         _______  _______                                         __
        / _____/ /__  __/                                        / /
       / /__       / / ____    __  __  __ ___  __ __    ____    / /
      / ___/  __  / / / __ \  / / / / / //__/ / //_ \  / __ \  / /
     / /____ / /_/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / / /     / /  / / / /_/ / / /
     \_____/ \____/  \____/  \____/ /_/     /_/  /_/  \__/_/ /_/

  March, 1996   _EJournal_    Volume 6  Number 1    ISSN 1054-1055

                    There are 915 lines in this issue.

                   An Electronic Journal concerned with the
                implications of electronic networks and texts.
                        723 Subscribers in 32 Countries

              University at Albany, State University of New York

                            EJournal@Albany.edu

  CONTENTS:                                        [This is line 20]

      PRESSING THE "REVEAL CODE" KEY             [Begins at line 51]
         by  John Cayley
             cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk

  Editorial Comment  --  Spindle Those Web "Pages"   [ at line 749 ]

  Information about _EJournal_                       [ at line 827 ]

      About Subscriptions and Back Issues
      About Supplements to Previous Texts
      About _EJournal_

  People                                             [ at line 880 ]

        Board of Advisors
        Consulting Editors

  *********************************************************************

    *****************************************************************
  *  This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright  *
  *  1996 by _EJournal_.  Permission is hereby granted to give away  *
  *  the journal and its contents, but no one may "own" it.  Any and *
  *  all financial interest is hereby assigned to the acknowledged   *
  *  authors of individual texts.  This notification must accompany  *
  *  all distribution of _EJournal_.                                 *
    *****************************************************************
  ======================================================================

        PRESSING THE "REVEAL CODE" KEY                     [line 51]
             by  John Cayley
                 cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk

  1: The COMPUTER is (an integral part of) the SYSTEM against which
  WE write.  [Please take a look, now, at note [*] on line 651.]

  The problem of characterizing "the computer" as both a constituent
  part of "the media" and an emergent artistic medium continues to
  engage critical attention.  In _Radical Artifice: writing poetry in
  the age of media_, the poet and critic Majorie Perloff goes so far
  as to suggest that contemporary "poetic discourse defines itself as
  that which can violate the system."  At this point in her argument
  "the system" refers to the computer-based, "inaccessible system
  core that increasingly controls discourse"; "the formulaic On/Off,
  Yes/No, Save/Delete dialectic of computer-speak." [1]  However, this
  system is also, for Perloff, a metonym for the media writ large.

  Poetic writing aims to violate the systems of both computer and
  media, but without touching certain of the tools provided by these
  systems themselves -- in particular without pressing what Perloff
  calls "the Reveal Code key."  That would be a self-limiting option,
  merely "selected" from the formulaic "control-key" offerings of
  the computer.  Instead, poetic discourse aims "to 'reveal' that
  which falls, so to speak, between the control-key cracks."  [2]

  This part of an explanation of "how a poem [by Charles Bernstein]
  means" -- and just one turn in the course of many interesting
  arguments throughout an extensive book -- relies heavily on a prose
  investigation of computer-as-medium, chiefly for video games, also
  by Bernstein. [3]  His piece singles out "invariance, accuracy, and
  synchronicity" as qualities of information processing by computers
  which contrast sharply with those which "generally characterize"
  such processing by humans.  He also points to a particular quality
  of computing in words which Perloff quotes, "the on-ness of the
  computer is alien to any sort of relation we have with people or
  things or nature, which are always and ever possibly present, but
  can't be toggled on and off in anything like this peculiar way." [4]

  The categorical simplicity of on/off, yes/no, save/delete, 1/0; the
  power to "shut-down" (virtual) relationships; invariance, accuracy,
  and synchronicity in the service of command and control -- this is a
  sinister, tyrannical conjunction and potential focus for Romantic
  disaffection which blossoms forth in subversive, linguistically
  innovative writing.  But Bernstein is aware of the "Romantic
  nonsense" which might be read into his analysis of the "inaccessible
  system core."  He nonetheless insists, quite rightly, on underlining
  the historical origins of that core complex in military funding for
  the development of computers.  "Programs and games may subvert the
  command and control nature of computers, but they can never fully
  transcend their disturbing, even ominous, origins."  That
  transcendental task must, presumably, be left to the poet.
                                                            [line 103]

  2: INVARIANT inACCURATE SYSTEMS never sleep SYNCHRONICally.

