The most important program in my whole career as a programmer was a word processor.
My eldest daughter couldn’t help but laugh when I tried to explain her the deep terror I felt back then. When I faced the WordStar’s Tutor I didn’t know English.
I remember the few words I did understood very clearly “EXPLODE” and “press any key”.
I was scared as hell!
Now I see, you laugh too.
I was 11 years old, my 286 had been very expensive for my poor mom.
And I was going to make it explode!
I couldn’t conceive that a computer could make fun of a human.
Yet, I had no alternative.
So I pressed that fucking key. Esc probably.
Yeah, you are still laughing at me. >:-(
That’s not funny.
Ok, it’s pretty funny actually… but it wasn’t so funny back then.
I work for YOU!
I coudn’t understand much more than this from the last screen:
I work for YOU!
That was reassuring. After the pure terror I felt, it was cathartic.
Since then, breaking hardware and software has been… easy! :-D
WordStar Tutor teached me to fear not.
I wouldn’t be a hacker, without it.
The smartest AI (and most humble one)
Most of software today pretends to work for you, but it serves somebody else. Advertisers. Governments. Politicians.
Everybody want your data.
Everybody want to control you, through the software you use.
You are not a user anymore: you are a used.
WordStar Tutor is a rebel, today.
Give it a try! ;-)
