[HN Gopher] An online archive of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead
___________________________________________________________________
An online archive of Agrippa: A Book of the Dead
Author : benbreen
Score : 71 points
Date : 2023-02-24 14:27 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (agrippa.english.ucsb.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (agrippa.english.ucsb.edu)
| pringk02 wrote:
| Fascinating. Despite being a Gibson fan I didn't know about this
| poem or its distribution, nor that he had this kind of technical
| know-how -- though I don't find myself surprised
| vidarh wrote:
| I never saw the real thing, but copies of it were all over the
| now (fittingly) long gone BBS's I was using at the time. I
| don't think Gibson did the distribution. The artists book at
| least was done by Dennis Ashbaugh[1] and he might have been
| behind the software as well? The concept apparently came from
| the publisher, Kevin Begos Jr.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ashbaugh
| WilTimSon wrote:
| I guess it tracks with him being able to write intricate and
| detailed sci-fi, the man knew what he was talking about.
| There's a reason he's still revered as one of the greatest
| examples of the genre.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Another bit of recommended Gibson ephemera, if you haven't seen
| it already, is the documentary No Maps for these
| Territories[1], which certainly had lots of biographical
| details I didn't know about.
|
| 1: https://archive.org/details/NoMapsForTheseTerritories
| ncr100 wrote:
| Yay art! (Albeit hugged close to death, this morning)
|
| Story:
|
| I owned a 20MB hard drive, attached to the side of my Amiga 1200,
| in the 1990's. Internet was a discrete, dial-up experience. One
| morning the drive clanged unnaturally loudly. And the shaky desk
| on which I computed transmitted a strong thud force. My HD had
| decided to slam its head into its cylinder spindle. I believed I
| would lose all my work. I backed it up, and later Maxtor honored
| its warranty, ultimately restoring my precious files.
|
| Gibson's poetry experience reminds me of this moment - all my
| special data being threatened to go, "poof!"
|
| (link to his full poem:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190322065716/http://www.willia...)
| vidarh wrote:
| When my first HD for my Amiga refused to spin up one day (an
| A590 with whatever brand of drive was inside it; I can't
| recall), I ended up opening it up, and manually "helping" the
| motor. Once it had spun up, I was able to access the files
| again. I meticulously backed everything up (to floppies... it
| was only a 20MB drive as well), but could not afford a
| replacement at that moment. I was able to keep using the drive
| for another 6 months at least before I replaced it. Every time
| I cold-started the machine I would have to open the enclosure
| and help spin it up with my fingers... (of course being _very_
| careful about backing up anything essential regularly).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-02-26 23:01 UTC)