by TC Davis Jr
But, who defines the CPU?
He was a rather precocious signal, probing for such data from the CPU, his parity dangerously close to bit-stripping and rogue editors. But it felt so good. his bits read with professional precision, leaving him as woozy as a new essence.
Suddenly, a bright flash!
And he was through the gate and into the CPU proper, all bits and bytes accounted for, thank the Code.
He found himself in a massive factory of rapid processing activity. Endless rows of semi-transparent hatchways, opening and closing with instant speed, their clacks of closing producing a great hum. A reddish-mostly-green light emanated from everywhere. He stood at the core of an infinity of mirrors, the CPU's panopticon, viewing endless, transparent hallways in every direction glowing the same green wavelength, turning red or blue then back to green. Each hall had endless rows of hatches, arranged on all four points, one on the ceiling, one on the floor and one on each side, right and left. He understood the radiation now, all those hatchways switching open then closed, parsing data-packets into hatchways, generating radio emissions, joining with other waves - these were not from the signals that went through, their waves were protected by parity, but these were made right there, right then.
The Creation of new radio waves!
The sense of awe that washed over him sent him in a slow, humbling spin. His red pulsed purplish, closer to blue but not a true blue. He was still unprocessed data.
He watched as billions of hatchways, gates just big enough for a signal to weave their wave of coded energy through, flipped open and closed noisily. The sequences of openings and closing began to interest him. A pattern started to emerge.
The signal ahead shimmered red again. He couldn’t grasp the pattern as bits were processed to the hatchways.
In a stroke of fortunate curiosity, the data-packets saw a small number of bits joined together right before him, flashes of light burst in noise-generating waves, emanating outward as they merged into a byte. The Holy Logic, bits joining to form new bytes, variables now defined.
He pulsed a deep, solemn vibration, the kind of piety and fullness of faith; he realized he was writing code. His wavelength buzzed with intensity, enlightenment settled in the gaps between some bits. Complex understanding came as concepts of sixty-four bit combinations were grokked, one-twenty-eight-bit and, two-fifty-six-bit bytes. Amazing, elaborate data-packets they formed.
He realized this was true ontogeny.
The womb of information. The birth of data.
Parity is priority - Now he understood. One bit wrong or changed and the growth of data is cancerous, must be excised. Zero tolerance policies are necessary, standards can not be ignored. The awe of absolute parity stirred remnants of doubt into shivering fear.
Without parity, CPU . . . . fails. The digiverse fails, goes crashing into . . . the cold, lifeless Dark.
He saw a safe looking empty space at the far end of one row, a million light-nanos away. It looked so right for him. He began to feel drawn towards those hatchways with a growing pull, soon becoming irresistible. A part of him, that part that seeded hope, searched desperately for an alternative, looked around and noticed a single, dark hatchway. Fright filled him like an empty boot sector. Passing, he saw that ominous hatchway led away down a dark busway. It gave him an uncomfortable chill.
That had to be the path to purgatory. If a data-packets fails parity they just seem to vanish. Their maligned packets should be lying around, littering the busway, shredded code of unconnected bits. What really happens to them is a mystery, one that is now understood. They were pulled down that dark busway.
Forget being . . .(shhh!) scrubbed, to vanish into that foreboding hatchway gives nightmares to young datums.
Some theorize these failed parity signals are a malware, but any bad code is called this derogatory label on the busway. This scarlet label gets them quarantined and transported down one of those dark paths. Surprisingly, there are some truly eloquent data-packets out there labeled malware. To think they’ll get pulled into purgatory, down that dark passage is daunting to the integrity of one's waves. How can beauty be dark?
The digiverse is a vast and complex place.
All these considerations of esoteric algorithms are not held in the highest esteem by all. The Theory of Computology is a growing field, dominated by the concept of an infinite number of digiverses, and more recently by the Grand Organized Digiverse theory (GOD) that many say can never prove out. The digiverse was written to perfection by the Hand of the Coder, cutting every busway, every gate, and every memory address from pure silicon.
And the CPU was good and He was pleased. Seeing that the CPU was
alone, He built the memories, connecting them all. On the next day he built the
periphery, interfaces, and finally the ports. On the next day, He energized the
ystem and gave the CPU dominion of all signals.
On the sixth day He wrote the Code in His own language.
And on the seventh day He hibernated.
The Coder filled the digiverse with data of such beauty and diversity it is revered, sanctified, and updated religiously by the sacred priests REGEDIT.
In the entire digiverse, nothing is more sacred than the Code.
He understood.
Affirmation of purpose.
Parity, end to end!
All the ones in his bits stood and danced around the zeroes with delight. Yes indeed, you must have faith in the Code.
Invigorated, he spun at speed, pulsing a bright candy-apple red, a dance of temptation for the CPU showing he had no fear.
The signal, now more determined than ever, shimmered with anxious energy and pushed hard. Signals around him also energized.
Energy among them all grew as their spin increased. Their packets were next.
“RUN” came the command.