  Both these pieces were published in 1991, since when the world has
  changed.  It is beginning to dawn on us -- system developers have
  always known it -- that invariance, accuracy and synchronicity are
  ideals of computational information processing which never have
  been, and never will be, attained; that computers -- as their
  Networked instantiation: as the Matrix -- are never turned off;
  that systems have no essential "core," inaccessible or otherwise.

  As the operations of the computer become ever-more profoundly
  involved with even our most intimate activities, we imagine that
  they have acquired their share, however insignificant, of our own
  characteristics.  In fact, they have always been compromised by such
  qualities.  They do not function perfectly.  Not even the hardware
  works with absolute invariance and accuracy, let alone with
  synchronicity.  As for firmware and software -- we write it.  It
  pretends our ideals and exhibits our failings.  Certainly, computers
  have performed a range of functions -- command and control,
  accounting, database management, word processing -- in a manner
  which has radically influenced, not to say confused, our
  understanding of what they are and how they behave.  But now, as
  they play out our chaotic fantasies over the sleepless matrix of
  cyberspace, we encounter their "humanity" daily -- failures,
  diseases, perversions -- and not mere simulacra of such phenomena,
  but "real" inscriptions of our creative and destructive activities
  on the surface of a complex medium.  As real as poetry.
                                                          [line 132]
  3: The COMPUTER is not (a part of) THE MEDIA.  The COMPUTER allows
  for the COMPOSITION of an indeterminate number of potential MEDIA.

  These contrasting views of the "computer" and its characteristics
  arise in part because of a long-standing failure to distinguish
  between the "computer" *per se* and "computer-plus-software", or
  "computer-plus-code" (the code hidden under Perloff's "Reveal"
  key).  There is a tendency to speak as if the computer *itself* is a
  part of the media and a potential artistic medium.  But the computer
  itself is not even a machine.  It is the quintessential programmable
  proto-machine.  Without code, it does nothing.  With appropriate
  software and peripherals it can be made to do or control anything.
  Until recently, computers have participated in the media as badly
  designed typewriter-cum-calculator-cum-filing-cabinet-cum-TVs
  running a limited range of software, hacked together to perform the
  command and control, accounting, management and bureaucratic
  functions already passed over.

  However, with other software "the computer" becomes an entirely
  different kind of medium, or rather a vast unbounded and
  indeterminate set of potential media.  Computers (for which read:
  "networks of linked computers programmed to exchange information
  resources") have a new meaning as media, now that the Internet has
  reached a critical mass.  Their more recognizably human
  characteristics become more noticeable.  Even in the field of
  writing, new media are emerging: the development of the now-familiar
  link-node hypertext of the Web (globally), and a range of
  "authoring" packages (locally), means that the combination of
  computer-plus-hypertext-software will become a flexible and
  seductive literary medium, to which more and more new writers will
  turn.

  4: FAMILIARITY breeds CONTEMPT.  INTIMACY inspires MYSTIFICATION.

