Hi,
In Harlan Ellison's famous sci-fi short story, "I Have No Mouth and I Must
Scream," sections are marked by punched paper tape images. In most
editions of the story, they are corrupted or meaningless, but they were
intended
to be in the International Telegraph Alphabet #2 (ITA2) that we use for
RTTY. In correct reproductions, as shown in Wikipedia, (lsb at the top), the
tapes read: "I THINK, THEREFORE I AM" and "COGITO ERGO SUM" along with
leading and trailing CR and LF characters. The thinking entity is the story's
crazed computer which took over the world and killed everyone except a few
pet humans to torture.
My personal interest in this story is that one evening in 1974 I read it
and was horrified (no trigger warning!). I mentioned it to my wife,
wondering how possible it was and wishing I knew more about computers. A few
days
later she showed me an adult education flyer from the local high school
which was offering a course in computer programming and suggested I take it
(for $10). I did. The computer was a DEC PDP-8 and I soon exhausted its
capabilities. The teacher suggested I take some real computer programming
courses at Boston University, which I did (the first course used punched
cards!) and went on to a successful career in the computer industry.
I'm still intrigued by artificial intelligence, which is a current issue
of concern,
including its threat to humanity (Computer: I know best and can think
faster). The Internet, connecting almost everything, is already wide open to
malevolent human intelligence, let alone AI with unknown potential.
Reading the story changed my life but I never expected it to fold back to
my interest in ham radio and RTTY.
73,
Ken, AB1J
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