Fic: A Compleat History of Computers
TITLE: A Compleat History of Computers, according to Chris Skelton
AUTHOR: Andromeda and Fionnabair
FANDOM: Life on Mars
RATING: Gen, Green Cortina
WORD COUNT: 2,540 words
EMAIL: fiandyfic@livejournal.com
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the 2007 Ficathon. For neuralclone. The prompts were Chris as Sam's protégé, computers, 'the future?' We also took into account of wiccagal_1996's recent comments and wrote about someone other than Sam! Set post-2.08.
DISCLAIMER: Life on Mars is copyright Kudos and the BBC. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
A Compleat History of Computers, according to Chris Skelton
1973
The Boss sometimes said the strangest things. Especially when he was tired, stressed or pissed. At that particular moment, Chris realised, his DI was all three. They had been searching through the archives for hours in pursuit of one particular file. It hadn't been where it was supposed to be, which was fairly normal for the collators' den, and so the hunt had begun.
At about hour three, the bottle of scotch had come out. Sam had waved it, and two paper cups, at Chris. "Lateral thinking!" he exclaimed, and poured them both a significant measure. Chris, conscientious as always, had only sipped at his, mindful of the fact that whisky got him very drunk very quickly. Even so, four hours later, the level in the bottle was hovering somewhere around half-full.
Sam slumped in one of the spindly wooden chairs gathered around the central table and buried his head in his arms. He gave a heartfelt sigh before raising it again, staring at Chris with bleary eyes.
"You know, this is supposed to be easy. Go the archive, pull out the file, cross-reference it to the current case, find who has been abducting these teenagers and then bang him up. Easy."
Chris made a conciliatory noise, but Sam carried on.
"Instead, we're trawling through acres of paperwork, most of which is filed in no discernable order, all covered in acres of dust, trying to find a file that should've been just 'there'." He waved to a shelf near the door.
"We'll find it," Chris ventured.
"You know, where I come from…"
In Hyde, Chris's brain helpfully supplied, though he didn't vocalise the thought. It was pretty clear that the Boss came from somewhere much further away than the outskirts of Manchester.
"Where I come from, we have these wonderful machines. Computers. And with the click of a couple of buttons I would've been able to not only call up the record and find the paper file, but someone would've scanned it in and I'd've been able to get the information straight off the screen. No mucking about in dusty file rooms trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack."
"Computers can't do that, boss. They do things like put men on the moon. "
"You know, Chris, one day you'll be able to strap to your wrist more computing power than all the computers that put a man on the moon. Computers will be get that powerful and that small."
"What would you do with such a thing? It sounds daft. Would you be able to put yourself on the moon?"
Sam snorted. "No. I doubt it. At least, not in our lifetimes. You'll be able to tell the time in a hundred countries though. And use it as a stopwatch."
"Why would you want to be able to tell the time in a hundred countries at once?"
Sam looked puzzled for a moment. "Dunno, really. It's just cool, that's all."
"Sounds mad to me, boss. I mean, I know that it's half past three in New York at the moment, and I don't have a rocket's computer strapped to my wrist. They're five hours behind us. Dead easy." At a puzzled look he explained, "My Aunt Maud married an American and moved over there. We have to remember the time difference because she never does."
Sam's forehead creased. "It's just an example, there's lots of other, more useful things that computers will be able to do in the future. Like databases. Ease of extraction of information. Millions of bytes of information at your fingertips, everything cross-referenced and easily searchable. It'd make searching for this damn file so very easy." He sighed. "Mark my words, Chris, computers are the future. The future's bright, Chris. And it's orange," he added as an afterthought.
That perplexed Chris, but he ignored it manfully and steered the conversation back to the task at hand. "The file could be over there, boss. I seem to remember Phyllis saying that she'd put the recent files over in a box the other side of the door."
Sam levered himself out of the chair and drained his cup in one swift move. "Well, let's see. I really hope we find it soon."
1976
The kit had arrived in the post and Chris could hardly contain his excitement. It was going to be perfect.
Still, what with that serial killer in the spring and that spate of armed robberies in the summer, it took several months worth of free evenings tinkering in the garden shed before he managed to assemble the circuitry and fit the thing together.
