Retrocomputing 4 from Outer Fiction

Because this is kind of a diary and I like to keep record on books and movies I'd gone through, I'll in passing mention that I read a book by Brian J. Robb: Vastustamaton Brad Pitt (original title The Rise to Stardom, 2009). Nothing special about that as such, but I suppose few thoughts of it in addition would be appropriate. The book was quite nice to read, yet it's not something I'd think I'd read again. Got some information about movie with ties with Brad Pitt, and I guess he could be deemed as a more noteworthy actor than the pretty pin-up boy reputation which he himself clearly disliked would have expected. Also I have to deem it is kind of sad even that in Finland it is actually relatively hard to find books in their original language even if they're in English - I only read the Finnish translation as I happened to get the book from library removals. However, this book and thoughts about it have nothing to do with the topic tonight.

On the other hand, some other books and films I've met recently have more remarks on it. Should I not be interested of retrocomputing or alternatively had I read and seen those works of fiction while they were all new, I might have not really paid that much attention. The book I'm referring to is Syvä kuolema (Deep Lies, 1986) by Stuard Woods and the movies I'm thinking are the two agent Jack Ryan films based on Tom Clancy's books starred by Harrison Ford: Patriot Games (1992) & Clear and Present Danger (1994). For those who are potentially considering reading/seeing those without having done it before, I'd like to notify that I'm not planning to give out any major spoilers. I'm mainly going to talk about certain technology used in the fiction.

What combines all of those three is that they're agent stories. I used to think that I'm not interested about such stuff. In fact even while Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were of my favourite books as a kid, I didn't really like any later books from him as I felt they were too much of agent stories (I think I did read The Sum of All Fears and Clear and Present Danger in Finnish). Therefore I found myself surprisingly indulged in these plot based fictional pieces of work. Might be that now as older I think differently, but also these feel fresh to me since I'd not really gone through this kind of fiction much. Also reading plot based books feels fresh after so many years and pages of research books from the university.

I suppose I need to get this bookcrossing
case back on the road soon.

Especially this Deep Lies surprised me, as I was expecting some quite standard level nothing too special plot based thriller. The cover actually mostly amused me, especially as it has few stereotypic spies in trench coat, shades and a brimmed had which the book has not really at all, and which hints that the cover artist has not exactly read the book - like it usually goes. I also do have to admit that much of the things happening there plotwise didn't really impress me (many things seemed too foreseeable in a long run) and if the twists are not keeping in tightly enough, the "thrill" element goes quite much wasted. That has been actually a major reason why I would not care much of thrillers and horror, as the expected emotional effect would hardly ever impact me. Then later on I've found other fields of interest in both genres.

In any case I was wondering why would not Deep Lies be classified as a techno-thriller, and that what actually then makes a techno-thriller over a normal thriller. A significant plot device in the book is based upon using computers and other technology instead of traditional on-spot agents. Otherwise submarines starting from Whiskey-on-the-Rocks incident at Swedish coast in 1981 (a Whiskey class Soviet submarine got stuck on rocks openly visible on surface close to a Swedish naval base) are in significant role in the book - there are no similar new innovations such as Russian stealth submarine from The Hunt for Red October, but otherwise I could not feel thinking that this Clancy's books might have well been one source of influence while writing the novel.

As a retrocomputing hobbyist the most amusing part in the book was nevertheless the fact that the people were installing IBM PC AT based multi-user multiprocessing computer network system to make things work smoothly and have data stored and shared for those who needed it quickly. Some Western agents were mocking Soviet computer capabilities, as they didn't even have MS-DOS compatible computer systems. Also there were several sections that were depicting the text PRODUCED BY THE COMPUTER:
ON ITS SCREEN
WHILE THE USER
TYPED COMMANDS.

LOADING RESTART SEQUENCE FOR BLOG NOTES... PLEASE BE PATIENT.

