>>From:"Chris Lunt"
>>Some friends of mind who write doc for a division of Oracle decided to have a
>>writing contest (why? I don't know), and invited me to join. I'd been
>>wanting to try my hand at writing a short story for a little while, so I
>>figured this would be a good motivator for me. We all threw in $10, winner
>>take all (about $50 currently).
>>
>>The story had to be written by midnight on May 1st, and the only stipulations
>>were that it had to mention the (San Francisco) Bay area at some point, and it
>>needed to be less than 30 pages. As you probably expect, I was sitting here
>>at 11:59 May 1st desperately finishing up. I read the story today at my team
>>meeting, and it won me the Joke Jug, so it can't be too bad.
>>
>>The story is oriented around computers, but even non-technical people should
>>enjoy it. You're welcome to forward it, but please keep my name on it.
>>
>>We haven't judged the stories yet, but I'll let you know how I do.
>>
>>-
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>----
>>"The Devil and David Webster" by Chris R. Lunt.
>>
>> Heaven's donuts are jelly donuts. The blend of texture, from the
>>cool, sweet ooze of the jelly, mined with tiny rasberry seeds, to the
>>firm, spongy cake, so lightly encrusted in a thin glaze of sugar, that
>>cracks and flakes as you gingerly tear off small pieces of delight, is
>>certainly the greatest experience a humble man can afford.
>> I was eating a jelly donut when he first appeared in my office,
>>smelling slightly of gunpowder. He was tall and gaunt, with deep-set
>>eyes and crooked teeth, long, delicate fingers, and sloped shoulders.
>>He wore a black Ozzy Osborne concert t-shirt, frayed black jeans, and
>>dusty black high-tops, unlaced. He smiled at me in an ugly way. I
>>put down my donut and glanced at my watch. 7:00 PM.
>> "You're David Webster."
>> I nodded.
>> "You're a programmer for Core."
>> I nodded again. Not only was I a programmer for Core--I was the
>>best damn programmer this group had ever or would ever see. I suppose
>>I should introduce myself. I am David Elijah Webster, master
>>programmer. I'm not just blowing smoke here either. I'm the best
>>damn programmer to come out of MIT since code was constructed one bit
>>at a time. I can do it all: C, LISP, assembly--even the languages no
>>self-respecting programmer would deign to look at. I can do it all in
>>no time flat, with the most elegant of style. Code sprinkled with
>>glistening semicolons and flowing rivers of indentation. Lesser
>>programmers avert their eyes when I enter the room.
>> "They say you're the best, and I'm here to challenge you."
>> I sized this guy up again. He had the right shape. The pot-belly,
>>the greasy hair, parted with percision. The fingers. And the funny
>>smell.
>> I told him I didn't have time.
>> "I'll make it worth your while," he said. "I have something you might
>>be interested in. Follow me."
>> I grabbed my box of donuts, and followed him down the hall and into
>>the elevator. He pressed a button and the elevator descended into the
>>basement. I'd never been in the basement before. For that matter, I
>>didn't even recall that the building had a basement. Nonetheless, the
>>elevator chimed, the doors opened, and we stepped out into a wide room
>>that was entirely featureless. That is, except for the fog on the
>>floor and two workstations that were set up, side by side. One of the
>>workstations was mine. The other was a workstation like none other
>>that I had seen before. It was magnificent.
>> It was matte black. More than an object, it looked like a hole in
>>space. The monitor it sported was the biggest I had ever seen, and
>>the keyboard was a flow of liquid lines, containing a field of keys of
>>different sizes and shapes, packed in like cobblestones. The mouse
>>floated above the table, and had no wire. Next to the computer was a
>>box with a small chute coming out of one side, and a large red button
>>on the top. The monitor was flanked by two gigantic speakers, and I
>>could see a sub-woofer poking up out of the fog. It hummed. It
>>steamed. It was the most beautiful computer I had ever seen.
