Just *finish* it already!!

[Uther_Pendragon]

The FIRST TWO erotic stories I started are unfinished.
I wrote two chapters of a looong story on my old computer
(incompatible with DOS, let alone Windows) wrote another
chapter of another, and quite nasty, story on my newer
computer. Got an Internet connection and discovered
alt.sex.stories. The nastiness of many of the stories
freed me. I was never going to shock the people on Usenet
the shocking had been done; so I wrote something designed
to arouse rather than to shock.
|
I'm on another, similar, discussion group (alt.sex.stories.d)
where the nickname for our storhouses of unfinished tales
is "the hopper." I'm one of the starring members of "The
Big Hopper Club."
|
I walk away from the story if it isn't going anywhere.
Sometimes I come back; sometimes I don't. (Except for the
first one, whose format I can no longer read) I keep them
on the hard drive just in case.

 

[oggbashan]

I wrote my first "erotic" story on a CP/M machine using an early form of Wordstar. It was never finished.

I started up the old machine about a year ago, converted the story to a .asc file and saved it to a five and a quarter floppy. Then I put the floppy into my IBM XT, started the CP/M to DOS conversion software, saved it to the XT's 20mb hard drive, transferred it to a IBM formatted floppy, started up my 386 with five and a quarter and three and a half floppy drives, transferred the file to a three and a half floppy, started up my Windows 98SE machine, renamed the file with a .txt ending and imported it into Word97.

Then I found out why I had never finished it. It was crap and not really erotic at all, even by my standards.

During the conversions the file size had grown from 22k to 258k. Printed, it was 35 A4 pages but the sex occupied about a quarter of a page.

The conversion had taken a whole working day, covered the whole kitchen's worktops with hardware, and produced nothing worth reading.

Og

PS. I should have bought Laplink.

 

[Guest]

Ogg, now I get your tagline.

laughing with affection,

Perdita

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I've had the Protect and Serve series unfinished for about a year now. However, I got a feedback email that made me realize that there are some people who want the end of the story damnit. I'm trying to finish it this weekend...but it's difficult. I kind of wish I could go back a chapter and rewrite the ending (yeah, I could, but I'm just going to deal with it).

 

[Icingsugar]

I wrote my first "erotic" story on a CP/M machine using an early form of Wordstar. It was never finished.

Oh boy, those were the days. Yeah, I know. At 26, I'm still just a little squirt. But at least I've too had my chores with Wordstar back in the 80's. I did my homework on some odd japanese computer with CP/M and MS Basic, and all my friends thought I was cool because I could play weird japanese arcade games on it.

The next week it was having a moped that was cool. And I didn't have one.

Printed, it was 35 A4 pages but the sex occupied about a quarter of a page.

Isn't that what they call suspense?

 

[Guest]

Isn't that what they call suspense?

Not in my book(s), Sugar.

sweetly, Perdita

 

[ffreak]

Nice AV, Icing! You should get lots of requests for a piece.

 

[Guest]

Nice AV, Icing! You should get lots of requests for a piece.

I'll just lick. Slowly.

very nice, Ice.

Perdita

 

[oggbashan]

Oh boy, those were the days. Yeah, I know. At 26, I'm still just a little squirt. But at least I've too had my chores with Wordstar back in the 80's. I did my homework on some odd japanese computer with CP/M and MS Basic, and all my friends thought I was cool because I could play weird japanese arcade games on it.

My first computer was an IBM mainframe that only worked with punched cards. I had 25 staff to help me feed it.

I remember patching the programs with an 8 bit series of switches on the side of the CPU which was about 6 feet high and wide and 3 feet deep. Only had 1.4k of memory.

Every other day the card punch machine used to catch fire from the dust made by punching out the chads. I used 3 Co2 extinguishers a month putting the fire out or cooling the machine down so it didn't catch fire.

Replacing damaged cards on a hand punch was a tedious job. I still have my programming course notes which I didn't use for long because it was more efficient to program in machine code.

The computer was junked in 1969 but by then I'd moved on to management so I didn't need to learn the machine code for its replacement.

Even then we could play checkers with it. The piece de resistance was getting it to play "Rule Britannia" by induction into the speaker of a switched off radio placed on the CPU. That had been programmed by IBM for us to impress visiting big-wigs.

Og

 

[Guest]

The piece de resistance was getting it to play "Rule Britannia" by induction into the speaker of a switched off radio placed on the CPU. That had been programmed by IBM for us to impress visiting big-wigs.

