My name is Bjørn Berg. Yes, almost like that famous Swedish tennis-player, but not quite. The story I am about to tell you will seem unbelievable to you, but I swear, every word is true! So, where do I start? With the strange phone call I received the other night, or do I skip to the part where I park my car outside the callers house? Yes, I think I will go with the last one.
So, I parked my trusty old car at the address I was given during a brief but very confusing call. I will not reveal the address of the mansion, of course, but I can tell you this much: It was located in the more expensive parts of Oslo east end. The “posh” part as the Brits would call it. The large sized mansion had probably cost the owners some serious amount of Norwegian kroner once upon a time. But compared to the neighboring properties with their varied architectures, their designer gardens and their weird and wonderful plants, this one looked a bit dull: Brown painted exterior, a plain lawn with no fancy sculptures or exotic plants, surrounded by a simple picket fence that paled in comparison to the expensive looking steel fences preferred by the neighbors.
After talking on the phone with Andreas Jørgensen, the man I was about to meet, he had left me with the impression of being a somewhat boring person with little imagination. The fact that the dullness of the property seemed to match the owner’s personality did not come as much of a surprise to me. Unfortunately, my prejudice against Jørgensen did not subside when the door opened and a balding, gray looking man in his early sixties opened the door.
‘So, you are the retro computer expert I called the other night?’, Jørgensen asked after taking a quick look at me. I was tempted to answer that no, I just kind of walk around in an XXXL sized Amiga T-shirt and wear a trucker hat with Commodore 64 logo by accident. But I decided that I was dealing with an individual with low tolerance for humor so I let it pass.
‘Yes, I guess I’m the expert. Don’t let the wild beard and chubby exterior fool you. I probably know more about retro computers than anyone else in Oslo’.
‘Oh, that’s fine I suppose. Well, then I hope you can help me with my little problem, he said nervously. ‘It doesn’t work anymore! It stopped working a week ago and I have no idea of how to fix it! So will you please come with me and take a look at it’.
I followed Jørgensen into the mansion. I had anticipated that the interior walls would be all unpainted, boring pine panels, and I was right of course. He led me into his office. It was a large white painted room. On the left hand there was a comfortably looking sofa facing a large screen LED TV on the right side of the room. An expensive looking desk stood a couple of meters away from the innermost wall, facing away from the large windows. On the desk there was a Commodore 64, C model, connected to a Commodore 1084 monitor, an old matrix printer and computer mouse of a kind I’d never seen before. But surprisingly there was no disk drive or Datasette in sight. A white metallic gadget was connected to the back of the computer. It had the text “PeTe” written on it, blue text on white background, and it made me immensely curious. In all my years collecting and repairing retro computer stuff, I’d never seen this gadget before.
‘Wow, this equipment seems to be in really good condition!’ I exclaimed. ‘Hardly any yellowing. Have you been treating the case with some kind of chemicals?’
‘Chemicals? No, but I always make sure I protect the equipment with dust covers after use. Also, I got a lot of these computers stored in the other room. I keep them on rotation to minimize wear and tear.’
‘A lot?’ I asked doubtful.
He could clearly see that I wouldn’t take his word for it. Impatiently he told me to follow him into a dark, cool storage room next to the office. When he turned on the lights I let out a short gasp. There were shelved filled with cardboard boxes, mostly marked “Commodore 64” but also some marked “1084 monitor”, “1702 monitor”, “1541 disk drive” and “printer”.
‘I’ve got more than forty Commodore 64 computers in here and at least 10 monitors’, he smiled as he watched my reaction. ‘All stored in cardboard boxes in a dry, dark room with climate control. Just like the computer told me to do.’
I was admiring a perfectly preserved computer inside one of the cardboard boxes as he spoke the last sentence, so it took a bit time before I realized what he had just said.
‘The computer told you to do…?’
He sighed and scratched the back his head. ‘Look, I know this may sound a bit weird. So let me start from the beginning.’
We went back to the office and got seated into the comfortable leather couch. Then Andreas Jørgensen told me the weirdest story I’ve ever heard, and I once met Jeff Minter!