  The very intimacy of the functions now performed by these systems
  encourages a tendency to mystify their inner workings, and to
  indulge a Romantic *ressentiment* when faced with their outward
  manifestations -- their "commands," their "controls" and our
  "programmed" responses.  Other machines have functions which are
  clearly delineated by their physical form, by "programming" which
  is structurally and often visibly built into them.  You may not be
  able to repair the engine or transmission of your car, but you can
  lift the hood and see a complex structure which is, appreciably, of
  human scale and manufacture, and which some other person like
  yourself might well be able to understand and repair.  But the
  computer is a shape-shifter.  Its engineering evolves beneath your
  fingers in a world too small to see, while before your eyes the
  system's functions change.  One minute, it is a typewriter, the next
  a fax machine, the next it's "your personal accountant" (it
  lives!), and soon it will be helping you to read a poem, as well as
  keeping you in touch with both colleagues and lovers.
                                                          [line 184]
  Even if you had considered it before, you no longer dare press the
  "Reveal Code" key.  Not when there's a possibility that doing so
  might change your system's function in a way you hadn't predicted --
  and just as your electronic familiar was becoming so useful to you,
  so intimate with your personal and particular concerns.  Neither --
  if you do hit the key by accident -- can you relate the functions
  your computer performs to the insubstantial, language-like
  engineering which makes it all happen.

  5: Software sHifts poetIcs, iF riTers prEss: <Reveal>

  Meanwhile the extension of such software engineering to the
  manipulation of poetic texts has already been achieved and will
  continue to be developed.  John Cage's mesostics (internal acrostic
  poetry) are central to Perloff's critical text.  Cage commissioned
  software -- to assist the generation of his mesostics -- from a
  writer who has gone on to make important explorations of the
  potentials within cybertextual poetics, Jim Rosenberg. [5]  Had they
  not made actual use of computers and software, the explicitly
  procedural writings of Cage, Mac Low, Williams, Hartman/Kenner and
  others would nonetheless demand analysis that is engaged with the
  engineering of algorithms. [6]  So "even" poetry must now be
  understood as influencing and perhaps fundamentally changing the
  characteristics of computer systems as artistic media.  Poetry can
  no longer be understood simply as a (traditional) art which is
  (passively) changed or inflected by "the system."  Whether and how
  poetry subverts this system is an open question.

  In remarks published on the Net which speak to the subject of
  constructive hypertexts (those which actively construct texts with
  or without reader intervention), Rosenberg has called for the
  problematized complexity of the reader/writer relationship to allow
  for a third term: the programmer.  "What is the role of *the code*
  in setting the constructive act?  A cautious view might limit the
  role of the code to simply setting the arena for the constructive
  act, and leaving it at that.... beyond this: the code might act as a
  *coparticipant* in the constructive act....  the code is not there
  as some kind of stub to be plugged into the socket of the
  constructive act like a stopper -- in place of the reader. One
  constructs with and against and amongst the code.  But most of all
  one constructs!  Agents should be used to enrich the construction,
  not to do away with the need for it." [7]               [line 226]

  Rosenberg responds to the notion that agents of the system --
  unrevealed, encoded, virtual readers -- have been active in
  manipulating certain literary texts (plucking, say, words from James
  Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_ and fitting them into Cage's tall,
  mesostic, author-naming verses).  Such operations are sometimes seen
  as substitutes for the reader's potential activity, as control over
  her attention and response.  Rosenberg suggests rather that if we
  acknowledge these coded agents, if we read "with and against and
  amongst" them, we may enrich the constructive act of reading itself.
  But I want to focus on the fact that these agents are themselves
  constructed, and they may be authored by the writer or designer of
  both given text and its modulated form (in any particular reading or
  performance) as an integral part of the entire "work."  Writers may
  also write "with and against and amongst" the code.

  Each term of the writer/ reader/ programmer triangle is a shifter.
  Just as writer may be reader, and reader may be writer, in current
  (post-modern) critical perspectives, so either of these absent
  agents may be programmers: systematic manipulators of text and
  intertext, making use of software which has become intimate with
  poetics.  Poets and readers must become intimate with software.
  They must press the "Reveal Code" key.

  [[Sections 6 to 8 of this essay have been software-generated by
  applying semi-aleatory collocational procedures to arguments
  extracted from the earlier sections.   Look for details about
  the procedure in the Explanatory Note at line 651.]

