You Can’t Get There From Here (A Paranoia) (1984)

©1984 by Dallas Denny

Source: Dallas Denny. (1984). You can’t get there from here: A BASIC paranoia. Unpublished poem.

The following will make sense to those with some knowledge of computer programing language, but most smart people without programming experience should be able to figure it out.

 

 

 

You Can’t Get There From Here

A BASIC Paranoia by Dallas Denny

 

100 GOSUB 10000

 

110 REM Well, it hasn’t happened yet.

120 REM They roll out of the factories

130 REM Sit in the back of semi trucks

140 REM Stare at us from the shelves of discount stores

150 REM Millions of us are using them for

160 FORK= 1 TO 5:READ K$:PRINT K$;”, ”;:NEXT:READ K$:PRINT K$“.”

170 REM We’ve learned terms like

180 FORK= 1 TO 8:READ K$:PRINT K$;”, ”;:NEXT:READ K$:PRINT K$”.”

190 REM But change our way of thinking?

200 REM Ridiculous!

210 REM How could they possibly

220 REM Do that… do that… do that!

 

230 GOSUB10000

240 GOT0310

300 REM There

310 END

 

10000 REM They said the beastly machines would change

the way we think.

10010 REM They said our thinking would become rigid and

mechanistic

10020 REM Like machines.

10030 RETURN

 

50000 DATA playing our games, processing our words, educating our children, keeping our records, and paying our bills

 

60010 DATA keyboard buffer, RS232C port, handshaking, mass storage, workalike, kernal, word-wrap, and interface