Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 TAG: 9403210166
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But since I met BEV, it's something new: It's the Bane of my Existence; the Speedbump on my Super Highway.
Speedbump? Heck. One month after meeting BEV, also known as the Blacksburg Electronic Village, I'm not even on the on-ramp.
My boyfriend and I joined the Electronic Village together - partly as a route to more quality time, but mostly because we share a computer.
When he calls me now, our conversation lapses into this weird code that lies somewhere between technological pig Latin and the complaints of an arthritic older woman.
"There's something wrong with our init string," he groaned that first week. There were more ailments to come, ailments that needed a medicine man with bona fide computer know-how.
We invited our friend Keith over to make the diagnosis. "I think there's a problem with your slip," he told us. The horror!
A slip, for the quasi-computer literate among you, opens a channel for your computer to speak to another computer. It can be the gateway for Internet and other systems. It makes things easy by bypassing the complicated language and commands of computers - if it works. If it doesn't ...
My boyfriend spent the next day on the phone with people from the computing center. And the next. He's still speaking to them, trying to get some answers. From our modem, sitting on the desk with its shining red lights: silence.
We invited Keith over again, for burritos and then for meatloaf. We're running out of recipes. But we have another diagnosis. "There's a problem with your script, I think," Keith said.
It seemed like progress. Admitting you have a problem, and knowing what that problem is - isn't that supposed to be the first step to a cure? We called the Electronic Village People, hoping for a rewrite.
"You may need to write a new script," they said.
I am from the school of computer users who like to know a little about what's going on. I am not from the school of computer users who will always understand it. I'm not ready to go into foreign territory alone.
It's like French. You speak it and you think you're communicating. But from the funny way they're looking at you, you're not sure if you asked directions to the nearest restroom or horse, s'il vous plait.
Friends are finding similar frustrations.
"How's it going with BEV?" one asked when we met for darts last week. I made a faint hacking sound. She nodded. She's known BEV much longer than I have.
"Your frustrations are only beginning," she said.
I made a louder hacking sound.
I'm still smitten with the computer age - and by the idea that Blacksburg will one day be hooked together by fiberoptics and other communications wiring. I thought I was ready to order a pizza by e-mail, or peruse the works of Shakespeare on-line.
But BEV - sometimes she's not so friendly.
So far in the Electronic Village, I've found only dead-end streets and cul de sacs.
I'm not looking for a short cut or a career in computer science. I just want a way to get there from here.
Madelyn Rosenberg is the Roanoke Times & World-News' assistant New River editor.
by CNB