But the day arrived and he hooked up the machine for the first time, fascinated by the way the ball moved around the screen. His own arcade game. In his living room!
It was with some trepidation he invited the others round for a night, and in the end he didn't mention the real reason for the gathering.
Which meant he was rather surprised when the Boss spotted the wooden console to the right of the television.
"Oh my God. It's Pong!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get it?"
Chris coughed. "I made it myself. From a kit, like."
The Boss tilted his head, looking very impressed. "Not bad. Not bad at all. You know this was the first home video game available. A legend in its lifetime."
Ray grimaced, "If Chris built it, I doubt it works, Boss."
Chris was rather stung by those words. "Of course it works. Here, I'll show you."
And he plugged the lead into the aerial, turning the machine on. The TV took a moment to warm up, but soon the display showed the customary black and white display.
"It's a two-man game, really," Chris explained. "Did you want to try it, Boss?"
The other man nodded eagerly, setting aside his bottle of beer and reaching down for the second controller. Chris was impressed, the Boss was good at this. Even with all the practice Chris had put in, under the guise of making sure all the connections worked, he beat him fairly quickly.
"You ever played this before, Boss?"
"A couple of times, yeah. But it was ages ago."
"Oh, you've played the arcades then?"
Sam looked confused for a moment, and Chris could see the mental gears changing.
"Yeah, the arcades, over at, um, Cleethorpes, I think. Good fun. Shit town though."
Ray snorted. "I suppose the Costa del Sol is more your bag, eh boss?"
Sam ignored him and nodded at the screen. "It's a cracking game, this."
"Well, it's not going to interest me, not unless it's got a pair of titties," the Guv drawled from his comfortable seat on the sofa.
"You know, Guv, one day they'll make games like that, just for you."
"Yeah, and one day someone will mistake you for a bloke, Gladys."
They played a few more games, interspersed with Chris getting more beer from the fridge. The Guv and Ray sat on the sofa, pretending not to watch and smoking their way through several packets of fags until the Boss started muttering about missing his "play station" and something called "Grand Theft Auto".
At that, the Guv stood up, hauling Sam up by the arm, and practically dragged him out of the house. "We'd better go, Gladys is getting all maudlin. I'll see you both at the station bright and early tomorrow." It was a command rather than a pleasantry, but as Chris got to the front door to see them out, the Guv turned round and said in a low voice, "Not bad, Chris, my boy. It's a nice piece of engineering, that."
Chris wasn't quite sure what to say to that, but he managed a stammered "Thanks, and goodnight," before closing the door and joining Ray back in the living room.
Ray didn't look like he was going to move in the foreseeable future and so Chris attempted to persuade him to a few games on the new machine. It wasn't as difficult as he thought.
1981
It took months of saving, and a lucky windfall, and the move to London helped some, but Chris finally had enough money to buy his first computer. It was small and sleek and looked very futuristic, with its black console and smooth grey keys. He'd been saving computing magazines for months, even years, learning BASIC and writing his own programmes out-long-hand, just waiting to try them out. And here it was, the Sinclair ZX-81.
He reverently opened the box, laying out each component on the table. Seeing the spread of electronic gadgetry made Chris smile as he remembered the first time he'd assembled something like this, the Pong machine back in Manchester. This was nowhere near as complicated, which was just as well really. He had access to a well-stocked shed back then. Now he had to make do with the kitchen table in the tiny flat he and his wife occupied.
Chris pulled out the last component from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table reverently. Here was the heart of the machine. An optional extra, he still couldn't do without the extra two kilobytes of memory that the chip represented. The assembly instructions assured him that he could build this in three hours and Helen wasn't due to get in for another four, so Chris was sure he had plenty of time to get started.
He picked up the soldering iron and studied the schematic carefully, it would make sense to assemble the flat-mounted resistors first. His forehead creased in concentration, he slowly brought the iron down, any slip of the hot point could be disastrous…
"Christopher James Skelton!"
Chris jerked suddenly at the interruption, almost dropping the soldering iron in his surprise. He leapt out of the chair and turned around to face the irate face of his wife.
"What have I said about using the kitchen table as a workbench without covering it properly first?" his wife scolded.