“RUN!” came the thunderous response. All around, the reds instantly swelled brighter and brighter and vanished, silently. Not even a “pop” of their code was left to be heard.
The packet right in front of him shimmered than jolted sideways with a sudden jerk, its bytes threading through a long series of open hatchways, like flash puzzles snapping through the tube-like hallways. The data-packets glowed, then glistened as every bit got flipped, yanked and pulled with unbelievable power. This is Processing.
Fear dug in and tried to crack open his bytes.
The Yang, during coding, had hesitated, uncertain his hope had substance, allowing doubt to slip. The same statement written one way and then another way, signs of vacillation. This is fear. Yet, there was something about the spin that said there was more. The irregular rhythm of character entry, the adding and removing the same grouping of characters more than once, then the long hesitancy before the Send command. He had froze in his statement, affected by the unknown,“doubt”.
His spin was touched by this doubt even if he couldn’t quantify it.
As he examined his parity, he found he had new insight to his statement. His awareness grew, his signal got stronger than anything or anyone else around him. Datums surrounded him, single bits of information, grouping into bytes of a kind he never saw before, data in its first form, pure, prior to parity. He watched, entranced by it all - yet...
The data grouped and re-grouped again, forming and un-forming to re-form again, spreading out and dropping root datums onto long chains of data IDs - links. Hyperlinks.
As he watched, one byte evolved into a hypertext statement.
He experienced firsthand what others only learn about, theorized or guessed at: Phylogeny recapitulates Ontogeny!
The old maxim was true after all!
While evolving into higher statements, their datums appear to go through the stages of evolution in their gestation, the formation of a single bit becoming two bits, then four, then eight, sixteen and more, growing into their current complex multi-byte statements.
All data comes from the Original Byte, the Alpha bit an
d the Eve bit joined to form the first Able byte, now known as Datum. From there they evolved over time to become the burgeoning character statements of 32-bit bytes, 64-bit bytes, and even 128-bit and 256-bit bytes. There are a lot of 16-bit senior bytes around, still as chipper as ever. Out on the ether there are said to be some Octogenarians - Original 8-bit bytes said to be left over from the times of the 8088 dinosaurs. They’re giants in size but slow, and dumb. Those old 8’s and many 16-bit byte statements don’t RUN anymore; they are kept in permanent backup, a hard copy, preserved in un-soft state. They are stored in museums, where they re-build the old programs out of the 8-bit bytes. You can see them there, as they once were, sleek and terse, performing their functions tirelessly. In their day they were cutting edge.
Amazing, so simple yet, such responsibility.
Bytes full, parity verified, travel docs and handshakes ready - handshakes? Where was he going? He began to read over his definition again but it was too late.
The data-packets felt his moment arriving. He shimmered, growing stronger than any red One. Energy. ENERGY!
WOW. What a rush!
He stood at the front of the group, plowing straight ahead. His sophistication translating into a power-drive. Things began moving faster here, like being hyped to an overclocked system.
The push began to slow, crowding onto tighter, smaller conductors. The data-packets stretched out, adjusting to the new conductors, looking like long snake-bits sliding quickly, straight into the action.
The noise generated by the CPU grew as erratic radio generation increased, causing a blinding static. Each nano brought the Big Red and the other reds closer in.
Each touched him, leaving a streak of purple, red and blue at the same time - very odd. Panic began to overtake the group as their red conformity vacillated to blue and back to red; their fear and confusion showing. The process repeated until the Big Red shot out high energy bits to each of the reds that held any purple. The high energy split the purple bytes into bit-fragments, before being pulled away, smashing them into deletion! The data-packets looked at his color and sighed relief. No purple, just red.
When all the purple had been deleted, the Big Red spun around once more and, finding no more purple, he himself flared up and broke down naturally into his constituent bits.
That old Red gave up his code to protect the CPU from those infected packets. He had heard about the Guardians but never thought he'd see one. A true hero if ever there was one.
But new life is possible for the best of the data-packets. They can be reborn, their bad bits washed away, replaced by good ones or zeroes, re-organized into greater statements.
Re-coded! Just like they were before only no malware, no viruses, flawless.
Amen.
One must have faith in the Code.
Just then, another big Red One closed in, bigger than others, more important apparently since everything stopped, lights brightened and everyone fell away from the processor. Who was this big Red One?
Then they started backing away, slowly, head bowed. Even this Big Red bowed down as he backed away.
Royalty?
How come he didn't get the order to back out? Was his coding flawed?
Oh, no. Not something faulty here. Not now!
The fear of deletion started to rise again.
Flash!
Brightness everywhere.
The Processor lit up brightly as the entry gates opened. Inside was a beautiful Yin, her arms wide for his signal.
What!?
This could not all be for him. He wasn't royalty. Not that he wouldn’t love it but a signal knows who he is - by definition, obviously. There was no royalty anywhere in his code.
The beautiful Yin wrapped her arms around him in a handshake-embrace warm as toast. Gentle fears of anticipation coursed through him as she softly read his code, validated his parity end to end, stirring up the most delightful of sensations, slowly, gently, with delicacy.
