If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that being a computer owner is a constant series of challenging hurdles. Unless you choose to remain content, swimming lazily in circles in your own little computer pond, never swimming upstream to sample the sweeter waters of the high country, your pool will inevitably become stagnant and will without a doubt dry up. Amiga owners especially are swimming in some deadly waters these days, what with the "Big Blue" shark trying to chomp us all into plankton, not to mention being crowded out by increasing schools of "Mac"erals. Swimming in some deadly waters indeed.

And because of this we must constantly evolve, taking on new computing challenges. Take for instance when I first purchased my Amiga, all those ever-fading years ago. I bought an Amiga for many reasons, and I don't mind telling you that one of them was that it was quite inexpensive. Upon seeing and hearing an Amiga in action for the first time, I naturally assumed (yeah, yeah, I know the ass-u-me rule) that it must have a pricetag that would rival a well equipped cadillac. When I saw the sticker price of an A500, the left half of my brain did an Immelmann turn, augured into the earth, and burst into flames. I slapped down some quatloos on one shortly after.

But the A500, despite all it's wondrousness was alas, somehow and somewhat incomplete. At first I hesitated at throwing money at add- ons. Would I really need a printer? Were hard drives the celestial manna everyone made them out to be? Would more RAM keep me a happy camper? Did I need a set of huge, towering speakers the size of a washer/dryer combo, loud enough to blow nick-knacks of my neighbors shelves? Well my fellow Americans, the answer was a big old yes! Each of my Amiga peripherals was a huge lunge upstream for this old fish. And thus I soon found myself face to face with....... the modem. Now call me a loon, but I have always been intimidated by the modem. I didn't even like saying the word. Modem. It sounds like some semi- illiterate guy describing what he did to some lawns. But I did some snooping around and asked some really stupid questions and finally swallowed my fear and bought a modem. Now the fun part begins.

If you have ever been to (or through) my home town of Norwich N.Y., you will find a small town like many other small towns. Our crumbling economy has hit Norwich in the kneecaps, pulled it's pants down, and pushed it in the dirt. So after purchasing my modem from someone in Binghamton, I gave Norwich the benefit of the doubt and waited to purchase a serial cable locally. I figured, hey, we've got a Radio Shack, and even a Wal-mart, the land of milk and honey. But after several hours of driving around in a blind panic, tears rolling down my dirt streaked cheeks, I began to wonder if I had made a mistake. Then, when it seemed like all hope was lost, I finally stumbled across a serial cable. One lone cable in a city of 10,000 people. So now I had a modem and a cable, but no software to run the darn thing. So I asked another bunch of really stupid questions and begged certain people for help, and several weeks later found myself with several identical copies of the same version of TERM. And yes, you guessed it, you win our lovely parting gifts, it was the version that WOULDN'T run on my 68000. That modem started to look very ugly sitting there, staring back at me with a vacant expression. But things were to soon improve (they have a way of doing that).

Anyway, to make a long story short (don't say it), I finally got some software to power the mighty modem. I was ready to rock and roll. Now, what was I gonna do with it? All this talk of an "Information Superhighway" and here I was stuck on a goat path through Norwich. I pestered the right people and got some BBS numbers and I was on my way to....... phone bill hell! Lets face it, it is heap big fun calling up these BBS's and downloading files, chatting with other computer users and having a grand old time, but when everything from Norwich is long distance except for Norwich, the fun comes to a screeching halt. And now with the BAUG officially set up on The Pit Stop BBS, the temptation is great. Just one more little call, I tell myself, it'll be alright. Which brings me to my main point (yes I know, about time). There is hope alive in Norwich. It wasn't very long ago, one of our local video stores (the better of the three), sent around a flyer announcing their new BBS for Ms-Dos computers. Out of curiosity I dialed it up and looked around. Very few people had logged on and activity was down to a trickle (this being Norwich and all). So I left some messages with the sysop about who I was and what the BAUG was and how much I like to wind down the hours typing meaningless prattle and beating tired subjects into the ground. I didn't expect much from an Ms-Dos board, let alone one in desolate old Norwich. Upon logging on the next day I was shocked and amazed. Sysop Helen Birkmann had set up my very own Amiga conference to do with as I pleased and listed me as the sysop (overlord, ruler) of the conference! So now I had a local BBS to call, a place to advertise the BAUG, a place to upload heaps of AMIGA software, and a local number for Internet E-mail. The "Information Superhighway" (honk if you're sick of that expression) is slowly being constructed through my home town.

And thus I find myself evolving once again. I have been working every night setting up the Norwich Amiga conference and it is well on it's way to becoming the busiest off ramp on the board. I have located a few other local Amiga users I didn't know were out there and I have told them all about the BAUG, the Pit Stop and Mark's bad jokes. The Norwich BBS does have a monthly fee, but if Norwich is a local call for you, why not dial us up and take a look around, the number is (omitted). Or if you like you can E-Mail me at (omitted), I love getting messages, any old message on any old subject will do.

Ah, the modem. That wonderful little device that does so much. With the addition of the modem my Amiga has had new life breathed into it. Every day around this big, blue world of ours people are dialing up BBS's, some local, some several states away, and I'll keep calling these boards for my daily intake of files and info. But with a handful of luck and a stockpile of programs to back me up, someday maybe they'll be calling me. Whoops, here comes my exit.

Dr. Torgo