        6 THESIS

        inflected by computers
        their disturbing even ominous origins
        changed or inflected by the system
        of command and control
        this is a sinister tyrannical conjunction

        military funding for romantic disaffection
        which blossoms forth in subversive
        linguistically innovative writing
                                                          [line 267]
        before your eyes the on-ness of the computer
        aims to shut-down
        the reader's potential activity

        her attention and response
        falls between the categorical simplicity
        of the systems
        and control

        this is an integral part of the system against which we write

        unrevealed encoded virtual relationships
        invariance accuracy and synchronicity
        are qualities of the system
        that increasingly controls discourse

        the computer is an integral part of the system
        which has radically influenced our understanding

        poetic discourse aims to reveal
        that which falls between the control-key cracks

        this is a world
        alien to any sort of
        potential activity
        touching certain of the tools
        for romantic disaffection

        manipulating certain literary texts
        might change
        your system's
        function in a way you hadn't predicted

        its engineering evolves
        in subversive linguistically innovative writing
        inflected by these systems themselves
        without pressing the reveal code key
                                                          [line 305]
        a shape-shifter
        a substitute for the reader's potential activity
        the computer is alien
        to any sort of relation we have with people or things or nature

        the power to shut-down virtual relationships
        in a way you hadn't predicted
        is an integral part of the media

        the formulaic control
        over her attention and response
        can never fully transcend
        the historical origins of the system
        which has radically influenced our understanding

        information processing by humans
        defines itself
        is a part of the system core
        this is an integral part of the reader's potential

        inflected by these systems
        our understanding
        can never fully transcend
        the categorical simplicity of
        unrevealed encoded virtual relationships
        of both computer and media

        without pressing the
        reveal code key
        a self-limiting option merely selected from the insubstantial
        language-like engineering which makes it all happen
        poetry subverts the system
                                                          [line 338]

                  7 ANTITHESIS

                even our most intimate
                operations have always been compromised
                by such qualities

                the computer becomes an entirely different
                kind of medium
                influencing and perhaps fundamentally changing
                the system
                a flexible and seductive literary medium

                to enrich
                such phenomena
                real inscriptions of our chaotic fantasies
                writers may also write with
                a machine
                with and against and amongst
                the code

                these agents are themselves constructed
                they have acquired their share
                of our own characteristics
                the computer's operations have no essential core

                the manipulation of poetic texts
                will continue to be developed
                readers must press
                for the composition
                of an indeterminate set of potential media

                these absent agents may be authored
                in the constructive act
                as real as poetry
                inscriptions of
                the need for
                a flexible and seductive literary medium
                to be developed                           [line 377]

                it pretends our ideals and exhibits our most intimate
                activities on the surface
                of a complex medium
                text and intertext

                if we read with and against and amongst the code
                each term of the system
                becomes an entirely different kind of
                coparticipant in the constructive act

                reading itself
                may be authored
                making use of software
                which has become intimate with poetics

                poets and readers must become
                ever-more profoundly involved
                with even our most intimate
                chaotic fantasies

                readers must press for the composition
                of an entirely different kind of
                text and intertext
                making use of a coparticipant in the constructive act

                reading itself
                is the quintessential programmable proto-machine
                without code it does nothing
                with appropriate software
                which has become intimate with poetics
                it can be made to do away with the need for it

                one constructs with and against and amongst the code
                it can be made to enrich such phenomena
                real inscriptions of our most intimate activities
                real inscriptions of our creative
                and destructive
                operations

                so either of these absent agents may be programmers
                systematic manipulators of text
                authored in the constructive act as
                poetry
                inscriptions of the code
                each term of the code
                each term of the field of writing

                press the reveal code key

        8 SYNTHESIS                                       [line 428]

        coparticipant in the manipulation of poetic texts
        these absent agents may also
        enrich such phenomena
        real inscriptions of potential activity
        control over her attention and response
        inflected by the system