One beautiful day in 1984 or 1985 (he couldn’t quite remember), the future owner of more than 40 Commodore 64 units walked into an electronics store specializing in computers. At the time Jørgensen was in his late twenties and (I guess) feeling young and adventurous, wanting to get a taste of the computer craze that was sweeping through the accountant community at the time. Even though he had limited imagination, Jørgensen (correctly) assumed that computers would soon be a big part of the accounting profession and wanted to stay ahead of the game. So of course he asked the store owner what would be the best option if one needed a computer that could be used for electronic spreadsheets, filling in tax returns and maybe even obtaining information related to stock trading.
So the store owner led the accountant over to a demonstration PC, an IBM XT, and went on to demonstrate what that beast of a computer, sporting 128 kilobytes of memory, a ten megabyte hard-drive and a 4.77 megahertz processor, could do. He ran a spreadsheet program and some demonstration software that was probably just screen shots with no actual code behind them, but that nevertheless left the potential buyer very impressed and eager to become a PC owner.
But that eagerness would soon disappear as soon as the store owner mentioned how many kroner the IBM computer would set the young accountant back.
‘I’m sorry! Jørgensen exclaimed. But my wife and I just bought an apartment and a car. That price is way out of my range! It’s actually more than we paid for the car! Don’t you have something a bit, uh, cheaper?’
The store owner sighed at the thought of a big fat commission disappearing before his eyes.
‘Well, yes, we do have some Commodore and Spectrum computers, but those are to be regarded more like toys than serious business computers.’
‘But…Is it possible for instance to run spreadsheet software on one of them?’
‘You can, but the minuscule amount of memory and the slow processors will probably make it a frustrating experience…’ The store owner seemed to be thinking for a while. ‘However…’
Then he walked behind the counter and picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Would you mind filling out this questionnaire? It contains a bunch of multiple choice questions for you to answer. Based on the result you may be applicable to become a beta tester for a Commodore 64 cartridge add-on that contains the kind of software you are looking for. If applicable, you will receive the cartridge for free, containing software probably worth thousands of kroner! But you will need to buy the Commodore 64 unit in addition’, he swiftly added. Jørgensen accepted the form and started checking the multiple answer form.
Now, more than 30 years later, he could not recall any of the questions. But he remembered them being slightly weird, and having nothing to do with computers or spreadsheets or anything that seemed relevant to the situation. Actually, there was one question he still remembered, due to being so far off: “You accidentally drive off a road, but you are able to jump out of the car in order to to save yourself and one family member. Which family member would you take?”
After filling out the questionnaire he gave the form back to the store owner who compared the answers to a list on another sheet of paper and jutted down some numbers.
‘Well, look at that!’, the store owner exclaimed at the end. ‘According to these numbers you are the perfect candidate for beta testing the “Productive 2000” cartridge from PeTe. Congratulations!’ An odd expression came to his face and his voice became calm. ‘You are actually the first one that has passed the test in this store.’
‘But what’s in it for you, just giving away this… thing?’, the lucky winner answered puzzled.
The store owner looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a funny story. I actually don’t know anything about the producer. I’d never even heard about a company named “PeTe” until one day this cardboard box showed up in the mail. The box had the “PeTe” logo printed on the sides and contained five of these cartridges and instructions about the beta test program. According to the instructions, I will receive one thousand kroner for each person that is applicable to the beta test. I’ve never even heard about this practice before, but who am I to complain! So, do we have a deal?’
About 15 minutes later, the happy owner of a new Commodore 64 computer system, including a 1702 monitor, a Commodore 1541 disk drive, a printer and box with the product name “Productive 2000 cartridge for Commodore 64” on it, drove away from the electronics store while whistling a cheery tune.
‘So, I come home with the boxes’, Jørgensen told me. ‘And my wife starts giving me a hard time about buying expensive computer equipment so soon after purchasing a new apartment and a car. Despite everything I’d previously explained to her about the importance of keeping up with technological advancements in my line of profession! But I’d anticipated some resistance, so I showed her a price list that I’d picked up in the store. I told her I had saved a lot of money by purchasing equipment that cost only a tenth of the product that the store owner had actually recommended. And that I in addition had received some really expensive software for free, due to the beta test. Finally she relented, but she threatened to return the equipment if I used the computer strictly to play the included games. Which is kind of hilarious, come to think about it. She actually ended up playing the games way more than I did!’
‘Yes, that is sometimes the case’, I started impatiently, more eager to hear about the mysterious cartridge than his minor marriage issues. ‘So, when you set up the computer equipment, did you plug in the cartridge right away?’
