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52 lines
2.3 KiB
Plaintext
52 lines
2.3 KiB
Plaintext
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What are Hermes Sysops?
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November 1, 2001
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.................................................
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Several years ago, Oliver Katigbak posted a message on HERMES_SYSOPS
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in which he asked "What are Hermes sysops?" Although I've updated my
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response just a tad for this reposting, it went something like this:
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It's interesting that you should ask this in the HERMES_SYSOPS echo,
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Oliver, but not surprising since the "Hermes sysop" is rarely sighted
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these days. Such a creature is a member of a vanishing, but tenacious
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breed known more generically as a "Mac sysop," itself an obscure
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offshoot the larger, but also diminishing family that is most commonly
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labeled "sysop."
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Probably one of the most distinguishing qualities of any of these
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creatures is their elusiveness. Rarely sighted, they exist mainly as
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phantoms, lurking and perhaps even smirking, somewhere in the
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pre-virtual community of the command line interface and occasionally
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in a domain known as FidoNet. Even as their numbers have dwindled, a
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feisty few still persist, but their existance becomes increasingly
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barren with each passing day.
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So few outworlders today even possess the knowledge of how to pass
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through the terminal gateway into their pre-virtual universe that
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their eventual obscurity is more than virtually assured, it is a
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certainty. These shapeless, genderless and most often faceless
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creatures will soon vanish altogether, but perhaps fate has smiled on
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them nonetheless. Their passing will be a silent and painless one, for
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even as they wander, their terminals are shrouded in darkness and they
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still seem unable to read the handwriting on the walls that surround
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them.
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So they continue lurking, smirking and occasionally emerging, still
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mercifully oblivious that reality is encroaching, that it has already
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enveloped them, and will ultimately swallow completely their shrinking
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pre-virtual, terminal universe with the elusive command line
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interface.
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One day soon as the last one succumbs to time and slips peacefully
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into the void of the nothing, only their legacy will remain. Believe
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me, that day is nearer than ever, but the story is not yet over. If
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you look hard enough you may still detect a few flickering candles in
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the night. If you're really, really lucky, one of our smiley faces
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might even yet peer back at you.
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But hurry. Time is short.
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Walter Bowen
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:-)
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