        these agents are themselves constructed
        they may be programmers
        systematic manipulators of text
        of unrevealed encoded virtual relationships

        ideals of computational information processing
        in a potential focus for
        the manipulation of
        both computer and media
        will continue to be attained

        both given text and its modulated form
        in any particular reading or performance
        have no essential core

        real inscriptions of our own characteristics
        the computer's operations
        have been active in manipulating
        certain of these absent agents

        themselves constructed
        they can never fully transcend
        the historical origins of software engineering

        poetry is alien to
        shut-down virtual readers
        of the system that increasingly controls discourse
        the reveal code key
        even our failings
                                                          [line 466]
        they have acquired their share
        of our most intimate activities
        on the surface of a shifter
        just as writer may also write with a machine

        it pretends our ideals
        of computational information processing
        in a traditional art
        which is passively changed or inflected
        by the on-ness of

        the computer is a potential
        inflected by these systems
        a flexible and seductive literary medium

        poetic discourse aims to violate

        the computer is alien to
        any sort of relation we have with absolute invariance

        accuracy and synchronicity
        are qualities of poetic texts
        and ever possibly present
        but they can be left
        to be a self-limiting option
        merely selected from the insubstantial

        language-like engineering
        to do away with appropriate software
        which has radically influenced
        our most intimate chaotic fantasies

        readers must press
        for the composition of an entirely different kind of text

        an indeterminate number
        of our most intimate operations
        have always been compromised by computers

        readers must become ever-more profoundly involved
        with appropriate software
        which has radically influenced our understanding of

        what they are

        vast unbounded
        and never turned off
        systems have no essential core

        the reveal code key
        coparticipant in the composition

  [Some lines in Section 9 extend beyond our normal margins in order
  to accomodate HyperTalk scripting.  The complete code is available
  at
          http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/indown.html

  Again, please read the Explanatory Note, at line 651, for details.]

                9 <REVEALED>                              [line 526]

on inflect
  repeat twice
    do "global " & characteristics
   end repeat
   lock screen
   put potential & space after card field system
  if media & comma is in field computer of card understanding & ",text"
  then
    put return after card field system
    put true into subversive
  end if
  if compromised then show card field agents
  do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
end inflect

on write
  repeat twice
    do "global " & characteristics
  end repeat
  repeat with programmers = one to always
    if touching then
      put essential into invariance
    else
      put the round of simplicity * engineering / synchronicity + one
      into invariance
    end if
    if invariance is greater than the random of engineering and
    not categorical then
      put ideals + one into media
      if subversive then
        put false into subversive
      end if
      if media is greater than instantiation then
        put one into media
      end if
    else
      put the inscription of conjunctions + one into media
    end if
    if categorical then put false into categorical
    put media into ideals
    put word media of field "text" of card understanding & ",text"
    into potential
    if the mouse is down then
      put conjunctions into potential
      put potential into card field agents
      put true into encoded
      exit repeat
    end if                                                [line 575]
    inflect
    wait manipulation
    put potential into conjunctions
    put ideals into world
    if performed then put false into performed
    if programmers are greater than control
    and media & comma is in field computer of
    card understanding & ",text" then exit repeat
  end repeat
  if not encoded and not touching then
    if ideals are developed then wait five seconds
    lock screen
    put empty into card field agents
    put empty into card field system
    do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
  end if
end write