Chris looked back at the table, realising that he'd forgotten to put the plywood board on top. He looked down, abashed. "I'm sorry. I forgot again." Then he added, a little petulantly, "You startled me, I almost dropped the iron." He looked up again, realising it was still in his hand and he put it down, gently, on the table. "It would've burned a hole in the carpet and then what would the landlord say?"
"He'd probably bang on about us having to get a bigger place. What with three of us living here now."
Chris frowned. "Three of us?"
Helen broke into a huge smile as Chris looked up. A smile which was mirrored by him as he worked out exactly what she was saying. He moved forward and enfolded her in a tight embrace.
The circuitry lay abandoned as Chris held his wife and his as-yet-unborn child. He briefly wondered whether he would be allowed to call the baby "Clive", if it were a boy.
1994
The PC ran rather slowly when the modem was connected. Not for the first time, Chris wished he'd bought himself an Apple Mac. Certainly the reviews indicated that in performance, at least, the Mac was superior. But when going out to buy the machine he remembered something Sam Tyler had said to him, oh, many years ago now:
"Remember, Chris. Microsoft is where it's at. If you get a chance, buy all the shares you can."
Chris hadn't bought any shares. He was married with two small children, with an indication of a third on the way, and there hadn't been the money. Sometimes he wished that he'd managed to obtain at least a few. It would've made the prospect of sending three children to university a little less expensive.
Yes, Microsoft was where it was at, which meant that every office would be running Microsoft software by the time his children were working. And so he stuck with Windows in the conviction that it would at least give them some small advantage in their careers.
Chris tilted his chair back slightly, clicking on the 'retrieve email' icon and steeling himself for another lengthy wait.
Sam Tyler. There was a name he'd not thought of for a few years. Not really since Sam had taken early retirement from the Force, courtesy of a bullet to the back. Last he'd heard, Sam, Annie and the kids had emigrated to Australia. Something about sun, sea and surf. It was certainly warmer over there, but Chris didn't like the idea of spiders hiding under toilet seats. He did think about getting in touch, if there was anyone who would have an email address now, it would be nutty Sam Tyler. But he hadn't, perhaps he should.
Chris sighed, staring at the small egg-timer and wishing that the machine would run faster. Well, the rumours were Windows 95 would be out later in the year; perhaps he would treat the kids to a new machine. Surely the new operating system would be faster.
2006
"Once upon a time, I'd have called myself a pen-pusher," said Chief Superintendent Chris Skelton as he walked back into the office after lunch. "Now I'm a mouse-clicker."
His colleague laughed. "Only for two more days, Chris, and then you're off. Australia first, isn't it, and then a life of leisure?"
Chris nodded, sitting down at his desk and automatically hitting his keyboard and reaching for his mouse to check his email. "We're off to Australia to visit some friends - my old boss Sam Tyler and his wife Annie Cartwright. Never could get used to calling Cartwright Tyler, even though that's been her name for thirty years. Worked with her for too long. Sam retired on injury years ago, and Annie went with him."
"And now you're retiring too?"
Chris grinned. "About time. Nearly forty years a copper and Cyber-Crimes being taken over by SOCA seemed like a good time to go. Funny really, I owe most of my career to Sam Tyler. Seems like he knew about computers before anyone else. Anyway, with the kids all left home, nothing to stop us heading off to see a bit of the world."
Chris's mobile rang. "Hang on a second," he said and reached for it, automatically checking the display. The colleague nodded and headed out the door.
"Cartwright!" said Chris. "What, you're so desperate for me that you're calling me four days before I'll see you?"
"Chris?" said a curiously shaken voice.
He paused. "Hang on, it's two in the morning where you are. Annie? Is everything okay? It's not... oh shit."
He froze, staring at his screen as Annie Tyler broke the news to him. Even as she spoke, he could see the name Sam Tyler in front of him.
"Annie, love, I'm so sorry," he finally managed to say. "We'll be out in four days and will be able to help you then. Is there anything we can do now?"
