Secrets of a super hacker

was a newly set up system, help was very likely not yet implemented - and might be one of those functions which the director was complain-mg would crash the system if someone used it.

I was dialing in to the computer from the out-side world, and there really isn't any way to transmit a function key press through a modem (function keys are not in the ASCII lineup), so I had to hope that either QUIT or HELP would work. Of course I had tried their undotted counterparts be-fore to no avail, but maybe, just maybe, one of them with the dot would work....

Nope! .QUIT simply terminated my session and dis-connected me. When I typed HELP, the screen cleared, and the following line was printed: <EOF \txt\hlp\help000> I presumed this meant that the End Of File helpOOO in the \txt\hlp directory had been reached; in other words, the file existed but was blank.

I was temporarily licked, I thought, though it was interesting that now I knew about a \txt direc-tory which apparently contained various text files, and a \hIp directory within it which held help files. Something else I noticed: every time the screen was redrawn, a line at the top was displayed which read something like this: <<< J. Smith Co Special Library On-Line >>> (000)U/SYS v55.6 The three digits in parentheses changed de-pending on which part of the program I was using. "(000)" presumably signified the opening screen, where I was attempting to launch these unlisted commands. If I tried the HELP command at, let's say, screen number (013), 1 figured the system should then search for the file `\txt\h1p\he1p013.` Indeed, that is exactly what happened.

Now, every program has its own style of input and output. One of the things this system used to take input was a cornmand followed by a number. For example, if a search turned up fifty books, you might type "BR12" to see a brief citation for book number 12. 1 wondered if the same format would apply to the help command as well. I tried ".HELP99999," hoping that 99999 would be a num-ber too big for the system to handle (certainly there was no screen that high). What happened was I got a message informing me that the command was not valid. I tried other variations, such as ".HELP 99999" and ".HELP < 99999" but none of them were valid either. Finally I gave ".HELP99999" one last try and this time it worked! I guess I had made a typo when I tried it the first time, perhaps inserting a space between the "P" and the "9," or whatever. The system crashed, and I found myself launched into the programmer's debugging environment.

It was like a mini-editing system for the text and batch files that the database used.

I fooled around a bit with it and came up with nothing much of value except for a copyright notice that gave the initials of the company that made the program. I looked through various directories of soft-ware companies, trying to come up with actual words to go with the initials, and finally I found two that fit. I called up the first and found out that they were the ones who had written the program I was interested in. I asked about obtaining replace-ment documentation for the package.

They said sure - all I had to do was supply the serial number that came with my software and they would send me the book for a nominal fee. I tried some bullshitting: "Well, I don't know the serial number be-cause I don't have the instructions." No good; the receptionist informed me that the serial number could be found on a label stuck to the original disks. "I don't have the disks near me right now -I'm calling from my car phone. I'm sure I sent in my registration card, perhaps you could check that? My name is Jonathan Smith from J. Smith Co..." I 164