on violation
  repeat twice
    do "global " & characteristics
  end repeat
  set cursor to none
  put false into subversive
  put false into encoded
  put true into complex
  put true into intimate
  go to card reader
  put empty into card field agents
  put empty into card field system
  hide card field agents
  if performed then
    put zero into poetic
    hide message
    put the number of words in field text of card understanding &",text"
    into developed
    put the number of words in field text of card core & ",text"
    into instantiation
    if reader contains "software" then
      put the random of developed into ideals
      put word ideals of field text of card understanding & ",text"
      into conjunctions
    end if
    put accuracy into change                              [line 619]
    put false into performed
  end if
  repeat until ideals are developed
    set cursor to none
    if poetic is greater than change then exit repeat
    if reader is not "code" then add one to ideals
    put word ideals of field text of card understanding & ",text"
    into operations
    if compromised then
      put operations into card field agents
    end if
    send write to card
    put false into subversive
    if encoded or touching then
      exit repeat
    end if
    if compromised then
      lock screen
      hide card field agents
      do "unlock screen with dissolve " & fantasies
    end if
    if reader contains "software" then if ideals are developed then
    put zero into ideals
  end repeat
  if "software" is not in reader then
    show card field agents of card reader
  end if
end violation

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Explanatory Note                                          [line 651]

  [*] Sections 6 to 8 of this essay have been software-generated by
  applying semi-aleatory collocational procedures to arguments
  extracted from the earlier sections.

  Two arguments were extracted manually from the earlier text which
  may be summarized as: "The COMPUTER is (an integral part of) the
  SYSTEM against which WE write" (thesis), and "Software sHifts
  poetIcs, iF riTers prEss: <Reveal>" (antithesis).

  Sections 6 and 7 were generated from their respective arguments
  separately.  A collocational algorithm generated phrases which were
  selected and collected by the author.  Selected phrases were also
  fed back into the given text, changing them irreversibly.  The
  altered texts from 6 and 7 were then combined and used as the given
  text for secton 8 (synthesis).

  Note that by this stage very little active selection of generated
  phrases was required by the author.  The final paragraphs of section
  8 are almost entirely generated by a simple collocational
  algorithm.  I merely split the generated paragraphs into lines.

  A HyperCard stack (Macintosh only, for HyperCard 2.x) with the
  current state of the "Reveal Code" cybertext generator will be
  posted as shareware for downloading at:

  http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/indown.html

  Section 9 is part of the actual working code (in HyperTalk) used to
  generate sections 6 to 8.  The variable terms have been randomly and
  systematically replaced with substantive words from sections 1 to 5

      -- any noun or adjective is allowed to replace a variable name
     containing a value; any verb is allowed to replace a procedure or
     function name --

  HyperTalk 'reserved words' have been left intact.  The code is
  working code.  (Some liberties have been taken with line breaks, to
  keep them short, but this does not affect the code's logic.)

  Information concerning my own work in this field can be found at my
  web site:

  http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/in/

  There is also an extensive article describing the work forthcoming
  in _Visible Language_ (1996).

  NOTES                                                   [line 700]

  [1] Majorie Perloff, _Radical Artifice_, Chicago & London:
  University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 189. (Hereafter: RA.)

  [2] RA, p. 189.

  [3] Charles Bernstein, "Play it Again, Pac-Man," _Postmodern
  Culture_ 2.1 (September 1991). Cited by Perloff (?in an earlier
  form) as: "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade," American Museum of the
  Moving Image, 14 June-26 November 1989.

  [4] RA, p. 188

  [5] Perloff mentions this (RA, p. 208.), although Rosenberg has
  since pointed out that he wrote only the early programs; Andrew
  Culver then took over this work for Cage. (Personal communication.)

  [6] See, for example, Emmett Williams, _A Valentine for Noel: Four
  Variations on a Scheme_ (Barton, Brownington, Berlin: Something Else
  Press, 1973), and also his _Selected Shorter Poems (1950-1970)_ (New
  York: New Directions, 1975).  A selection of Jackson Mac Low's
  Asymmetries is included in his _Representative Works: 1938-1985_
  (New York, Roof Books, 1986).  His 'diastic' technique was used in
  _The Virginia Woolf Poems_ (Providence: Burning Deck, 1985).  Cage's
  mesostics include _Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake_
  (first produced in Paris in 1978) and _I-VI_ (Cambridge: Harvard
  University Press, 1990).  Charles O. Hartman and Hugh Kenner have
  recently published _Sentences_ (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon, 1995).