It was argued that those models of computers were hard to get even in USA at the time, so I suppose the book was supposed to be set in around 1984/1985, as the IBM PC AT was originally released in 1984. I can not recall it would have ever directly stated when the book actually was set to happen, but it clearly was intended to depict contemporary times of the book release. By 1986, when the book was released, however, I think PC AT models were not that rare anymore, as the IBM PC AT model itself was discontinued by 1987 and Compaq had already released a 386 processor based PC compatible in 1986. Regardless, big 5.25" floppies were there to save the day.

Then for the Clancy novel film adaptations with Harrison Ford. I was constantly trying to look at the computers they used in the offices. I even had to stop, rewind and image freeze another of them just to take a closer look on a computer on the background - I believe it was some IBM PS/2 model computer. My wife was left rolling her eyes when this happened as we were watching thise movies together: Is this guy here just to catch computers? To me it mattered a lot to the atmosphere too, since the movies were meant to set in 1980's, and had someone had for instance some CD-ROM equipped 486 PC on his desktop it would have felt a rough anachrony over there. However, all the models seemed appropriate for having been used in CIA office as "the best tech we got" in late 1980's, and details like that give a good impression for the film.

Another thing worth interest in my opinion was that in Patriot Games there was a scene unlike I could remember having ever seen in any other movie. Maybe I have just not seen such movie, but in any case. There was one action scene that was depicted almost entirely from the satellite link vision on the office agents and managers: all the soldiers were seen through satellite camera in bird perspective and it seemed just like some 2D computer war game. The whole scene distanced the real acts very efficiently and in such distinctive fashion, that it forced to think about how it would feel like - you have to make educated guesses by fragments of technical intelligence data, and then you can just send in the troops without any direct involvement. Should your guesses go wrong, you could risk lots of innocent lives, and in any case someone else would do your dirty work when needed.

The scene I'm referring to can be found from YouTube actually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoVWedQOQl4

I suppose the studio executives and movie producers would nowadays deem that this kind of a scene would not appeal to the modern audience sufficiently due to lack of closeups with fancy CGI explosions in colour and other stunning (and often silly) visuals. To me the scene felt much more realistic than typical action scenes in movies, and most of all it felt much more emotionally impacting than the typical "show it all" movie entertainment. It's a bit similar effect in movie narration as when the camera is turned away from the actual murder and then it would feel more terrible than if the kill is actually showed. Still I'm somewhat surprised that this kind of scenes are not more commonly used in movies.

Would you watch a movie with this cover?
Well I did, and was positively surprised.

Then finally as a bit of extra, I saw just today a movie called Speed Racer (2008) by Wachowski brothers (The Matrix). The movie was a box office failure, and I was expecting it to be rather bad, but I found it actually quite watchable material. I'd deem it at least more or less of a good bad film (ie. a movie with various things done badly but that it's quite entertaining to watch). The style of visual narration is kind of cartoon-like (well it's based upon an anime with the same name actually) in quite personal and even unique fashion with overwhelming amount of certain kinds of effects and transitions. The movie is supposed to be a family film, but some scenes might be a bit questionable for the youngest kids. In fact overall it would surprise me should this movie not have attained at least some degree of a cult following. I definitely could recommend it - with reservations - despite certain silliness and some nonsensical factors; it's not even trying to be realistic anyway, it is basically scifi stuff, and it has some almost dystopian visions of corporate power settings. It could be even compared to Death Race 2000 from some parts, such as when in the Casa Cristo "rally" there are stylized teams with military and barbarian theme, among others, with the team leader of latter exclaiming: "Crom!" On the other hand the movie's heavily computer generated colourful world reminds me a bit of Tron (1982, the first feature film made almost exclusively with computers). Still I can see how this wild gamelike action movie with partially almost surreal montage and partially achronological narration would have been rejected by quite a few people in the West.

Speed Racer, however, unlike the Brad Pitt biography, is related to the topic. In the first half of the movie there is a scene with a corporate manager telling about his own past in passing, how he had to work hard himself just like other people before his company got so big and powerful. He worked hard with Commodore 64 in order to reach the greatness he is in now. Can you imagine? Considering that the setting is for some parts quite (retro) futuristic or at least of alternate reality timeline world, it felt even off-the-place to have a real computer classic being mentioned there like that. But maybe Commodore 64 was the professional computer workhorse in the alternate history of that movie unlike IBM PC and compatibles, and as such I'm not complaining about such amusing and actually unexpected reference.

