[fa.sf-lovers] SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #69

ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:sf-lovers (11/05/82)

>From SFL@SRI-CSL Fri Nov  5 12:05:27 1982

SF-LOVERS Digest              Tuesday, 2 Nov 1982           Volume 6 : Issue 69

Today's Topics:
    Authors - Moorcock
    T.V.    - HHGttG in Philly, N.Y, Conn, etc.
    Movies  - Star Trek, Jedi
    Humor   - Sub-Ethernet from Digital
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 31 Oct 1982 1745-PST
Subject: Moorcock
From: Mike Leavitt <LEAVITT at USC-ISI>

I have long felt Moorcock to be mostly empty of interesting ideas in his
pursuit of his "new wave" ego trips.  I surprised myself when I picked up a
book of his called \The Swords Trilogy/ recently, and surprised myself even
more when I read it all (400 pages) and enjoyed it.  It is rather good Swords
and Sorcery stuff with a believable hero, an interesting set of quests, and a 
rather neat tie-up-the-strings ending.  It also has a particularly believable
bit where Moorcock brings in some heros from previous books to solve a
difficult problem.  A fine airplane read (The Swords Trilogy, Berkley
medallion, 1977, ISBN 0-425-03468-2)


        Mike <Leavitt at USC-ISI>

------------------------------

Date: 28 Oct 82 15:39:15-EDT (Thu)
From: David Axler <axler.upenn@UDel-Relay>
Subject: HHGttG @ Phila

Philly fans of Zaphod should know that the BBC-TV version will be running on 
our local PBS affiliate (Channel 12, WHYY-tv), beginning on Tuesday, Nov. 9, at
10:00 P.M. EST, and continuing on Tuesdays (same time, station, &c) thereafter.

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 1982 1700-EST
From: Margot <Flowers at YALE>
Subject: Hitch Hiking in NY & Conn

Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy starts on Thu, Nov 4, 8:00pm on Channel 13 in
New York, repeating on Sunday, 10:30pm.

It started on Sat, October 80, 11:00pm on Channel 24/49/65 on Connecticut
Public TV.

------------------------------

Date: 2 Nov 1982 0803-PST
From: Brent Hailpern <CSL.SSO.BTH at SU-SCORE>
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest Vol 6, #67

HGTTG premiers in New York on Wednesday, Nov. 3 - channel 13

------------------------------

Date:  1 Nov 1982 2246-PST
From: Henry W. Miller <Miller at SRI-NIC>
Subject: Star Trek, the command console

        I have come to the conclusion that the command console prefix code
feature was added sometime between the M5 incident ("The Ultimate Computer")
and "The Wrath of Kahn".

        I just saw a repeat of "The Doomsday Machine", where Kirk stays on the
crippled Constellation until the last second, steering it down the planet
eaters throat.

        If the command console prefix existed at that point in time, they
should have been able to steer the ship by remote control.  But, then again,
that wouldn't be exciting enough.

(P.S.  That brings up another point.  Cmmdr. Decker dies in an attempt to
destroy the thing, and his son, Will Decker is "absorbed" by V'ger in "Star
Trek: The Motion Picture."  What will the next Star Trek movie be?  Why, "The
Revenge of Mrs. Decker", of course.

-HWM

------------------------------

Date: 1 Nov 1982 12:05:32 CST (Monday)
From: Mike Meyer <mwm at OKC-UNIX>
Subject: RotJ

Obviously, revenge would only be appropriate if the Jedi in question had/was 
succombed/ing to the dark side of the force. How many Jedi Knights do we know 
who have this problem?

        <mike

------------------------------

Date: 2 November 1982 21:32-EDT
From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson (RDVAX::Eiirkur at DEC) at MIT-AI
Subject: Humor: Sub-Ethernet from Digital


                  Digital Responds to Hyper-Ethernet

  TEWKSBURY, MA, April 1, 2010 -- Digital Equipment announced today
  it's new DECnet Phase XVIII Architecture.  In response to recent
  Xerox and Wang improvements to Ethernet that provide people and
  facility transportation across inter-node links, DEC's latest DECnet
  provides these capabilities as well as providing for the creation of
  virtual facilities and even countries.  These capabilities are
  provided by breakthroughs in communications technology that actually
  uses the Ether as a communications media.  Through the use of a new
  dedicated NANO-PDP-11/E99 gateway processor system, ETHERGATE,
  DECnet users can access anywhere in the Ethereal Plane.

  This development obsoletes teleconferencing, since meeting groups
  can create their own common conference rooms and cafeterias, thus
  resolving space, travel and dining problems.  There may be a few
  bugs left, as some of the dissenting DECnet Review Group members
  have not been seen since the last meeting held in such a virtual
  conference facility.

  This breakthrough was brought about by a team effort ofthe
  Distributed Systems' Software and Hardware engineering teams in a
  effort to improve on their Tewksbury, Massachusetts facility.  In a
  compromise decision, Distributed Systems will maintain an ETHERGATE
  in TWOOO, but it will connect directly to their new home somewhere
  in the Shire of their newly defined Middle Earth reality.  Despite
  some difficulties, the scenery, windows, tax breaks, pool and
  racquetball courts made the relocation go quite smoothly.
  Engineering Network topology will not change, as all forwarding will
  be done by the TWOOO Ethereal Plane Router residing in the crater at
  the former building site.

  Utility packages such as Ethereal Person Transfer (EPT) and Ethereal
  Facility Transfer (EFT) provide appropriate capabilities for casual
  users.  Sophisticated users can create ($CREATE), access ($OPEN),
  and delete ($NUKE) ethereal entities transparently from high level
  languages using the Ethereal Management System (EMS) package and the
  Ethereal Access Protocol (EAP).  An ETHERTRIEVE utility for easy
  interactive use will be available shortly.

  DECnet Phase XVIII follows on the success of the Phase XVI ability
  to access everyone's Digital Professional wrist watch computer
  system.  This lead to the current Phase XVII architecture, which has
  routing capabilities that allow direct communications with the
  entire Earth population's Atari home video games.

  Distributed Systems architects are hard at work on the next phase of
  DECnet that will include multi-plane existence network management
  (using the NIECE protocol) and galaxy level routing using 64K bit
  addresses.

  Digital will continue to support it's Gateway products into the
  Prime Material Plane.  These products include an IBM ANA
  (Acronym-based Network Architecture) Gateway, the TOLKIEN product
  that allows control of all ring based networks, and our
  Mega-broad-jump-band hardware which leaps past Wang's products in
  the hype weary business marketplace.



>From our Engineering Net.  (You can tell that they're really working on on it.
Racquetball courts indeed!)

                Enjoy,

                        Eirikur

------------------------------

End of SF-LOVERS Digest
***********************