  [7] Jim Rosenberg, remarks posted to the (majordomo) discussion list
  "ht_lit" (hypertext literature: ht_lit@journal.biology.carleton.ca),
  9 June, 1995.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
    John Cayley
        Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~}  ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}]
             ^ innovative literary translation from Chinese ^
                        cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk
                        http://www.demon.co.uk/eastfield/
  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  [ This essay in Volume 6, Number 1 of _EJournal_ (March,      ]
  [ 1996) is (c) copyright _EJournal_.  Permission is hereby    ]
  [ granted to give it away.  _EJournal_ hereby assigns any and ]
  [ all financial interest to John Cayley.  This note must      ]
  [ accompany all copies of this text.                          ]

  =====================================================================

  EDITORIAL  COMMENT  --  Spindle Those Web "Pages"          [line 749]

  In the spirit of challenging the default assumptions imposed by a
  paper-based culture, we ought to be looking for images to replace
  "Homepage."  "Web" and "'net" don't bother me, even though I prefer
  "Matrix."  But we should resist at least the "page" part of Homepage
  because electronic communication transcends the boundary conditions
  imposed by paper and ink and print, and because accepting images
  like "page" makes it hard to escape the conditions.

  Adjusting the imagery won't be easy.  The inertia is so enfolding
  that we hardly notice it.  But it will happen, and we should
  encourage the changes in vocabulary when we notice them being tried
  out.

  Why?  Vocabulary is part of what we wonder with.  As long as we
  stick with strictly papyrocentric terms, we'll be stuck inside the
  boundaries they impose.  But new terms lead to new things to think
  about.  The idea of "clicking on" something is entering the lexicon,
  and we're starting to hear "mouse" used as a verb.

  Speaking of mice, remember how happy we were with the friendliness
  of the Macintosh "desktop"?  Those familiar manila-folder icons and
  wastebaskets seemed wonderful.  But they helped prolong dependence
  on the mental scaffolding they were leaving behind.  Now it is
  time to wean ourselves from the limitations of papyrocentrism.

  There are other examples of paper-bound mindset.  The surviving
  major word-processors were built to process "papers," not words.
  Footnotes, margins, headers and footers .... the goal of bit-mapping
  texts was to make screens look like paper.

  And WYSIWYG, of course, caters to people who prepare texts for
  printers.  Ordinary readers -- especially people who scroll through
  screens and link to digital sound and cinema as well as to text --
  we care about WYSIWYG only when condemned to produce "pages" for the
  Web.  I have found talk about *writing spaces* (instead of
  "pages") only in Bolter-aware hypertext programs like Storyspace.
  And even "writing" should be giving way, now, to "composing."
                                                            [line 788]
  SGML and its subset HTML are also paper bounded, aimed at describing
  "pages" and associated with the retrospective task of digitizing
  paper texts.  And so on.

  Constant references to "desktop publishing" reinforce the
  supposition that publishing requires paper, that computers exist to
  serve the papyrocentric culture.  We forget that "publishing" is
  just a way to make something public.  "To publish" and "to make
  paper copies" are not synonymous.

  A current example of indebtedness to print technology is the
  suggestion that we ought to have monitors that can be turned --
  physically -- between "landscape" and "portrait" positions.  We
  ought to have them, we're told, because Homepages resemble
  paperpages.  The idea does make some sense -- but, like the word
  "page" itself, it's just a retrograde adaptation.

  There's no pressure to invent new terminology right away.  Sure,
  Wiener adapted "kybernos" and Mandelbrot tells us where he got
  "fractal," but the digital revolution, although *bigger* than than
  control theory or chaos or complexity, is more gradual.  Computers
  still need paper.  Electronic communication won't *replace* printing
  any more than writing replaced talking.  The old images do make
  transitions easier; we still use "horsepower" to compare engines, we
  say "dial" when we could use "punch" or "key" for telephoning.