Theory of Books

A Book of Plot, a Book of Knowledge, a Book of Curiosity and a Book of None

One evening after an enjoyable reading session on Finnish translated version of James Clavell’s Shogun, a theoretical lightning struck next to me with a question answered to: Why to read a book? The answer become formulated as part of Zacharian literature theory in such fashion that I could see eventually four possible reasons to read a book. The book could be (1) a Book of Plot, (2) a Book of Knowledge, (3) a Book of Language or (4) a Book of Curiosity – or a combination of any of the previous four types.

The book Shogun I could immediately classify as a Book of Plot: the story and the unfolding events were a significant point of reading. What would happen next and how would the preshadowed event of X and Y end up going by? Narration of the book based much upon storytelling even while rough ending was known from historical point of view from the beginning (the protagonist Blackthorne, based on a real life character, would become a samurai and vassal of the next de facto ruler of Japan) and hence the plot was clearly an important factor in this fictional yet historical novel, which was also obviously intentional by the author.

Due another Zacharian literary theory concept maximalism, in which more is better if it fits the same space as easily as less, I figured I had enjoyed the book more than if it would have been merely a Book of Plot. It took me but a turn of a page to figure out that at least for me the novel was also a Book of Knowledge: I learned a great deal of Japanese culture, history and even language while reading the book, even while I acknowledged that much of the history told was more and less romanticized, nevertheless. Admittedly though, certain things such as ninjas as mythical warriors do originate from Japan itself and are not simply Western misconceptions; images of fictional ninjas clad with almost legendary abilities in black were concepted in Japan in early 19^th century or so – hundreds of years after historical period of ninjas, similarly like popular culture visions of Caribbean pirates are largely based upon non-contemporary fictional literature such as Treasure Island.

Thirdly I ended up finding up the novel as a Book of Curiosity, after I had talked about the book with my wife (who had not read it, and by my assumption will not). The Book of Curiosity in my mind meant that the book would have something of interest that would be not due anything that is directly written between the covers. Meta content would be of something curious. I figured it could be something special about the author or the book success for instance; in this case it was that the book apparently after it’s appearance in 1975 had become a significant source of Japanese culture interest rousing in West after the Second World War. I can not confirm how successful the book really was in that part, but at least according to potentially fictional Wikipedia remarks it seemed to me like the novel would have been rather popular and was a major source of inspiration towards Japan in the era when there was practically no manga and anime in the West (to be honest the modern manga and anime field was still in infancy also in Japan before 1980’s in my opinion).

As a Book of Language I was unable to define the book as, since I didn’t mean that as a studybook of foreign language (which would classify as a Book of Knowledge), but rather as something which could be called as poetic. The novel has few poems in it, but they’re more like background imagery, and the actual language seems relatively plain. I did learn what means ‘tacking’ (‘luoviminen’ in Finnish), although I was familiar with such practice of sailing against the wind, but in general I didn’t find the language itself as anything particularly fancy or special. Of course I don’t know if English original was different, but I doubt it – the text just focused on telling the story for the most part. I also was first calling the concept as the Book of Words, and frankly, I’m still not certain which one would fit better.

To promptly test this new theory further, I tested the concept into few other books I’ve read recently. Namely I can think of three more: William Rodgers’ Think; A Biography of the Watsons and IBM (or more specifically Finnish translation: Ajattele! - IBM:n tarina), Sofi Oksanen’s Stalinin lehmät (Stalin’s cows would have been the English translation) and Aki Rantala’s Linux. Oksanen’s novel I did not finish, as I felt it too exhausting to crawl through almost 500 pages of it (in comparison Shogun is around 1200 pages and I could have taken more no problem). Rantala’s old Linux guide has but few pages left, and some parts were very interesting and some parts I almost had to force myself to read. Finally the Rodger’s sort of a biography book I almost regretted having started until the latter half of the book.

The Watson-IBM book I read first and it’s been already a while since I finished that. The Finnish translation did not mention it as clearly as a biography of Watson, so I was looking forward to read more about early history of computers – and in that I was disappointed. I did know that the original book was released already in 1969, so it could not yet have anything about home computers of which I knew more and expected to be more interesting, but I was not expecting the book to start from 19^th century telling about a salesman who grew into power and richness with rather questionable practices with occasionally double standards and even immoral behaviour. What even worse, the Watson himself seemed to be a businessman who didn’t really understand about computers when they finally came available, just it happened that his mechanical cash register manufacturing company was well capable of producing them when the technology came available.

So this IBM book is not a Book of Language – quite plain text and largely relatively simple expressions supposedly maybe in attempt to seek for Watson’s spirit, who was made to sound like a dictator who gives simple message to his simple folk and who was admired by the author. The first part kind of takes steps towards a Book of Plot, but that doesn’t really work out in my opinion. I didn’t find it very interesting to get to know how Watson manages to obtain his next monopoly region, especially as often the details of narration told it in fashion that “Watson was a skilled salesman” and as typical for a biography there was no fully consistent story to tell, although that is natural of course.

What the book is, however, is a Book of Knowledge, although is somewhat limited fashion. The book didn’t seem very critical, and it was quite hard to estimate whether some unreferred claim was true or not. Was Watson as innocent as he seemed to suggest during his earlier days, and was he really that sincere while being polite to some salesmen? Maybe, maybe not, but the book does not exactly allow checking any facts itself but tries to proceed with old-fashioned shut up and listen to the story “factual” narration, which obviously doesn’t always feel like the complete truth. Yet no doubt there are many truths, so despite its potential missteps, it still contains knowledge.

However, perhaps more the book goes to the field of a Book of Curiosity. It still gives certain background history for IBM, which eventually did not become as world dominating and unstoppable in the field of computers, largely due unforeseeable rise of home computers in turn of 1970’s to 1980’s, to which IBM was not as swift and successful to get to. Yes, despite IBM PC become the computer which paved a way to a standard upon which even modern computers are based upon, I still find it kind of unsuccessful if the intention was world domination. IBM PC compatibles prevailed, but IBM itself faded away from the point of view of a regular consumer and largely started to return to its mainframe production after 1980’s. In the book it is speculated that nothing could prevent IBM from becoming permanently the biggest company in the world. On the other hand in the end of the book there is some curious pondering such as about how it might at the start of 1970’s seem like wild imagination but that computers will eventually come everywhere – it took a moment, but we are there now.

In summary, I suppose it was a book worth reading, yet I could have lived without it as well. The theory seemed to work out, since it felt not worth reading only when I was unable see the curiosity value content or knowledge, when there was not else really in the whole book.

Rantala’s book about Linux is another Book of Knowledge with hardly even a trace to a plot narration or poetic narration. It won’t even go with the curiosity side, since books like that are several, and I don’t really see why mere age would make it so special in this context – the book is from early 2000’s. The age also was a problem at times, since some parts especially when it was talked about things like concurrent Linux distros, GUI applications and installation of a then new Red Hat Linux version simply felt obsolete and as such irrelevant. That took a step towards curiosity and could have deemed as historical knowledge, but for most part that just didn’t give me much.

However, overview and history of Linux plus especially Linux core operations and console commands and scripting would still be surprisingly relevant knowledge despite being over 15 years old data. How much one could get any usable information for a modern OS while reading about Windows guide from over 10 years ago? Someone might argue that this would indicate how Unix based OS would be just some old nonsense, but I’d say such thoughts would be wrong. Rather I see it upkeeping consistently the past and not discarding long-learned and applied practices after every few years, like in computer systems seems favored rather often. Admittedly though, large amount of Unix/Linux console (Bash) commands are completely unintuitive for a beginner, and without some external knowledge it would be quite hard to figure out what does commands like cat, df, finger, top or dpkg. At least GUI gives more direct hints, usually, likewise PowerShell commands are usually logically understandable English.