The moment parity verified, the two joined in a burst of blue-red color-bows, clearly defined, not a trace of purple.
Parity is priority.
End to end!
They left.
Together.
He understood now, even grokked it.
His code didn't have an Interrupt priority code, he had something far more important, he had Click.
He had a message to deliver, an important one. An Instant Message.
For a brief nano he laughed, Royalty?
Such misunderstandings!
He may not be Registry Royalty but he had something better, stronger than an interrupt One.
He had Click. Action of ultimate instance, the One of Ones. Click overrides all good and proper code. Instant Message Click are signals onto their own.
His data is special, somehow deep inside he always knew this. He carried more than a message, he carried an emotion, a statement of commitment, words never said before - not in this Digiverse. Words whose effects made him feel lonely.
He generated the Instant Message statement, “I LOVE YOU” without flaw. A common data-packets, often coded in the same linear method from the same peripheral yet, something . . . traveled the length of his wave.
The Signal felt the words being read as well, he was part of them and always will be part of them.
They were his statement. They were not a question yet they somehow needed an answer.
None came.
The Instant Message pathway was silent. This tormented his wavelength.
The Yang had wanted the Yin to reply. He waited an eternity but no response came. He felt the emptiness of the unanswered Instant Message, where the Yin, the feminine, had not answered.
Desperation grew into another oddity, sadness. The data-packets felt the link to the Yin, to the Feminine shutdown.
The link was gone. Simply gone.
No return message would come.
Ever.
The data-packets did get the “ready” signal, a simple handshake for connection, but nothing more. Hesitation, doubt didn’t interpret into code well.
Doubt is quantified with the standard deviation of two percent allowance for human error. Doubt is sometimes incrementally increased to five percent. Only the variable for time remained constant.
The clock speed kept ticking in precisely equal increments. The hesitation equation yawned.
No doubt.
This is grokking?
Clock speed continued.
He was a shimmeringly-bright wave of a signal, having grokked much. He considered his continuance, loneliness building. His wave lost its shimmer, but maintained its frequency. Parity is priority.
His coded statement got printed onto hardcopy and put in a special corner of the Yin's underwear drawer. Her words would come, she promised, soon: this is the emotion that goes with the back-up. Yang must have faith, just like data-packets. There are many kinds of faith, each one is hardest to maintain, no evidence, nothing seen or heard. Only Hope entering the code in the beginning remained.
He felt the adoration - yet tinged with powerful doubt - of this Yin, just like he did when he was only a tiny essence. He knew he was made for something important: an expression of love, but he knew there was more, somehow.
Destiny still awaited.
Love is represented by the mathematical symbol "equals" with variables on either side that are never satisfied, always changing their value. It is the substance of things unseen, this Love that gives life to algorithms. The belief in another data-packets made to precisely balance with one's own data-packets in their own unique algorithmic equation, their own special existence. Love may be a complex equation but when it balances, even the Code thrills at the joy.
There may be numerous variables, character strings, even secretive parallel equations but in the end, the statement will balance. There are some that will find new variables, their old statements irreconcilable, their code just didn't work. Many go unbalanced, never finding the right one to balance their stateme
nt.
The tiny essence, now a parity verified data-packets, had lived an eternity. Thousands of nanos had passed, the Code had been re-written by the priests but, the data-packets was not accessed. He had only one purpose here, maintain parity. Parity is priority, end to end.
He felt well on his way to that other end of his parity.
And the clock cycled on.
Regardless of the clock cycles, or the Code changes he witnessed, he never saw any signals of his coding again. Vague waves and dull photons passed him hazily while he lay in the half-alive state of backed-up.
An eternity of eternities passed. . . .
Suddenly, plucked out of the fugue of storage, a harsh jolt rocked him, his digital resurrection electrified his code, bringing with it all the sanctimony expected.
She accessed the backed-up data-packets some fifty-nine years later. The data-packets opened his sticky eyes like he had been sleeping a full second, or even longer. He looked around at the strange new world.
A beautiful Yin opened her arms for him, just as before. The handshake - oh, his dreams and memories filled him with such joy during back-up. Which is this?
He went into those arms and they were Now.
The data-packets emerged out to a world of stunning technology, signals of unbelievable beauty and complexity, leaving him feeling tiny by comparison. Some signals seemed to live on their own and creating handshakes for multiple packets. The shock hit him hard when he saw they had no parity. How could this be?
The beautiful handshake signal displayed her coding for him. She still had parity.
His ComSig coding resulted in three words of text, values for font, density, opacity and a few others. He held them flawlessly all the way to display. Parity, end to end.
“All signals are coded with their paths but yours is not yet complete. You have one more coded command to execute, one more duty, data-packets, who shall be known from this nano till the last clock cycles as Saint Signal.”
“You shall go beyond. Your statement will be backed-up again and recorded onto a new medium. Carbon structured in lattice cells similar to the CPU's interior architecture. From there you will control the reflection of photons -