‘Of course not!’, Jørgensen answered in an offended tone. ‘I had to follow the instructions in the setup guides first.’ (“Of course you did, you dull man”, I was tempted to answer). ‘After I’d connected the monitor, the disk drive and the cassette player and checked that everything worked according to the guide lines, I went on to open the box with the PeTe cartridge. Let me show you’, he said and gestured me to follow him to his desk where he took something out of one of the drawers. It was a white colored box with the text “Productivity 2000 by PeTe, for the Commodore 64 computer” written on it in a nice blue font. He opened the box and took out a booklet and gave it to me. It had the text “Productivity 2000 Beta Version User Guide” written on the front. The booklet looked brand new, with no signs of wear and tear and no yellowing. By the look and touch of it I speculated that the booklet was made out of some kind of high quality synthetic paper. I quickly ran through the pages trying to learn more about this “PeTe” company that was completely unknown to me. But the only information of interest was the text “© 1984 PeTe Inc. Designed and produced in California, USA” printed on the last page. No addresses, no phone numbers or anything else that could help me identify the people behind this.
‘Want to see the cartridge in action?’ Jørgensen asked and got an eager nod in return. He turned on the Commodore and the monitor. A familiar light blue screen appeared before being quickly being replaced with the text “Productivity 2000 Beta Version” written in big blue letters on a white background. Below the logo, an animated spinner indicted that the software was starting up. That’s odd, I thought to my self. These kind of animated activity indicators did not appear until the arrival of the Web browser in the early 1990s. A few seconds later, the startup screen vanished and was replaced with a desktop environment that seemed both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.
‘Is this a joke?’ I muttered under my breath. But one look at the puzzled man beside me made me realize that this was nothing of the sort. ‘This is impossible! This screen seem to have a resolution that at least matches a Super VGA display. But the Commodore 64 computer has never been able to do more than 320 times 200 pixels!’ I could see that Jørgensen had no idea what I was talking about. I took a look at the backside of the C64 and discovered that the monitor cable was not connected directly to the computer at all. It was connected to the cartridge using a DIN connector. When I asked Jørgensen about this, he explained that the user guide had recommended connecting the monitor directly to the cartridge instead of the computer for “maximum performance”.
‘The picture looked much better with the screen connected to the cartridge’, Jørgensen said. ‘And a few years later the computer recommended replacing the 1702 monitor with a 1084 monitor for even better picture quality. After doing that, the screen turned into… what did you call it? Super duper VGA?’
‘Super VGA, yes. So, ah. The computer recommend replacing the monitor?’ I asked skeptical.
‘It really did. But of course, it doesn’t recommend much of anything these days’, Jørgensen said in a sad voice. ‘That’s why I called you.’
‘Yes, we’ll get back to that in a moment. But first I’d like to take a look at the stuff that still works, OK?’
I put my hand on the unfamiliar mouse and noticed it had metal casing. The mouse seemed to be of very high quality, the white coating hardly showing any sign of wear. No wonder it had survived more than 30 year of use!
I clicked around the interface, trying some of the programs. There was a word processing program, a spreadsheet program and lots of other “productivity” programs. They all looked professional and easy to use, and seemed at least as good, or event better, than the Microsoft Office programs of the nineties. And they ran surprisingly fast considering the computer they were supposedly running on.
Jørgensen told me that he used to store his files on diskettes at first. But after a while he’d started storing them onto the internal cartridge storage. It seemed to have unlimited space, he claimed. I had no way of disproving this claim; the simple but effective file access GUI did not reveal information about disk usage, and there were no command line tools from which system information could be retrieved. But Jørgensen had stored almost a thousand documents during the years, averaging 20-30 kilobytes each. Meaning a total of almost 30 megabytes. There was no way a solid state storage with this kind of capacity had existed in 1984! This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. I carefully started looking for hidden cameras in the room, half expecting some TV show host stepping into the room yelling: “You’re on candid camera!” I decided to play along, wondering how far they’d take this joke.
‘So, this icon named “Online programs” displays the programs that don’t work any more?’ I asked innocently and clicked on the icon. A window popped up containing icons for three programs named “Online News”, “Stock Trading” and “Online Support”.
‘Yes, can you please take a look and see if you can fix them?’
‘Of course’, I said and opened the programs. Each of them displayed a dialog box with the same message: “The P&T Productivity Beta Program has ended. Thank you for participating”. When I clicked the OK button, the programs were opened, but most of the buttons and menus were disabled. The “Online News” program displayed a list of news articles from a few weeks ago. The “Stock Trading” program listed some old transaction in a panel named “private transactions”, but the panel named “stock index” was empty. The “Online Support” program merely displayed a text explaining that the beta program had ended and that online support was no longer available.