>> "You approve," said the stranger.
>> I swallowed and said, "It is beyond description."
>> "It's a custom job. And it's yours. If," he said, "If you can beat
>>me in a coding contest."
>> I looked at him incredulously. "What's in it for you?"
>> "I will have defeated the greatest coder in the world, and thus, I can
>>claim that title. AND, I get to keep your immortal soul."
>> He smiled the ugly smile again.
>> Here was a dilemma. I was dealing with the Devil. There was no doubt
>>about that. And he was no doubt very good. I am somewhat attached to
>>my soul, but oh, the prizes. The glory. I can easily claim to be the
>>best coder in the company, in the Bay Area, probably on the whole
>>planet, but if I pulled this off, I will have shown myself to be the
>>best coder in this entire theology! Vanity got the better part of me.
>> "What's the contest?" I asked.
>> I won't bore you with the details, but it was seriously ugly. Ugly in
>>a way that makes the most arrogant of coders cringe and causes
>>managers to pad development schedules into the next century. It had
>>to run in any language, including the nasty chicken-scratch ones. It
>>had to be backward compatible all the way to the ENIAC. And it had to
>>run on Windows. I cringed.
>> But vanity won. I signed the forms, agreed on a deadline of midnight,
>>and we sat down at our machines and started to code.
>> My watch said 8:00 PM, and I started warming up. Class definitions
>>flew off my fingertips like throwing stars. Structures and
>>declarations grew like perfect crystals, and I didn't even break a
>>sweat. True to the task, I soon lost myself in an endless cycle of
>>postulate, create, instantiate and verify. Bits grew to bytes, to K,
>>to Megs, and finally to Gigs. By 11:00 PM it had come to that crucial
>>point. With an hour to go, I had to put all the peices together. It
>>wasn't going to be easy. It was going to take all the concentration I
>>had.
>> Then I hit the first bug.
>> At first, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but then I spotted
>>it. It wasn't mine. It was bug in Windows. Even worse, it was a bug
>>in Windows that stemmed from a timing problem with the system clock
>>itself. I couldn't see a workaround. I was stymied. I genuflected
>>and called Microsoft support.
>> "Hello, and welcome to the Microsoft help line. Please enter your 64
>>digit user identification number, followed by your 32 digit password."
>> While I frantically typed number after number, trying to navigate
>>through layer upon layer of phone menu, I heard him pick up his phone
>>and call a number.
>> "Hello, is Bill in? ... I don't care, wake him up ... Tell him it's
>>Mr. Black ... Hey Bill, what's shakin'? Listen, I needed to know a
>>workaround to one of your bugs ... Yes, I know what time it is
>>... Yes, I know ... Bill ... Bill! You remember our little deal?
>>... That's right. Now be a dear and give me that workaround ... Mm-hm
>>... Right ... Thank you, Bill. I'll be seeing you."
>> I was shocked. It was obviously pointless continuing my desperate
>>journey through Microsoft's Help line. I needed immediate genius! I
>>scarfed down a grape jelly. Sugar shock engulfed me, and my vision
>>tunneled. I shuddered once, something clicked, and I determined the
>>answer I needed--I could use the clock on the sound chip to get my
>>timings.
>> I dove back into the code, and was quickly integrating modules when
>>I hit bug number two. It was even uglier than the first. In fact, it
>>was the ugliest bug I had ever seen. It was a problem with C. With
>>the language itself. There's no way fix a broken hammer using the
>>same hammer.
>> I wracked my brains. I clenched and grunted and sweated and thought
>>and Thought and THOUGHT, but to no avail. Over my shoulder, I could
>>hear Him chime in, "Bugger, isn't it? I remember putting that one in
>>back when I was working on the Unix kernal. Did you really think
>>there was a Kernighan and Ritchie? Rearrange the letters in their
>>names and you'll discover an interesting anagram."
>> I ignored him and continued thinking. My mind went deeper and deeper
>>into the problem at hand--my senses dulled, my breathing grew shallow.
