesture around the place.  “That’s just unfair!  You can at least let me have this space to myself!”

“But how will you get food?” Sammy asks me earnestly.  “Your hunger bar’s at half by the way.”  The second he points it out I realize I’m feeling hungry, but I don’t bring it up.  “What?  I’ll get it out of this mini fridge right here.”  However, as I walk over and pull at the handle, it doesn’t open.  I grab it and rattle it around a few times, but it doesn’t open.  “I.. I can't…”

“I’m pretty sure only the player can make meals,” Sammy tells me, as calmly as if he were making a passing comment on the weather.  “So I’m what?  Helpless?!  You’re supposed to feed me?!”  Sammy leans away from the screen looking wildly confused.  “That’s like the whole point of the game…  I’m supposed to take care of you and level up stuff by treating you well.”

I just stare at him.

“What..?  I- I thought you would at least know that.”  I don’t even go back to the couch; I just crumple to the floor.  “Wait, you just started getting your sanity back up!” Sammy gasps, “Don’t drop it back down!  I’ll take care of you!  I’m not like those video game nerds who try to find all the special dialogue by starving their SLs or doing a sleepless run.  I just wanted to…”  He pauses and his cheeks flush, which actually startles me out of my raw horror of learning that I — or any of the potential other me’s — could be tortured like those examples.

“You wanted to what?” I ask hesitantly.  Sammy looks at me.  Like really looks at me — leaning close against the monitor.  I freeze as the invisible hand of the clicker carefully turns me around, then back.  His irises flicker all over me, and I realize I’m still in slightly revealing gym wear.  

Worriedly, I take a few steps back.  All sorts of media with online digital girlfriends start flooding into my head.  “You wanted to what?” I ask weakly.  Sammy glances at his door, gets up, and locks it.  Fear causes the blood to feel like it’s being drained out of my body.

“Please don’t do that shit to me,” I beg, trying to keep my voice from cracking.  “Not on the first day.  Please.”  

Sammy’s face scrunches up in bewilderment before his eyes widen in realization.  “Wait, what?  No!  No, I don’t want to do anything like that!  I just…  You’re just…  You’re supposed to be me,” he eventually spits out.  “The uh.. character traits I put in — they’re mine but — ok, actually I put in a lot more confidence too — but it’s supposed to be me, just.. a girl.”

Ohhh.

“So all the secrecy and the blushing and the-”  “I- I’m not blushing!” he gasps.  “That’s.. I-  You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”  I sigh, just relieved my initial impression was completely wrong.  “Of course not.  I can’t exactly tell anyone from in here, can I?”  “I guess you can’t,” Sammy realizes.

I sit back down heavily on the coffee table in the room, facing Sammy.  “So I’m.. I'm really an SL?  All these memories, they’re just what was uploaded to the Humanity Vault?”  My nerves get fuzzy as Sammy’s head finally moves away from the screen.  “Oh.. yeah, I guess.  I didn’t realize you had all those memories.  No wonder you feel human — that’s all you can remember.”  He blinks, “That’s kinda fucked-up, actually.”

Those are all things that were placed in me from the start — I never lived through them.  The only memories I’ve made myself so far are the ones when I’m in here.  “And that’s why there was such an abrupt cut between being outside the gym to being in here!” I realize, slowly piecing together what exactly I am, “That’s where my uploaded memories end and my actual ones start.”

In a weird way, it gave me comfort recognizing all this.  I actually know what I am and why I’m here.  Even if it isn’t what I wanted or thought it would be, at least everything makes sense.

“Hey, your sanity bar’s rising again,” Sammy noted.  “Kinda weird that it happened when you found out you’re not a person, though…”  I nod slowly, looking up at him.  “I think the recognition helps.  I.. might not be a person, or actually alive, but I feel that way.  All of this-” I gesture around the vaguely pixelated room — running my hand over the coffee table.  “It feels physically real to me.”  “So you.. you feel better about it now?  You’re ok?”  I begin to nod, then hesitate.  “Better, but I’m still not feeling all that great about being some video game character for the rest of my life.”

“I’ll make sure it’s a place you want to stay in, or at least not mind it,” Sammy assures me, “And at a certain level I can add another apartment with another SL!  That way you won’t be too lonely while I’m not playing.”  I hadn’t even thought about that — about what happens when a player logs off and leaves me here alone, or the fact that I can cure that loneliness by dooming some other poor soul to a simulated life forever.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I tell him hesitantly.  “I think I just need to take some time to calm down.”  A microwave meal floats out of the mini fridge as if by magic, but I notice Sammy’s arm moving and I realize it’s the invisible clicker again.  “I don’t know if I’m up for a meal right now,” I tell him tiredly, “I really just want to rest.”  