And as Annie continued talking, he blinked at his screen and the email telling him of the about-to-be-seconded DCI in Manchester who had been hit by a car. The DCI who shared a name with his now-dead oldest friend.
fin
AUTHOR: Andromeda and Fionnabair
FANDOM: Life on Mars
RATING: Gen, Green Cortina
WORD COUNT: 2,540 words
EMAIL: fiandyfic@livejournal.com
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the 2007 Ficathon. For neuralclone. The prompts were Chris as Sam's protégé, computers, 'the future?' We also took into account of wiccagal_1996's recent comments and wrote about someone other than Sam! Set post-2.08.
DISCLAIMER: Life on Mars is copyright Kudos and the BBC. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
A Compleat History of Computers, according to Chris Skelton
1973
The Boss sometimes said the strangest things. Especially when he was tired, stressed or pissed. At that particular moment, Chris realised, his DI was all three. They had been searching through the archives for hours in pursuit of one particular file. It hadn't been where it was supposed to be, which was fairly normal for the collators' den, and so the hunt had begun.
At about hour three, the bottle of scotch had come out. Sam had waved it, and two paper cups, at Chris. "Lateral thinking!" he exclaimed, and poured them both a significant measure. Chris, conscientious as always, had only sipped at his, mindful of the fact that whisky got him very drunk very quickly. Even so, four hours later, the level in the bottle was hovering somewhere around half-full.
Sam slumped in one of the spindly wooden chairs gathered around the central table and buried his head in his arms. He gave a heartfelt sigh before raising it again, staring at Chris with bleary eyes.
"You know, this is supposed to be easy. Go the archive, pull out the file, cross-reference it to the current case, find who has been abducting these teenagers and then bang him up. Easy."
Chris made a conciliatory noise, but Sam carried on.
"Instead, we're trawling through acres of paperwork, most of which is filed in no discernable order, all covered in acres of dust, trying to find a file that should've been just 'there'." He waved to a shelf near the door.
"We'll find it," Chris ventured.
"You know, where I come from…"
In Hyde, Chris's brain helpfully supplied, though he didn't vocalise the thought. It was pretty clear that the Boss came from somewhere much further away than the outskirts of Manchester.
"Where I come from, we have these wonderful machines. Computers. And with the click of a couple of buttons I would've been able to not only call up the record and find the paper file, but someone would've scanned it in and I'd've been able to get the information straight off the screen. No mucking about in dusty file rooms trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack."
"Computers can't do that, boss. They do things like put men on the moon. "
"You know, Chris, one day you'll be able to strap to your wrist more computing power than all the computers that put a man on the moon. Computers will be get that powerful and that small."
"What would you do with such a thing? It sounds daft. Would you be able to put yourself on the moon?"
Sam snorted. "No. I doubt it. At least, not in our lifetimes. You'll be able to tell the time in a hundred countries though. And use it as a stopwatch."
"Why would you want to be able to tell the time in a hundred countries at once?"
Sam looked puzzled for a moment. "Dunno, really. It's just cool, that's all."
"Sounds mad to me, boss. I mean, I know that it's half past three in New York at the moment, and I don't have a rocket's computer strapped to my wrist. They're five hours behind us. Dead easy." At a puzzled look he explained, "My Aunt Maud married an American and moved over there. We have to remember the time difference because she never does."
Sam's forehead creased. "It's just an example, there's lots of other, more useful things that computers will be able to do in the future. Like databases. Ease of extraction of information. Millions of bytes of information at your fingertips, everything cross-referenced and easily searchable. It'd make searching for this damn file so very easy." He sighed. "Mark my words, Chris, computers are the future. The future's bright, Chris. And it's orange," he added as an afterthought.
That perplexed Chris, but he ignored it manfully and steered the conversation back to the task at hand. "The file could be over there, boss. I seem to remember Phyllis saying that she'd put the recent files over in a box the other side of the door."
Sam levered himself out of the chair and drained his cup in one swift move. "Well, let's see. I really hope we find it soon."
1976
The kit had arrived in the post and Chris could hardly contain his excitement. It was going to be perfect.
Still, what with that serial killer in the spring and that spate of armed robberies in the summer, it took several months worth of free evenings tinkering in the garden shed before he managed to assemble the circuitry and fit the thing together.