>>My eyes rolled back and sweat beaded on my forehead. Clumsily,
>>blindly, my hand pawed it's way to the box on my desk, containing my
>>last jelly donut. It raised slowly to my lips, and I bit.
>> Pounding waves of sugar induced euphoria washed through my mind. I
>>felt my brain hum and crackle. My hands trembled, my body shuddered,
>>and I began to type. I was a man possessed. Complex topographical
>>math equations formed on my screen. Klien bottles and hypercubes
>>locked neatly into place like pieces of a puzzle. Beyond my control,
>>a complex mathematical world formed in my computer, with additional
>>dimensions unimaginable.
>> I felt a small pop, and I came to. I looked at my screen. I had
>>worked around the bug.
>> My watch read 11:45. Frantically I continued putting all the modules
>>into place. Glancing for a moment at my rival, I could see I had him
>>worried. He was typing furiously. Smoke poured from his ears, and
>>flames licked around his collar.
>> Then I hit the third bug.
>> It was not so much a bug, it was a limit. I only had 4 Gigabytes of
>>memory, and I had used it all. There wasn't a bit left. I had
>>compressed data to a point so fine that it was in danger of collapsing
>>into a black hole. I was storing memory in every conceivable way,
>>including keeping a chain of sound waves running between the speaker
>>and the microphone. There was no memory left to be had.
>> Frantic, I reached into my box of donuts, and my heart sank into my
>>stomach when I realized that I had eaten the last one. I glanced at
>>my watch, but it was too late. I was sunk. I had done the best that
>>I could, and I had nothing more to give.
>> The Devil laughed, and grinning cruelly, he reached over to the box
>>with the chute and the button. Remember the box? Slowly, firmly, his
>>hand pressed the red button, and a jelly donut slid down the chute and
>>onto the table.
>> My jaw dropped. "What...is...that?" I asked.
>> He languorously chewed as he replied, "The Box of Eternal Donuts."
>> "The Box of Eternal Donuts!?"
>> "Yes," he said.
>> "It never runs out?"
>> "Never," he said.
>> "It's mine if I win?!?!"
>> "If you can win, it is entirely yours," he replied, grinning cockily.
>> My mind reeled. The Box of Eternal Donuts. The Box of Eternal
>>Donuts! My eyes darted everywhere, my jaw hung slack, and my throat
>>emitted strange animal-like noises. Anything. I would do anything to
>>win! I just needed the smallest amount of memory. But where could I
>>get it from? I glanced at my watch again, and a plan came into my mind.
>>A beautiful, devious plan.
>> I went quickly upstairs and retrieved the emergency toolkit that we
>>keep in the medicine cabinet. I ripped the case off my computer, and
>>quickly scanned for the right connections. I pulled two wires, and
>>unscrewed the back of my watch. The Devil's eyes widened and he
>>desparately started coding again, but it was too late. I got the last
>>of the memory I needed out of my watch, and pressed the ENTER key
>>seconds before he did.
>> The watch burst into flames. Sparks flew from the disk drives and
>>the monitor glowed and throbbed, finally melting into a puddle
>>of glass. The computer exploded in a shower of sparks, and then there
>>was absolute silence.
>> There was a pause, and both of us turned as the printer started,
>>slowly emitting a single sheet that wafted gently into the out bin. I
>>nonchalantly strolled over, and held up to the Devil's scowling face,
>>a sheet imprinted with two words. "Hello World".
>> Nothing more needs to be told, other than, as I write this, I am
>>sitting in front of my new computer, munching on what is undoubtedly
>>the best jelly donut I have ever eaten.
>>
>>(c) Copyright Chris Lunt May 1995
>>
>>
>>- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. -- Mark Twain
>>- ----------Chris-Lunt-------CLUNT@US.ORACLE.COM-------415/506-3979-----------
>>----- End Included Message -----
>>
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