Brit-wit just cracks me up. LOL,

Perdita

 

[MathGirl]

Ah, the good old days

I learned to type and WP on a hand me down Commodore 64 running a plug-in word processor called "Quick Brown Fox" by Brown Bag Software. The storage medium was a tape player using standard audio casettes. The computer (and I use the term very loosely) had passed through the hands of several heavy handed cousins before I got it. Worked, though.

I kept the old C-64 for curiosity value. It used a language called "Commodore Basic" which seems to have gone the way of Attic Greek. No, not as spoken under the eaves.
MG

 

[SlickTony]

Lordamercy. The first word processing I ever learned was Wordstar back in 1984 and I remember how hot I thought it was back then. I understand there still exists a WordStar for Windows, but who on earth uses it? Probably the kind of people that restore maverick cars.

 

[ffreak]

Hey, I still have a Radio Shack Model 2 with Scripsit.

Anyone interested in a cheap old computer? If you'll pay the shipping I'll give you $5 to take it off my hands.

please - anyone - besides it hurts sitting on my hands

 

[SlickTony]

Oh, my God, I'd forgotten about Scripsit!

 

[Icingsugar]

My first computer was an IBM mainframe that only worked with punched cards. I had 25 staff to help me feed it.

I remember patching the programs with an 8 bit series of switches on the side of the CPU which was about 6 feet high and wide and 3 feet deep. Only had 1.4k of memory.

Every other day the card punch machine used to catch fire from the dust made by punching out the chads. I used 3 Co2 extinguishers a month putting the fire out or cooling the machine down so it didn't catch fire.

Replacing damaged cards on a hand punch was a tedious job. I still have my programming course notes which I didn't use for long because it was more efficient to program in machine code.

The computer was junked in 1969 but by then I'd moved on to management so I didn't need to learn the machine code for its replacement.

Even then we could play checkers with it. The piece de resistance was getting it to play "Rule Britannia" by induction into the speaker of a switched off radio placed on the CPU. That had been programmed by IBM for us to impress visiting big-wigs.

Og

And now you sell books. Good choice.

 

[ffreak]

I once saw a set of punched cards bound as a book (sys 3 - the little ones with the pin-holes). The holes were arranged so they could be flipped and you could 'see' a mouth kiss, then say oh. Maybe it was in Ogg's store.

There are classics in every field.
(behind every bush, under the bed, in the closet...)

 

[SlickTony]

Scripsit

In fact, considering the antediluvian attitude of my employers, I should count myself damn lucky I'm not using it.

 

[MathGirl]

Harumph!

Originally posted by SlickTony Probably the kind of people that restore maverick cars.

Dear ST,
Hey, watch it. I have a 50 year old MG.
MG (No, not the car)

 

[The_Fool]

Re: Harumph!

Dear ST,
Hey, watch it. I have a 50 year old MG.
MG (No, not the car)

What do you have, an MGA?

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Harumph!

What do you have, an MGA?

TD
MG

 

[SlickTony]

My dad was into Studebakers, and perpetual car trouble looms large among my childhood memories.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I learned FORTRAN and COBOL using those IBM punchcards. My dad sold computer software, and when he went on sales calls he took these six-foot long briefcases with him where the cards (the program) were stacked. Huge technology upgrade in the late 70's when he got a disk (roughly the shape and weight of a spare tire) that replaced all the cards.
--Zack

P.S. Mine's a Fiat Spyder convertible, and I only consider it restored when it starts in the morning ....

 

[SlickTony]

Yeah, I remember those disks. If we're talking about the same thing, they're actually bigger than 33 records, aren't they? I didn't ever work with them--by the time I laid eyes on one, they were being mounted up on the wall in engineering departments with satirical titles, as if they were record albums--examples of engineer humor.

At my first job in America, I worked for an oil tool company that used a computer with punchcards. And it had a non-QWERTY keyboard, too.

 

[Reshbod]

I currently have two stories in various stages of completion. One just needs some final cleaning up and editing. The second I cannot come up with a good opening. I keep reading it and looking it over but just cannot get it to work. Aaarggghhh, I think I'll just go back to veging infront on the boob tube.

 

[Seattle Zack]

This thing was actually eight discs -- each a little larger than 33 1/3 albums -- stacked on each other with spacers in between. It had a huge metal handle on the top and probably weighed at least fifty pounds. I don't know the size of it, but I'm sure it was ridiculously small by today's standards. He had sold a version of the program to some arm of the Pentagon, so when he flew he had to purchase a seat for the damn thing, wasn't allowed to check it or store it out of his sight on the plane.