His eyes dart to the corner of the screen.  “Your hunger bar says otherwise.”  I grumble slightly, “Well I say I’m not hungry.”  A prepared meal rests itself on the coffee table on the opposite side of me.  “I’ve gotta go soon, so I’ll just leave it here.”  I stand up abruptly, suddenly aware that I’d be stuck sitting here without the ability to do anything.  “Wait!  Just do a few things for me before you leave?”

Sammy looks at me confusedly, then leans closer to the screen again and peers around the room.  “There should be a manual or something…  A new one appears with every update I make.  It should have a list of things you can do and how to access them.”  “So there’s a whole list of things I can do.. and getting myself basic necessities isn’t on it?”  

The entire wall of the monitor flickers and molds into the final wall of the room in only a second or two.  I rush to it, suddenly desperate for someone to talk to.  “Wait!  No, please come back!  I still need-”  It flicks back on just as quickly.  “Woah!  I- I’m not going anywhere; I’m just pulling up a different tab to check what you can do on the first level.”  I pause about a foot from the screen.  He looked a hell of a lot bigger that close — the monitor only displaying me at a tiny size that would fit the whole room and me on it.  “O- Ok,” I stammer, stunned to silence by how small I felt right then.  

I was left alone for a moment as the wall slid back in.  This is how it’ll feel like for me for the next…  Until the game gets booted up again.  There’s a point when you play any game that you get bored of it and shut it off for the last time.  What would happen to me then?  I didn’t want to imagine it, but my brain slipped in a couple of thoughts about perpetually starving and being forced to stay awake for maybe forever.  

Hopefully I’d end up like a forgotten tamagotchi and just die.

When Sammy returned, I found out that — on the base level — I couldn’t do much of anything at all.  The player can’t even buy items for me to interact with yet.  All I can do is walk around and sit in different places.  

“And how do you get fake game money again?” I ask tiredly.  “Well, you can pay real money for it, but you get paid some every in-game day.  The amount depends on the level, and there are bonuses I can get for completing different tasks and an extra reward if all your bars are full before the day ends.”  Damn, I really am a video game character.

After getting me a few cups of water that I could drink from whenever I wanted, Sammy closed the game and I was left in my single room with a coffee table and an empty bookshelf.  Oh, and a pullout couch I can’t turn into a bed, a sink I can’t use, and a mini fridge I can’t open.

There’s one window, one lightbulb that has no switch, and no door.  I’m utterly trapped here, but there’s nowhere else for me to run to even if I do manage to get out.  If I leave this little game, I stop existing.  And honestly, I’m not sure if I want to stay and suffer or leave and stop existing.  It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.

I wandered the entire room to be sure, but there really wasn’t a single exit.  The only thing that would open for me was the stupid fake window.  Sitting down heavily on the couch, I curled up against myself and cried.

[jvlianbashir]

i know that others have already commented on this but most of my high school interns are so helpless when it comes to technology that doesn't completely spoonfeed the experience that it is actually terrifying

[martyryo]

I can't cook I lack ingredients and they cut off the gas

[gregdotorg]

1989 press photo of Nam June Paik standing in front of Fin de Siecle II, his 300+ tv set sculpture at the Whitney Museum. The Whitney acquired it in 1993, but didn't show it again until 2019.

[commodorez]

Digital Computer Controls D-116 and Tektronix 4014-1 vector terminal running a simple drawing program. I drew the Z Labs logo on it!

VCF Midwest 18

[ghoulodont]

this is the exact video that made me obsessed with ghost and i like to revisit it every now and again and reflect on how extremely shitty it sounds and wonder what was going on with my mind

[sillyvampir3]

SUGGESTIVE TEXT

i think i got possessed drawing this..

[teethbomb]

hrrnnggg digital circus…

[gootube]

welcome to the ref train choo choo! reffed my little wires guy because (explodes

[knifegremliin]

[insert some cool caption here]

[ryuzaki-lawliett]

Personally, for me... I like computer guts more than organic ones. But a mix of the two? Liquid cooling systems filled with blood, artificial or otherwise.. Cyborgs.. I don't know. I like those.