You’ve got mail .. from the 15th Century
Jun 25I love a good paranormal incident, I love history AND I love retro computers. Would there be anything out there that would combine all these three interests? Funny you should ask because .. There is.
The Dodleston Messages (also referred to as The Dodleston Files) is a bizarre series of paranormal events that involve an economics teacher and his girlfriend, a small cottage in the English countryside and a BBC Micro computer that is operated by him, somebody from the past AND somebody from the future.
It sounds bizarre but it makes for a fascinating story where « emails » (or text files) appear out of nowhere on an (unattended) BBC Micro computer, accessible (throughout time) to all three parties. What follows is a strange but interesting back-and-forth between all three « timezones » with some interesting twists.
Spam from the past man!
This day and age you would think « worm » or « mallware » when stuff starts to appear on your computer without you doing anything about it. But this is the 80’s and the BBC Micro is in no way connected to the internet because it doesn’t exist yet. The messages just « show up ».
Moving chairs and stacking cans
Along with the digital correspondance there is also some good old « analogue » paranormal activity with furniture being rearranged, things written on the wall and cans being stacked. But the paranormal entity is far from an evil poltergeist. He is a well mannered softspoken gentlemen called Thomas Harden who compliments Ken on his nice girlfriend ( What a fine woman thou hast) and his house full of cool gadgets (one of them being the ‘looms of light’, his wording for the BBC Micro computer as it manifests itself in his time).
Read it straight from the horse’s mouth
The ‘Dodleston Messages’ have been covered on many blog, website, Youtube video and even on a BBC documentary, but the best source is possibly Kens own book ‘The Vertical Plane’ where he describes the whole story in detail, including the transcripts from every message sent by ‘Thomas’ and the mysterious entities in 2109 . The book is hardly obtainable anymore in print form Here is the Amazon Link but you can also have a look over at (cough) Anna’s Archive but just don’t tell anyone.
Related Posts
KW1602 – Retro Computing
Apr 26
This week on the podcast Knightwise takes on the topic of retro computing. Whether virtualized or involving the resurrection of old hardware here are some ideas to put some older tech to use for you in 2021.
LINKS
DISCORD
The action is happening over at our Discord server: Join by clicking this link
CREDITS
- Mix & Production: Keith Murray
- Music Credits
- Ketsa – Retro Metro [Free Music Archive]
- Zeta – Bird Song [Free Music Archive]
Related Posts
How a slower computer can make you more productive.
Jan 08The black, featureless background is only broken by the repetitious blinking of the amber colored cursor
. Its Rhythmic pulsing reminds that I need to press a multitude of keys on the keyboard to make these words appear. Aside from a small line of text below informing me of how many lines, words and characters I have produced, there are no other options to select, no notifications, suggestions or other distractions.
By modern day standards this application lacks a massive amount of features. No markup menu, word suggestions, contextual menu’s or share buttons. Just amber words on a black background. Yet this is one of the most productive pieces of software on my computer : It lets me write these very articles.
The computer I am running this application on is equally “under powered” by today’s norm. (and under priced) My Raspberry Pi computer with its hilariously low amount of memory, cpu power and storage is possibly less powerful then the smartphone in my pocket, yet I’ve chosen to make it my machine of choice ? Why ?
Sometimes its just “too much”.
Well, I have a love-hate relationship with modern day computers. Their powerful Cpu’s and elaborate operating systems are the very pinnacle of our digital existence. The come packed with a plethora of options and possibilities they can accommodate our every need. That however is also their undoing. In tandem with over-connected applications and services who want to do nothing else then to have you either tweak or tweet whatever you are doing .. to the point where your productivity is reduced to zero. Sometimes its just “too much”.
That is why I took the plunge and went back to “basics” for a couple of days. Using the Raspberry pi and in its very moderate capacity helped me re-think and re-evaluate what I really needed to be productive.
The Raspbian operating system isn’t packed with a lot of features. Just the basics to help you do what you need to get done. There are some applications installed , but when choosing extra software you have to keep the limited “power of the pie” in mind. Hence I started thinking about what applications I needed to be productive and what the minimal requirements of those applications were.
What do we really need ?
So, I need a browser, but does it need to have 5000 extensions ? Turns out it doesn’t. I need a word processing application but does it need to have 39 buttons ? No it doesn’t. My initial thoughts of having my creativity seriously curtailed by the limited powers of my “simple” environment were wrong. The simplified environment and “simple” applications helped me focus more on what I needed to get done.. instead of getting distracted by the tools themselves.
“Slow computing” has another advantage. It takes my browser a couple of seconds to start up (an eternity compared to my other systems) but this is a great help in the “urge to quickly check Facebook” and get distracted. I can’t have 50 browser tabs open because I don’t have the ram, but that allows me to pay more attention on the one thing i’m researching.
In short : “Slow computing” helps me focus. It gives me the time to think about things before I press another hyperlink. It is free from those over-connected distractions and it keeps me from going down a 45 minute rabbit hole just to find the ‘right wallpaper’ for my dual screen desktop. Sure I’ll bounce up against the limitations of the system… and if I do I still have my other powerful laptop waiting in the wings. But the amount of stuff I “Got Done” before I have to make that move .. is pretty amazing. Slow computing .. helps you focus ! Try it 🙂
Links : Raspbian.
Same