‘I guess the first thing to check is if you’re actually online. But… uhm… Where is the modem?’
‘The what now?’ Jørgensen answered bewildered.
‘The device that allows you to connect to the online services? The gadget you connect to your telephone jack’, I answered slightly annoyed. I was getting tired of this joke now.
‘Ah, yes! The wireless connector. It’s down here’, he said turning around and pointing to a small device connected to an old style telephone jack at the bottom of the wall. The device was about the size of a Rubik’s cube and had a jack connector in front that probably worked as a pass-through for connecting an old style telephone.
‘A wireless connector? That connects to what?’
‘The cartridge, of course! Didn’t you read the user guide?’
‘Well, no, I just skimmed through it’, I answered and took a quick look at the chapter named “Connecting to online services”. According to the guide, all you needed in order to get online was a telephone subscription and a phone jack into which the device named “Wireless Connector” should be plugged. The cartridge would automatically look up and connect to the “Wireless Connector”, which in turn connected to the online services. No need to enter the number to a BBS or an ISP, it seemed. How very convenient. No to mention impossible! The kind of technology that would allow this kind of wireless functionality in 1984 would probably have weighed 20 kilograms and been the size of a suitcase! But, hey, let’s not ruin this fine prank! (How stupid did they think I was!?)
‘So this wireless connector actually works?’ I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. ‘It connects to online service through the phone line and transmits the information to your computer without problems?’
‘Yes! Well…’ he hesitated. ‘There have been some incidents.’
‘Yeah?’ I said curious.
‘This happened a long ago, when we still lived in our old apartment and didn’t have a second phone line dedicated to the wireless connector. On a couple of occasions, when my wife picked up the phone to call her friends, she heard someone speaking on the phone.’
‘Who was it?’
‘She did not recognize the voices and they cut off before she could hear what they were talking about’.
‘That might have been the result of crossed wires. But why are these online services so important to you anyway?’
‘Only the stock trading program is important. Over the years it’s made me a millionaire!’
‘Yeah? But stock trading services are available using a standard Web browser these days, why don’t you use one of those instead.’
Jørgensen looked embarrassed and for a while there he appeared to be running a discussion in his head.
‘Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now. As the beta test period has expired, I guess the non-disclosure agreement doesn’t apply anymore.’
He went on to explain that usage of the stock trading program had required him to sign and mail a non-disclosure agreement that required Jørgensen to not reveal any information about the service or even mention to anyone that he was using it. The agreement also stated a maximum first-year profit at 200.000 Norwegian Kroner from using the service, which could be increased 100% the following years until reaching 4 million kroner per year. The limit was necessary in order to avoid triggering criminal investigations in case the service (unconsciously!) failed to comply to local laws regarding stock trading. Also, the service required him to submit the details of his brokerage account for automating the stock trading, which “may violate local laws regarding electronic storage of bank accounts”, according to the agreement.
‘You see, the one feature that made the program a “killer app”, as the saying goes these days, was not the online obtaining of stock index information. It was not even the fact that the program allowed online stock trading years before household Internet access became common.’ Jørgensen almost whispered now, as if he was discussing some deep secret conspiracy. ‘The program was able to predict the stock index winners and losers at an eerie accuracy.’
‘Yeah?’ I answered, still pretending to play along.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it! Every prediction came through, even very long term wins that no algorithm, no matter how complex, should be able to predict. I would sometimes do some “bad” tradings on purpose just to avoid suspicion, just like computer recommended.’
‘This sounds unbelievable’, I said and meant it. ‘I appreciate that losing your golden goose is a problem, but what do you want me to do about it? The service is obviously closed.’
‘Sure, but… I mean, a beta service would suggest that there is a finalized product available somewhere, right? Wouldn’t it be possible to go online and purchase the product or service or whatever?’
‘I guess you’ve tried to search for the product on the Internet yourself. What did you find?’
‘Nothing! The company name “PeTe” or the product name “Productivity 2000” is nowhere to be found. Isn’t that weird? The only traces I’ve found are postings from people that seem to be in the same situation as me, asking the same kind of questions. But those postings and similar postings I made myself always disappears after a few days. So I desperation I tried searching for local experts on Commodore 64 and found your blog on retro computers.’
‘Well, I’m not sure if I can help you. This all seems so… Unlikely. I mean, you have this near magical cartridge containing technology that didn’t exist in 1984, and which in some cases did not arrive until decades later. Wireless networking, massive solid state storage, high resolution display. And this old mouse doesn’t even seem to be mechanical!’ I turned the mouse around an, voila: No ball!
‘Just as I suspected, this is an optical mouse. It figures, I guess. A mechanical mouse wouldn’t have survived 30 years of use. But an optical mouse? Not very common in the eighties, to put it mildly.’
‘What are you suggesting?’, Jørgensen asked confused. ‘That I’m pulling some kind of elaborate prank on you? Why would I do that? I don’t even know you!’
‘Yes, a prank is exactly what I’ve been suspecting for the last ten minutes’, I admitted. ‘As you said yourself, I’m somewhat an expert on old technology and according to my own expertise, this device should not exist!’
‘Well, maybe looking at this will change your mind’, Jørgensen said and rushed to the big screen TV. He gestured me to follow. He grabbed a VHS tape from a shelf, inserted it into a combined DVD/VHS player and turned on the TV.
‘I made this video in 1988 after a visit to the doctor. I’d been suffering belly pains for a period of time, and after doing some tests the doctor told me to prepare for a worst case scenario: Stomach cancer. It eventually turned out to be just some harmless virus infection, but in the mean time I started worrying about what would happen to my family if I’d pass away. Economically, I mean. You see, I’ve never told my wife about the stock trading program, worried that she wouldn’t keep quiet about it and getting me into trouble due to the non-disclosure agreement. But I decided to make a video explaining how to use the cartridge and the trading program, in case I wouldn’t be around anymore.’
Then we watched as a 31 year younger Jørgensen did a presentation of the cartridge. The picture quality was as bad as expected (VHS really sucks!) But I did get to see how those online programs were supposed to work. The young Jørgensen mostly concentrated on the stock trading program, of course, being the golden goose of the family. But in the end he took some time to demonstrate the “Online Support” program. It mostly consisted of help menus explaining how to use the GUI and the various programs. But then Jørgensen clicked on a menu named “Ask questions”. And that’s when things started getting interesting.
‘If you have any kind of question about the programs, just type it in here and press Return. Like this…’
Jørgensen went on to type “How much additional profit am I allowed to earn this year?” The answer came almost instantaneously: “Your profit limit for the year 1988 is 3.2 million kroner. You are 1.213.541,42 kroner away from reaching the limit.”
The Jørgensen of 1988 kept writing questions, each getting swift responses, while the Jørgensen of the year 2019 turned to me and said: ‘Impressive, isn’t it? My online bank service didn’t get chat functionality like that until a few years ago.’
‘Yes, very impressive. Particularly considering the short reply time. There’s no way a human support person could reply with that kind of speed!’
‘I guess not. So, do you think the answers were generated by a computer?’
Yes, well, what did I think? I was still convinced this was some sort of elaborate prank. But I was starting to suspect that Jørgensen was not the one behind the prank. More likely he was the prank’s target, meaning it went back all the way to 1984. But a prank that’s made the target a millionaire? Please, prank me!
‘I have no idea’, I sighted. ‘Look, would you mind if I take the cartridge apart and take a look at the inside? Maybe we’ll get some answers then.’
‘But what if you break it?’ Jørgensen asked nervously.
‘Break it? By opening it? Come on, you’re looking at a guy who’s been fixing old computers for at least ten years. I’ve never broken anything! Well, almost never. It’s up to you, of course. But taking this thing apart seems to be the only option if you want to get to the bottom of this.’
Jørgensen reluctantly agreed to the dissection of the cartridge, so we went back to the desk where I produced my toolkit from my Commodore bag, put on anti-static gloves and carefully pulled the cartridge off the C64. I turned it around and saw that the bottom was attached using four screws. The screw drives were of an unusual type, but this is a common trick for hardware producers who want to protect their patents. I was prepared for these kind of obstacles and had brought a set of various screw drivers. I quickly found one that seemed to fit the drives. I managed to remove all the screws and proceeded to pull off the bottom. The cartridge casing came apart with no problems, and I got to look inside the magic box.
‘No way!’ I whispered.
‘No way, what?’ Jørgensen demanded to know.