  On the other hand, the path is forking.  Terminology affects
  perception.  Now that the digital revolution is virtually over, and
  we winners are in a position to write the history, we should be on
  the lookout for the images that will suit the *n*-dimensional matrix
  and hypertext better than "pages" and all those other paper- and
  print-bounded words do.  I don't propose a contest, but _EJournal_
  could help circulate -- "publish" -- any post-transitional
  adaptations and neologisms its readers discover.

  ===================================================================
                                                           [line 825]
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  About "Supplements":

  _EJournal_ continues to experiment with ways of revising, responding
  to, reworking, or even retracting the texts we publish.  Authors who
  want to address a subject already broached --by others or by
  themselves-- may send texts for us to consider publishing as a
  Supplement issue.  Proposed supplements will not go through as
  thorough an editorial review process as the essays they annotate.
  -------------------------------------------------------------------
  About _EJournal_:                                       [line 856]

  _EJournal_ is an all-electronic, e-mail delivered, peer-reviewed,
  academic periodical.  We are particularly interested in theory and
  practice surrounding the creation, transmission, storage,
  interpretation, alteration and replication of electronic "text" -
  and "display" - broadly defined.  We are also interested in the
  broader social, psychological, literary, economic and pedagogical
  implications of computer- mediated networks.  The journal's essays
  are delivered free to Internet addressees.  Recipients may make
  paper copies; _EJournal_ will provide authenticated paper copy from
  our read-only archive for use by academic deans or others.

  Writers who think their texts might be appreciated by _EJournal_'s
  audience are invited to forward files to  ejournal@albany.edu .  If
  you are wondering  about starting to write a piece for to us, feel
  free to ask if it sounds appropriate.  There are no "styling"
  guidelines; we try to be a little more direct and lively than many
  paper publications, and considerably less hasty and ephemeral than
  most postings to unreviewed electronic spaces.  Essays in the
  vicinity of 5000 words fit our format well.  We read ASCII; we
  continue to experiment with other transmission and display formats
  and protocols.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  Board of Advisors:                                        [line 880]
                  Stevan Harnad     University of Southampton
                  Ann Okerson       Association of Research Libraries
                  Joe Raben         City University of New York
                  Bob Scholes       Brown University
                  Harry Whitaker    University of Quebec at Montreal

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  SENIOR EDITORS - March, 1996

  ahrens@alpha.hanover.edu       John Ahrens            Hanover
  dabrent@acs.ucalgary.ca        Doug Brent             Calgary
  kahnas@jmu.edu                 Arnie Kahn             James Madison
  richardj@bond.edu.au           Joanna Richardson      Bond
  ryle@urvax.urich.edu           Martin Ryle            Richmond
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Consulting Editors - March, 1996

  bcondon@umich.edu               Bill Condon        Michigan
  djb85@albany                    Don Byrd           Albany
  folger@watson.ibm.com           Davis Foulger      IBM - Watson
  gms@psu.edu                     Gerry Santoro      Penn State
  nakaplan@ubmail.ubalt.edu       Nancy Kaplan       Baltimore
  nrcgsh@ritvax                   Norm Coombs        RIT
  r0731@csuohio                   Nelson Pole        Cleveland State
  ray_wheeler@dsu1.dsu.nodak.edu  Ray Wheeler        North Dakota
  srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk        Stephen Clark      Liverpool
  twbatson@gallua.gallaudet.edu   Trent Batson       Gallaudet
  wcooper@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca      Wes Cooper         Alberta
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
    Editor:                 Ted Jennings, emeritus, English, Albany
    Editorial Asssociate:   Jerry Hanley, emeritus, Theater, Albany
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
           University at Albany Computing and Network Services
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
       University at Albany, SUNY.   Albany, New York  12222  USA