Finally the last poor book which I decided to not even bother to finish. After over 100 pages I had not really found any proper plot, just fragments of seemingly irrelevant narration of individuals from different eras that would be of course connected by family ties or acquaintanceships of parents and such. Of course it might be partially due myself, but this kind of postmodern narration simply gives me nothing, and in my opinion serves nothing that matters either. Yes, sure, we can get these very subjective images how it’s hard to live as a bulimic or how someone has felt her life as a woman in Soviet era Estonia has been difficult, but to me large parts of it felt just about as interesting as reading a phone book (just names swapped with foods eaten and numbers with counts of vomits) and recallings of past how I should have passed a tree from left instead of right and maybe then something would have been different when arriving the other side of nothingness. So basically there simply was no plot based narration to me that would have mattered at all.

The writing style would not go for the Book of Language either, because I felt the language used was relatively simple and poorly structured. Might have been intentional in order to rouse certain feeling where nothing matters to the protagonist, but it’s a fail if the book starts to feel so monotonous to the reader that it simply does not matter. Also the attempted steps towards a Book of Knowledge with historical references seem too subjective and fictional to be tied to almost anything significant to know about. That they had lots of Russians and their influence in Estonia for decades in 20^th century is not exactly a news or anything that would make this book worth reading. References to Estonian resistance fighters Forest Brothers (metsäveljet in Finnish, metsavennad in Estonian) do go close, but unfortunately those historical glimpses are just rare drops in the sour pool of tears and did not impress me enough to really give it a class with their maybe one tenth of the content (did not count).

One funny occasion came across to me though, which was recounting of a story of a foreign woman selling herself in Finland after the collapse of Soviet Union who carries a sign: “pilu 50 mk” (meaning ‘pusy 50 marks’ with the first word misspelled, and the sales price being extraordinarily low for the time). This is funny mainly because it almost goes to the curiosity class, yet it actually seems to be a common unconfirmed urban legend which apparently has been told having as if happened like all around Finland. My mother even told it in 1990’s having happened in Heinävesi (a small town in Eastern Finland) where this woman supposedly was in the town market square...obviously she never saw this woman herself. I had forgotten this story, but by then the latest I saw how impossible story this was to be for having happened for real – or at least should it have happened for real in all the places it would have occurred for real, it is strange how no one seems to have first hand eyewitness experience of the case (the nearest you can get is “I know personally someone who saw a woman like that”) despite the poor woman toured apparently around wide regions of Finland keeping high public profile.

Anyway I don’t see this as special enough for real curiosity value, and the book is not even Oksanen’s breakthrough novel or otherwise too significant. Her later work Puhdistus felt a bit better, but I have to admit I’m not really impressed by her writings overall and I am kind of ashamed as I’ve over ten years ago suggested her to some foreign person as a Finnish author to read – not because I’d liked it myself, as I had not yet read any of her stuff, but as she was at the time become notable and praised author in Finland. Never praise something you don’t have first hand experience of.

Somebody might not be happy for me to dislike this Oksanen’s book, but on the other hand I doubt many of such people will ever encounter to read this text. Therefore overall the theory would seem to work again – Stalin’s cows did not feel like worth reading overall, likewise it did not reach a class in any of the four specified types. Some steps towards, but only partially.

Still, I do admit that my classification interpretation is quite subjective for several parts. Someone might feel plots differently, for someone knowledge in whatever strikes to a whole different level, for someone the curiosity might fit a very personal meta level and for someone language’s beautiness is depicted with all different words and so on. Another issue is that the Oksanen’s book could be argued to have certain virtue of delivering ideology. However, delivering any ideology, intentional or not, is not a good thing as I find it propaganda and all known -isms are by default dangerous if gotten strong enough. If brought sufficiently strongly of course, that might make it worth a curiosity akin to Main Kampf, which I’m expecting to have no other value really. Make no mistake though, there is nothing akin to that in this discourse in any book referred to, alas, it is a question of a theory.