But the day arrived and he hooked up the machine for the first time, fascinated by the way the ball moved around the screen. His own arcade game. In his living room!
It was with some trepidation he invited the others round for a night, and in the end he didn't mention the real reason for the gathering.
Which meant he was rather surprised when the Boss spotted the wooden console to the right of the television.
"Oh my God. It's Pong!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get it?"
Chris coughed. "I made it myself. From a kit, like."
The Boss tilted his head, looking very impressed. "Not bad. Not bad at all. You know this was the first home video game available. A legend in its lifetime."
Ray grimaced, "If Chris built it, I doubt it works, Boss."
Chris was rather stung by those words. "Of course it works. Here, I'll show you."
And he plugged the lead into the aerial, turning the machine on. The TV took a moment to warm up, but soon the display showed the customary black and white display.
"It's a two-man game, really," Chris explained. "Did you want to try it, Boss?"
The other man nodded eagerly, setting aside his bottle of beer and reaching down for the second controller. Chris was impressed, the Boss was good at this. Even with all the practice Chris had put in, under the guise of making sure all the connections worked, he beat him fairly quickly.
"You ever played this before, Boss?"
"A couple of times, yeah. But it was ages ago."
"Oh, you've played the arcades then?"
Sam looked confused for a moment, and Chris could see the mental gears changing.
"Yeah, the arcades, over at, um, Cleethorpes, I think. Good fun. Shit town though."
Ray snorted. "I suppose the Costa del Sol is more your bag, eh boss?"
Sam ignored him and nodded at the screen. "It's a cracking game, this."
"Well, it's not going to interest me, not unless it's got a pair of titties," the Guv drawled from his comfortable seat on the sofa.
"You know, Guv, one day they'll make games like that, just for you."
"Yeah, and one day someone will mistake you for a bloke, Gladys."
They played a few more games, interspersed with Chris getting more beer from the fridge. The Guv and Ray sat on the sofa, pretending not to watch and smoking their way through several packets of fags until the Boss started muttering about missing his "play station" and something called "Grand Theft Auto".
At that, the Guv stood up, hauling Sam up by the arm, and practically dragged him out of the house. "We'd better go, Gladys is getting all maudlin. I'll see you both at the station bright and early tomorrow." It was a command rather than a pleasantry, but as Chris got to the front door to see them out, the Guv turned round and said in a low voice, "Not bad, Chris, my boy. It's a nice piece of engineering, that."
Chris wasn't quite sure what to say to that, but he managed a stammered "Thanks, and goodnight," before closing the door and joining Ray back in the living room.
Ray didn't look like he was going to move in the foreseeable future and so Chris attempted to persuade him to a few games on the new machine. It wasn't as difficult as he thought.
1981
It took months of saving, and a lucky windfall, and the move to London helped some, but Chris finally had enough money to buy his first computer. It was small and sleek and looked very futuristic, with its black console and smooth grey keys. He'd been saving computing magazines for months, even years, learning BASIC and writing his own programmes out-long-hand, just waiting to try them out. And here it was, the Sinclair ZX-81.
He reverently opened the box, laying out each component on the table. Seeing the spread of electronic gadgetry made Chris smile as he remembered the first time he'd assembled something like this, the Pong machine back in Manchester. This was nowhere near as complicated, which was just as well really. He had access to a well-stocked shed back then. Now he had to make do with the kitchen table in the tiny flat he and his wife occupied.
Chris pulled out the last component from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table reverently. Here was the heart of the machine. An optional extra, he still couldn't do without the extra two kilobytes of memory that the chip represented. The assembly instructions assured him that he could build this in three hours and Helen wasn't due to get in for another four, so Chris was sure he had plenty of time to get started.
He picked up the soldering iron and studied the schematic carefully, it would make sense to assemble the flat-mounted resistors first. His forehead creased in concentration, he slowly brought the iron down, any slip of the hot point could be disastrous…
"Christopher James Skelton!"
Chris jerked suddenly at the interruption, almost dropping the soldering iron in his surprise. He leapt out of the chair and turned around to face the irate face of his wife.
"What have I said about using the kitchen table as a workbench without covering it properly first?" his wife scolded.
