)( A Bridge over Troubled Waters Presentation )(It all started one day while I was sitting at my desk, comtemplating theload of Lotus support utilities which had been sent to me for review. I waswondering what a "spreadsheet compiler" was when the phone ring. "Mr. Spector," said the woman's voice on the other end. "I've got a hottip for you. If you can come here right away, I can giv you the biggestnews story of the year." "Where are you?" I asked. "On the telephone," she answered before hanging up. Interesting. In response to a perfectly reasonable question, she hadgiven me an answer that was 100% correct but totally useless. I figured sheworked for IBM. I got there as fast as I could. A security guard asked me foridentification and I handed him my card. He glanced at it, and suddenlypulled his gun on me while pressing a button. An alarm sounded as a voicecame over the PA system, "Press infiltration. Repeat: Press infiltration.Destroy all uncoded data." Before I knew it, three additional guards had me covered. At thispoint, I did the only thing a man of my temperament could do in thisposition; I fainted. When I came to, I was in a nicely appointed office, apparently unhurt.A professional-looking young woman was putting away a bottle of smellingsalts. "I apologize about that reception you received," she said. "Thefolks in Security sometimes lose their heads about the press. They neverchecked to see that you had been okayed. "I'm the woman who called you," she continued as she extended her hand,"my name's Edna Purvience. Mr Spector, IBM has decided that, of all thejournalists specialized in computers, your writing style best suits ourcorporate policy. You have therefore been selected for the major scoopeveryone has been waiting for." "The Clone Killer?" I asked eagerly. "We prefer calling it 'copy protection'," she corrected me. "In fact,our original design, the IBM PC QT, required the end-user to insert aspecial uncopyable key chip in order to boot up." She smiled. "For addedprotection, the licensing agreement forbade altering the motherboard oradding any peripherals to the system." "You mention the QT in past tense," I commented. "What happened to it?" "The copy-protection proved faulty. We were on our second month ofbeta-testing when someone released a product called COPYAPC." "Sounds like your competitors were on the ball." "Mr. Spector, IBM doesn't have competitors, only usurpers." "Sorry," I apoligized, sufficiently rebuffed. "So if the QT wasdropped, what are you releasing?" "A machine that will never be copied, the computer of tomorrow." Shehanded me a brochure. "Meet the IBM PC MT! Due out in three months. "Our studies have shown," she continued as I thumbed through thebrochure, "that the proliferation of expansion cards for the original PCand its followers have encouraged the imitations we are trying to stop. Nosuch boards will be necessary therefore for the MT. The motherboard willinclude graphics, ports, and a modem, all basted on new standards ofcourse, plus three megabytes of RAM." "Three megabytes of RAM?" That impressed me. "Of course, our new Predatory Operating System will only address 256k,but we'll find a use for the rest." "New operating system?" I asked. "Then you're not going to be usingADOS?" "Current estimates are that fully five perfect of existing programswill work on ADOS. We are not interested in compatability." "So what new programs will work with the new system?" "Nothing at the present time, but we should have some software out bylate next year. The MT's ROM BIOS, of course, will only accepted programswith our copy-righted code." "Of course. How fast will this computer be?" "We're locking it down to 6 MHz. We're figuring that if we allow it torun faster, other companies will be tempted to duplicate it." "Let me get this straight," I said. "You're releasing a computer thatcannot be expanded, is not compatable with anything, can only run yoursoftware - which isn't even out yet - and runs at half the speed of otherson the market?" "That's correct!" she said proudly. "We figure that way no one islikely to clone it." "Yes, but will they buy it?" I asked. "Of course they'll buy it." she said. "It's IBM."----Lincoln Spector is employed in the Technical Support Department of800-Software in Berkeley, California. "Behind the Blue Door" was reprintedfrom the March 24-April 6 1987 edition of Computer Currents magazinewithout permission. Typed in by Rocky Racoon of A Bridge over TroubledWaters Presentations.[] The Dark Side AE/BBS.. 408/245-SPAM, 3/12/24, 45 megs. Located in SouthSunnyvale, California Sysops: S Bunker and Someone Else:)(: