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Oct-07-12, 06:22 PM (EDT)
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"Oh hey, look what I found."
 
   It's the original Usenet post announcing Undocumented Features to an unsuspecting world.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime, rec.arts.comics
From: gryphon@wpi.WPI.EDU (Creator of Alternate Universes)
Date: 14 Nov 91 04:05:17 GMT
Local: Thurs, Nov 14 1991 12:05 am
Subject: _Undocumented Features_--the introduction

Greetings. I don't know what to say, really; what I'm about to do is
something I've given a great deal of thought to over the past couple
of weeks, but I never really gave any thought at all to what to say to
introduce it. Well, here goes.

A while back, I arrived at WPI with a couple of intentions. One was
to become a productive member of society after a short indoctrination
period. (Translation: Get a degree.) The other was to see as much
stuff as I could in the realms of animation, etc., after the
experiences of a friend of mine here a couple of years ago.

It was a slow start; a month or so passed as I hunted around. People
told me to find a guy called "megazone", but who and where he was were
mysteries to me until early October.

The rest is very nearly history around here, but for those of you on
the outside world, for whom this introduction is intended anyway, I'll
elaborate. One of the first things I encountered upon fooling around
with the local system were .gif files...I was advised early on that,
if I had an interest in anime, I should seek out /usr6/pub/anime and
check out the .gifs therein.

The first one I xgif'd was /usr6/pub/anime/dp.portrait.gif...and lo,
another addict was born...

A little while later, after watching several Dirty Pair videotapes and
becoming more and more firmly hooked, I got the not-so-terribly-original
idea to write some of my own stuff concerning the characters...a few
things went around in my head and being the people person I am, I told
a couple of people about them, including Zoner.

This would later prove to be both my undoing and the key to a glorious
gateway. On the one hand, I didn't get a whole lot accomplished
academically in A term; on the other hand, what you are about to see
is the direct result of the collaboration between myself, Zoner, and
Zoner's roommate ReRob.

Oh, and in case anyone cares (and to help those with visual/holographic
imaginations picture it better), the character design we're using for
the Dirty Pair is the one from the later OAVs and Project EDEN.

Running order will be as follows, barring any unforseen incidents:
_Undocumented Features_ will be posted in increments of two chapters
per day, starting with chapter one and running through chapters two,
e, three, pi, four, 4.5, five through seventeen, and an epilogue.
Don't miss e, pi, and 4.5, or you'll never forgive yourself.

Also, to help out the non-WPI students, we've included a glossary of
the very frequent WPI injokes to aid in understanding. It can be found
at the end, so if you're lost, have faith, it'll all make sense in a
week or so.

So, without babbling on any further (after all, people are going to
bitch at me about bandwidth as it is), here it is. I'm not going to
make any excuses for it; either you like it or you don't. I'm very
happy with the way it turned out. Email responses, questions,
criticisms, whatever, to gryp...@wpi.WPI.EDU, megaz...@wpi.WPI.EDU,
and rema...@wpi.WPI.EDU--we want to know what you think. Even if it
isn't particularly pleasant.

:-)

And now, without any further introduction, here it is. Enjoy.

--Gryphon
Benjamin D. Hutchins

Whoa--- hold it, you think you get all the say in this??

Ok, I was just a normal WedgeRat, happily going about my business, except
when college butted in, and then I met Gryphon.

Gryphon was referred to me because of my animation collection, which he
proceeded to drown himself in. Then he and ReRob get this crazy idea. You see,
Ben likes to do creative writing, and ReRob is a tech writer type, so they
wanted to create something, and somehow the Dirty Pair got involved. They
came to me with the idea that I could be a technical advisor and a springboard
for ideas, and I got sucked into a whirlpool. I ended up as a major character
and a coauthor. I have no illusions about my writing skill, I'm not all that
good. But Undocumented Features became a way to have fun and unwind, kill
people, find a woman and beat the ratio, and make myself larger than life.
Working with Ben and ReRob was great, if one of us got stuck the others would
help out and give 'em a little push, or maybe a HUGE shove, or a smack in the
head.

Undocumented Features was fueled by imagination, caffeine, sugar, boredom,
procrastination, stress, and music. And the whole thing is based on WPI, the
Dirty Pair, and an opening to a Def Leppard song, it sort of grew from there.
We are already working on part 2 and part n, since the completion of part one
has left a gap in our lives. None of these were every written for public
viewing, they were written by the authors for the authors, and maybe a few
of our friends. But we figured, hey, maybe someone else out there will get
a kick out of it. It is also available on my ftp site in /anime/Scripts as
dp.undocument.1.Z

###############################################################################
# "Watch your back, conserve ammo, and never deal with a dragon." SHADOWRUN #
#Email megazone@wpi.wpi.edu Moderator, WPI anime FTP site 130.215.24.1 /anime#
###############################################################################

Back to gryph--

Gaaah, it's getting so you can't emacs a file anymore without everybody and
their brother in law jumping in. :-)

Seriously--
The actual text will be posted by megazone, since after all, it's his ftp
site. Subject headings will be dp.1 through dp.glo, and don't forget e, pi,
4.5, or the epilogue.

So, this will be the last time you hear from me for a while...

Don't forget to write...

--Gryphon

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is a way of life."
--Kei
INTERNET: gryphon@wpi.WPI.EDU SNAILNET: WPI Box ###, I00 Institute Rd,
BELLNET: (508)791-#### Worcester, MA 01609
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(I've redacted my old phone number and WPI box number because I'm sure whoever has them now doesn't need the tsuris. :)

The first actual piece of the story was posted a few minutes later:

Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime, rec.arts.comics
From: megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (MEGAZONE 23)
Date: 14 Nov 91 04:13:16 GMT
Local: Thurs, Nov 14 1991 12:13 am
Subject: dp.1

Man. If UF was a person it'd be old enough to drink pretty soon.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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