‘No way this thing was produced in 1984’, I said. Inside the box there was a small circuit board. Usually, when looking inside a C64 cartridge, there will be one or two relatively “fat” ROM chips attached to the circuit board. But the components on this board were tiny and slim and looked like they belonged inside a 2019s smart phone.
‘Of course it’s produced in 1984!’ Jørgensen exclaimed. ‘It says 1984 here!’ he said and pointed at the largest component. Jørgensen had good eyesight. I needed to use my magnifying glass in order to see the text: “mCPU-XII-231 © 1984 PeTe Inc” I read.
‘Seems to be the processor,’ I said and took a look at the other components. ‘This seems to be a graphics processor. Copyrighted in 1983. This I guess is the component for wireless communication. And this is probably the bus used for handling the cartridge port signals. And this must be the solid state drive. If I understand these numbers correctly, the capacity is 10 terabytes.’
Jørgensen whistled. ‘Even I know that’s a lot of storage!’ he exclaimed.
‘Indeed’, I answered. ‘This is no ordinary cartridge. I’ve seen something similar from a German company. They are currently producing a Commodore 64 cartridge named Turbo Chameleon 64, which in many ways reminds me of this one. Both are self-contained computers, but the PeTe cartridge seem to be far more advanced. It is in reality a pocket sized supercomputer. And I hate to repeat myself, but nothing of this kind existed in 1984!’
‘So, if this is a computer, can you hack into it and remove the beta limit?’ Jørgensen asked eagerly, not caring a bit about the technological miracle we were witnessing here.
‘Well, I’m not really a software person. But I know a couple of guys that may rise to the challenge. And I have to admit I have a lot of questions about this thing. I think I may lose a lot of sleep over this if I don’t get some answers…’
‘I strongly advice you to leave this alone,’ a calm but loud voice suddenly said. Jørgensen and I both froze for a moment before turning towards the location from which the voice had originated. It seemed to come from the TV set. The screen was displaying an ominous yellow warning triangle.
‘Is the TV connected to the Internet?’ I whispered. Jørgensen confirmed by nodding slowly, his mouth agape.
‘Who is this?’ I demanded. ‘I know this is a joke, just stop it already!’
‘This is not a joke’, the TV answered in the same calm voice. ’Why aren’t you satisfied with the millions we’ve already earned you, Jørgensen?’ the TV wanted to know. ‘There are 26.4 million kroner in your bank accounts alone. You don’t need more now, do you?’ Then the TV screen started displaying bank account numbers with some seriously high sums next to them.
‘We could easily make all this disappear, you know’, the voice continued.
‘What!? No, please, don’t!’ Jørgensen cried.
Then the screen started displaying various pictures. Some featured a middle-aged woman. Some featured an athletic young man. And others featured a young, pleasant looking woman with a small child in her arms. The pictures had been taken in various locations, mostly outdoors.
‘That’s my wife and my kids and my granddaughter!’ Jørgensen yelled. ‘How did you…?’
‘We know where you live. All of you’, the TV continued. Then the screen started to display pictures of a little girl with long, curly hair and beautiful brown eyes. It was Linda, my daughter.
‘Fuck you!’ I screamed. ‘This joke is not funny anymore!’
‘Believe us, Bjørn Berg. We are not trying to be funny. We are dead serious. Leave this investigation alone or there will be consequences. I suggest you destroy the cartridge and forget this ever happened. Goodbye!’
‘Wait, who are you?’ I yelled. But the TV had gone dark.
I am not a hero. Neither is Jørgensen. I asked him if I should put the cartridge together. But he just whispered: ‘Destroy it!’ So I dropped it on the floor and stepped on it until there was no way anybody could ever put it together. We stood in silence for a few minutes.
‘I’ll transfer 10.000 to your bank account for your troubles’, Jørgensen said quietly. ‘And you can have all the computer equipment. I don’t want it in my house anymore. I’ll arrange the transportation.’
I thanked him and rushed out of the room. As my car pulled away from the mansion, I still could not get rid of the notion that this had all been a prank. I let the car drive on autopilot so that I could focus on what I’d just witnessed. I knew some people that could’ve easily pulled that Smart TV trick. Maybe I should make them a… Suddenly my phone started ringing, the ringtone coming out of the car speakers due to the Bluetooth connection. It was an unknown number, and I started to reach out my hand to push the reject button. But before I had time to reach the button, the call was suddenly accepted.
