In case anyone doesn't know the story, it's essentially about a haunted BBC Micro, first time I've heard about it, watched it last night and was rivited, I'm now going to have to find the docu/drama about it
Been around I.T. since the Beeb was born, maybe you've seen me around
This has come up on here a few times. Am pretty sure it was debunked - an analysis of the messages on the Beeb showed they were very similar in style to a book written by the guy (Ken?) who claimed to have found them.
This will seem like an odd request but I make it in all seriousness, and would appreciate feedback from users of BBC Micro and RTTY technology of the 1984-85 era.
You may have heard of the "Dodleston Messages" - there are many YouTube videos on the topic if you want an overview. Essentially, a couple living in Dodleston (close to Chester UK) in 1984/85 started receiving messages from a 16-th century owner of the land, and later also from an entity apparently from 2109 which seemed to be orchestrating the communications. The messages were left in files on EDWORD, on BBC Micro computers borrowed from a school. Experiments were undertaken to isolate the computer, investigate its components etc. but no final report was issued by the investigators. The story is documented in the book "The Vertical Plane", by Ken Webster.
The EDWORD messages were mainly in 16th century English, and in poorly spelled and sometimes garbled text from 2109. Two messages apparently from 2109 stand out to me as potentially containing artefacts of digital communications. The text strings were:
2109.
213,978,8]: IRRECOVERABLE
STATE: REASON FOR YOUR PRETEXT
STATE: WHAT ‘PREREQUISITE’ YOU INTEND
STATE: LOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR INTRUSIVE
BEHAVIOUR UPON 1985:THIS IS NOT YOUR CONCERN
REQUEST: COM. LINK 62]:PLOT. CHAN.[452.95]
REQUEST: ANSWER IMMEDIATELY:FED. AWAITING
REASONS FOR DELAY
and:
1 645.439574.57.3744
2109 RTF
I'd be grateful for your thoughts on this. Do these strings suggest any mechanism for how the text ended up in EDWORD files on the BBC Micro? RTTY technology has been suggested - could be completely wrong.
I rather suspect the cats had something to do with it. Everybody familiar with cats know that when they've been up to no good, they try to pretend that everything is absolutely normal and that "what you are about to discover really has absolutely nothing to do with us".
They haven't realised, yet, that it was one of the infinite number of monkeys let loose on BBC Micros
Dave H.
Available: ARA II : ARA III-JR/PR : ABR : AP5 : AP6 : ABE : ATI : MGC : Plus 1 Support ROM : Plus 3 2nd DA : Prime's Plus 3 ROM/RAM : Pegasus 400 : Prime's MRB : ARCIN32 : Cross-32