Chris looked back at the table, realising that he'd forgotten to put the plywood board on top. He looked down, abashed. "I'm sorry. I forgot again." Then he added, a little petulantly, "You startled me, I almost dropped the iron." He looked up again, realising it was still in his hand and he put it down, gently, on the table. "It would've burned a hole in the carpet and then what would the landlord say?"
"He'd probably bang on about us having to get a bigger place. What with three of us living here now."
Chris frowned. "Three of us?"
Helen broke into a huge smile as Chris looked up. A smile which was mirrored by him as he worked out exactly what she was saying. He moved forward and enfolded her in a tight embrace.
The circuitry lay abandoned as Chris held his wife and his as-yet-unborn child. He briefly wondered whether he would be allowed to call the baby "Clive", if it were a boy.
1994
The PC ran rather slowly when the modem was connected. Not for the first time, Chris wished he'd bought himself an Apple Mac. Certainly the reviews indicated that in performance, at least, the Mac was superior. But when going out to buy the machine he remembered something Sam Tyler had said to him, oh, many years ago now:
"Remember, Chris. Microsoft is where it's at. If you get a chance, buy all the shares you can."
Chris hadn't bought any shares. He was married with two small children, with an indication of a third on the way, and there hadn't been the money. Sometimes he wished that he'd managed to obtain at least a few. It would've made the prospect of sending three children to university a little less expensive.
Yes, Microsoft was where it was at, which meant that every office would be running Microsoft software by the time his children were working. And so he stuck with Windows in the conviction that it would at least give them some small advantage in their careers.
Chris tilted his chair back slightly, clicking on the 'retrieve email' icon and steeling himself for another lengthy wait.
Sam Tyler. There was a name he'd not thought of for a few years. Not really since Sam had taken early retirement from the Force, courtesy of a bullet to the back. Last he'd heard, Sam, Annie and the kids had emigrated to Australia. Something about sun, sea and surf. It was certainly warmer over there, but Chris didn't like the idea of spiders hiding under toilet seats. He did think about getting in touch, if there was anyone who would have an email address now, it would be nutty Sam Tyler. But he hadn't, perhaps he should.
Chris sighed, staring at the small egg-timer and wishing that the machine would run faster. Well, the rumours were Windows 95 would be out later in the year; perhaps he would treat the kids to a new machine. Surely the new operating system would be faster.
2006
"Once upon a time, I'd have called myself a pen-pusher," said Chief Superintendent Chris Skelton as he walked back into the office after lunch. "Now I'm a mouse-clicker."
His colleague laughed. "Only for two more days, Chris, and then you're off. Australia first, isn't it, and then a life of leisure?"
Chris nodded, sitting down at his desk and automatically hitting his keyboard and reaching for his mouse to check his email. "We're off to Australia to visit some friends - my old boss Sam Tyler and his wife Annie Cartwright. Never could get used to calling Cartwright Tyler, even though that's been her name for thirty years. Worked with her for too long. Sam retired on injury years ago, and Annie went with him."
"And now you're retiring too?"
Chris grinned. "About time. Nearly forty years a copper and Cyber-Crimes being taken over by SOCA seemed like a good time to go. Funny really, I owe most of my career to Sam Tyler. Seems like he knew about computers before anyone else. Anyway, with the kids all left home, nothing to stop us heading off to see a bit of the world."
Chris's mobile rang. "Hang on a second," he said and reached for it, automatically checking the display. The colleague nodded and headed out the door.
"Cartwright!" said Chris. "What, you're so desperate for me that you're calling me four days before I'll see you?"
"Chris?" said a curiously shaken voice.
He paused. "Hang on, it's two in the morning where you are. Annie? Is everything okay? It's not... oh shit."
He froze, staring at his screen as Annie Tyler broke the news to him. Even as she spoke, he could see the name Sam Tyler in front of him.
"Annie, love, I'm so sorry," he finally managed to say. "We'll be out in four days and will be able to help you then. Is there anything we can do now?"
And as Annie continued talking, he blinked at his screen and the email telling him of the about-to-be-seconded DCI in Manchester who had been hit by a car. The DCI who shared a name with his now-dead oldest friend.
fin