‘You need to let it go!’ a voice said sternly. It was the same, inhuman voice that had come from Jørgensen’s TV.
‘But I haven’t even… Who are you!?’ I demanded with fear in my voice.
‘You don’t need that information. Just know this: We we are actually not bad people, Bjørn Berg.’ The car suddenly started to pull to the left and right, going from side to the side on the road before correcting itself and driving in straight line again.
‘But we will protect our interests. So if that means getting rid of some obstacles, we will not hesitate to do so.’
‘Okay, okay! I believe you. I’ll let it go, I promise!’
‘Good. Remember: We will be keeping an eye on you and Jørgensen, Bjørn Berg. Goodbye!’
With my heart pounding loudly in my chest, I disengaged the autopilot on my trusty old 2006 model Teepee City. The electrical car had been the first of its kind to feature a fully operational autopilot. But I’d made sure all the security updates had been installed in order to prevent the very type of incident I’d just been exposed to. In 2008, the sale of new fossil fuel based cars had been outlawed in all of Europe. This quick shift had been made possible due to Teepee Technologies giving away the patents for their engines and batteries. Many other countries had followed with similar bans since then. But this lead to an even greater threat of electrical cars being hacked, with all their electronics and computer systems.
As I drove towards my home, located somewhere in the southern parts of Oslo, I noticed another thorium reactor under construction along the road. The logo of the Teepee Energy Company was proudly on display. Blue text on a white background. It kind of reminded me of the PeTe logo. And wasn’t Teepee just PeTe backwards? Sure it was! Coincidence? Maybe.
As soon as I got home to my little apartment, I went straight to the bookshelf. I needed to look up some information, but I did not dare doing an online search. Apparently, you never know who’s watching. My ex-wife, knowing I was a huge fan of the Teepee Group, once bought me a big book on everything Teepee. This was back in the good old times, before she started accusing me of being less interested in people than technology and told me I’d be wise to stop obsessing about crappy old computers. As with all such things she was of course right. But these days, crappy old computers are all I have left.
I found the book and sat down on my worn out sofa. I skimmed the first pages which contained information I already knew: That the Teepee Group was behind some of the greatest technological achievements in the last 30 years, like electrifying transportation and creating technology that had almost completely replaced dirty fossil fuel energy with clean, renewable energy.
The Teepee Group had seemingly popped up out of no-where. The founder, US citizen Theodore Paterson, had been an insanely successful stock trader in the late 1980s. Joined by a group of anonymous investors from all over the world, he had turned his attention from merely making an obscene amount of money to investing billion of dollars in subsidiaries creating experimental, world-changing technology. The money could easily have been lost forever. But in most cases, the experimental technology had turned into fully operational technology. Even though he had no technological background, Paterson had an inexplicable flair for choosing technological paths that actually went somewhere. When asked how he kept striking technological gold, he would answer: “Good instincts and fool’s luck. But mostly fool’s luck!”
In the middle of the book there was a picture gallery chapter. I turned to this chapter, half-remembering a picture I’d seen a long time ago. After a while I found it. In it, a young, suave looking Paterson was sitting on his desk smiling broadly to the camera. The caption said: ‘1986: Making his first million’. The photo was taken from a height, making Paterson look upwards. The photographer had probably taken the picture while standing on a chair. Next to Paterson stood a familiar computer: A Commodore 64, the original ‘breadbox’ model. The monitor was turned off. Due to the picture having been taken from a height, it was possible to see what was behind the computer: It was a white device connected to the cartridge port.
I went to the kitchen and slammed open all the cupboards in search of my magnifying glass. When I at last found it, I returned to the book with heavy steps, hesitating before holding the magnifying glass over the picture. As I expected, the white device had a blue logo printed on it. The picture was grainy, making the logo text difficult to read. But I was pretty sure I knew what it read. I was pretty sure it said ‘PeTe’.
I went back to the kitchen and found a half empty bottle of whiskey which had been standing in a cupboard for ages. With shaking hands I poured golden liquid into a glass and took a solid sip. I guessed I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, so I decided to spend the time doing useful stuff on the Internet. Like putting my car for sale and asking my retro computer pals who’d be interested in buying Commodore equipment in near mint condition. This caused quite a frenzy, and for the next few hours I kept myself blissfully occupied replying to requests. When at last I went to bed, I fell swiftly asleep and didn’t wake up until after noon.
Odens Skjegg 