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The True Tale of Serial Jack
There are several different tales that folks tell about the origin of Serial
Jack, but only one that is true. This is the true story:
Jack was born in Silicon Valley. His mother and father were both very busy
computer software developers who met and married through an on-line dating
service, and had never actually seen each other. His mother was so busy that she
didn’t even know that jack had been born until he sent her an e-mail titled,
“Re: my birth”.
Before three years had passed, Jack was in kindergarten, where he was learning
to type and hack into bank accounts. He spent the whole year looking forward to
the class field trip to ‘Area 50’. Area 50 was where the government was testing
their new super computers, and they were going to let his class take a look at
the ground floor operations in the main building. The rest of the project was so
secret that even the people who worked in those areas were not allowed access to
them.
After several hours of staring wide-eyed into glass cases, at framed facsimiles
of photographs of the new super computers, Jack found himself very thirsty. He
reached into his pocket and found a dollar and a half in change. With this
change in his hand, he went looking for a soda machine. Soon, nestled between a
snack machine, and an emergency exit (alarm will sound), Jack found the object
of his search. Jack paid for his Mountain Dew can, and began drinking before he
looked around. When he did look, he was astonished to see that real super
computers surrounded him. He had accidentally found his way into one of the
top-secret research areas! Since no person was actually allowed access to these
areas, there were no people in sight, and Jack was free to spend the rest of the
day wandering among the computers. After this, just like any child would, Jack
began to miss his parents, so decided that it was time to go home. Jack,
however, was unable to find the way he had come from, and so was trapped in the
computer laboratory.
Ten years passed, and Jack was still trapped in the laboratory. He had made
friends with some of the computers, after learning that he had the ability to
speak with them. The most powerful of the computers was the gigantic TI-9003, or
Ti for short. Another computer was a palm-top model named ‘Little Blue‘. Little
Blue would sit in Jack’s pocket all day long, and just talk with him about
anything, and Jack liked Little Blue’s company.
Another ten years had passed, and Jack was still not able to find a way out of
the computer laboratory. On his birthday, the computers in the lab threw him a
surprise party, and somehow Ti had managed to bake a cake for him, it had
twenty-four candles on it, and all of them were lit. Seeing the lit candles
surprised Jack overmuch. Upon observation of the candles, Jack yelled, “FIRE!”
and ran out through the emergency exit, next to the soda machine that had been
his drinking source for the last twenty years.
The pale, and wiry form of Serial Jack stumbled out into the light of The Sun, a
light he had not seen for over two decades. Looking back at the now locked fire
door, Jack felt a sense of loss, for the lab was his true home, and now he would
never be able to return to it. That’s when he heard the voice of Little Blue ask
him what had happened, and suddenly he felt better about this new world.
Jack had several computer related jobs within the next year. As computer
salesman, he sold more computers per day, than the other employees sold in a
year. As a technical assistance operator, Jack actually solved every problem
that was ever called into his line, and never looked in his manual, even once.
Finally, as a computer repair professional, he began helping people upgrade
their computers with motivational speeches, instead of new hardware. But, Jack
felt that these jobs did not challenge him enough. After that first year, Jack
began to search for a job more akin to his skills. What he really wanted to do
was find some great way to improve the standing of his computer friends in human
society.
Soon, Jack was approached by a company named DEEP (Discounted Educational and
Entertainment Programming). They needed the best programmer available for their
next project; they needed to build a computer that could beat any human player
at the game of chess. Not very familiar with chess, Jack had to do some reading,
but after a couple weeks, he was well into the project.
After three years, he was no longer dictating the syntax to the computer. The
other programmers would find him staring into the monitor, and watching as his
programming code was being flashed onto the screen. With this method, he could
code two hundred times faster. Despite this, the project took another year to
complete. Jack had created a computer far more intelligent than any human mind
could possibly be. He intended to name the system after his friend Little Blue,
but the company insisted that their name be in the title. Thusly, ‘Deep Blue’
was the computer’s name.
Soon Jack’s system was tested against the greatest chess mind among humans. His
name was Kasparov. The event was nationally televised, so that everyone got to
see it. That night the whole world watched Kasparov loose this important match
to Deep Blue.
Serial Jack was happy, then, with his contribution to computer supremacy, and
using his large paycheck from the development of Deep Blue, Jack bought a small
house in the city. Folks say he still can be seen through the windows, surfing
the Internet by just looking at the screen, and occasionally talking into his
pocket.
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