K.N Vosklyai
29.11.1936
Entry №. 2
"FAMILIARISE WITH YOUR WORLD: The GIDD-E Boy's 'Examine' card allows for inspection of properties of surroundings and life-forms."
- Union General Advisory Booklet, №. 1004
Shelter Warden Zctdalotzky gifted me several 'essential survival tools' for the Emerging. One of them was a series of texts from the Union and these are yet to prove their helpfulness as 'advisory booklets'. The other was a mechanism dubbed ..
.. dubbed ..
"Mk. E GENERAL INFORMATION DISPLAY DEVICE"
The Warden has written it down in the entry and suggested "GIDD-E Boy" as an alternative spelling, which I much more prefer.
From what the booklets report, this was a highly advanced computation mechanism designed by the AMPLO-TEK company, meant to be a general-purpose mechanism which uses specialised punchcards to run various programmes. Zctdalotzky gave me a 'STATS' card to track my general vitals, a 'TRAVEL LOG' card to manage tasks, & a 'MAP' card to .. well, view a area map.
There are also caching, radio and inventory cards prebuilt into the mechanism, which I assume are unremoveable. The booklets state that only three cards can be 'cached' into the GIDD-E Boy's memory & that about 13 cards exist in circulation. The AMPLO port on the Boy's back is supposed to be used in conjunction with another card, but I do not own it – the whereabouts of these other cards remain an unknown. Zctdalotzky advised me to familiarise myself with the GIDD-E Boy and declared the Emerging to take place in 2 days from now.
The GIDD-E Boy in question is a peculiar mechanism – it is fitted with 15 kilos of assorted computational bits with an apolar Sterling engine on top and a heat engine to accompany it. There is also a metre's length of insulated cable connected to a small brick shaped device with a miniature telephone ear and a 20cm screen. On the lower half of this brick device there is a foldout type-key board and a gear to switch between cached programmes. In total, the'backpack'and the display brick weigh in at about 20 kilogrammes.
This device will take time to accommodate - I shall assume it to take a short period, hopefully 2 days on schedule.
YOU ARE READING
THE UNION SPLIT: The Post-Apocalyptic Future of the Twenties
Science FictionThe year is 1936. It has been five years since the Big Bright Bombings ended the Great War of 1914 and set the world ablaze. It has been five years since the Union established Victory Shelters to protect its populace. A lone person, a VICTORY ANGEL...
