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^C^1GRAYMAT
^Cby
^CJoel Ellis Rea

   We interrupt this issue of Big Blue Disk to present an important product
announcement.  Forget keyboards, paddles, joysticks, touch pads, digitizing bit
pads, mice, touch screens, OCR, foot mice, voice recognition, etc.  The ultimate
in user-friendly input technology is here!  Cerebronics Hardware, a subsidiary
of Softdisk, Inc. has developed GrayMAT -- the Brainwave Digitizer!  Yes, with
GrayMAT, you can actually "think" commands into your computer.  At its current
level of discrimination, it works like the early voice recognition units in that
it is "trained" by a specific user to recognize wave patterns from the input,
rather than actually understanding English words, or, in the case of GrayMAT,
specific thoughts.  The current software driver allows an up to 64-thought
"Psychabulary" file to be generated by the training module.  Then the scanning
module will search for the closest match within the up to 64 samples from what
it has sensed.  The included demo allows the user to develop a 52-thought
Psychabulary for a deck of playing cards, then will actually determine which
card the user is thinking of.  Although still in development, and quite limited
at present, GrayMAT may well be the most important development in computer
science since the invention of Boolean Algebra!


   It's also malarkey!  The program "GRAYMAT.CHN" on this disk purports to be a
demonstration of the ficticious GrayMAT Brainwave Scanning Interface Board.
When you execute "GRAYMAT.BAT" by typing "GRAYMAT", the program claims to load
the GrayMAT Machine Language (ML) Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) driver
routines.  Balderdash!  What it is actually doing is faking a little disk
access.  It then returns you to the MS-DOS "COMMAND.COM" prompt.

   More baloney!  It just LOOKS like it's in COMMAND.COM!  You can still execute
most of the internal DOS commands, including CD, CHDIR, CLS, DATE, DIR, ECHO,
EXIT (ignored), PATH, PROMPT, SET, TIME, TYPE, VER and VERIFY.  I have not (yet)
implemented COPY, DEL, ERASE, MD, MKDIR, RD, REN, RENAME and RMDIR, since I did
not want to take the chance of this program writing to someone's disk.  An
attempt to execute an external command generates the message "Bad command or
filename" or "Program to big to fit in memory" (the excuse given here is that
the pre-release beta-version GrayMAT ML TSR routines do not yet allocate RAM
properly, and thus other programs won't load with GrayMAT in memory).  Even with
these limitations you can generally convince even a DOS wizard that you really
are in the normal DOS mode (unless he has already seen this issue)!  These
commands act just like you would expect DOS to work.  I/O redirection and piping
isn't supported (writing to disk and all), but PROMPT is, including all "$"
features.  The result is that you can quite easily think you are still in DOS
when GrayMAT is running!

   The startup message asks you to type "GMDEMO", think of a playing card, then
press [Return] (or [Enter] or [Ù]) to start the demo, all the while thinking of
the card until the message "Analyzing data..." appears.  If you do indeed enter
a "GMDEMO" command, a brief disk access will make it appear that an external
program is loaded (it appears in the phony "DIR" listing as "GMDEMO.EXE"), then
the program displays first "Reading GrayMAT Interface...(dots come slowly, like
a program "marking time"), then, a few seconds later, "Analyzing Data... (dots
are slower this time)", then "You are thinking of the {rank} of {suit}.", where
"{rank}" and "{suit}" form a randomly-chosen card, spelled out like "Jack of
Hearts" or "Deuce of Diamonds."  It then returns to the phony "DOS" prompt for
more.

   If the cards chosen are random, what's the trick?  Well, type "GM" as if you
were going to type "GMDEMO".  Now, instead of [D], press [5].  What's this?  The
computer echoed a "D" instead of a "5"!  We see "GMD" on the screen!  Now, press
[C] instead of [E].  Hey!  The computer echoed "E" instead of "C"!  We now have
"GMDE" on the screen"  Now press [M], [O] and [Return] as usual, and for all the
screen says, you just entered the "GMDEMO" command.  You see the same "Reading
GrayMAT Interface..." and "Analyzing Data..." messages, followed by the message
"You are thinking of the Five of Clubs."  Hmmmm..."5" of "C"lubs?  There seems
to be a pattern around here somewhere!  Let's try another.  Enter "GMQSMO" which
will echo as "GMDEMO".  "... You are thinking of the Queen of Spades."  Aha!  If
you type "GM{rank key}{suit key}MO" the computer will echo "GMDEMO", then it
will "inform" you that you are thinking of the card you so subtly and secretly
told it!  Rank keys are "!", "1", "A" or "a" for "Ace", "@", "2", "D" or "d" for
"Deuce", "3" or "#" for "Three", etc. up to ")", "0", "T" or "t" for "Ten", and
finally "K" or "k" for "King."  Suit letters are "C", "c" ("Clubs"), "H", "h"
("Hearts"), "S", "s" ("Spades"), "D" and "d" ("Diamonds").  Keys that require
[Shift] or [Caps Lock] will echo as an uppercase "D" (ranks) or "E" (suits),
while those that don't will echo as a lowercase "d" or "e."  Digits normally
echo lowercase, but will echo uppercase if [CAPS LOCK] is active when they are
pressed, thus preserving the illusion that you really typed "GMDEMO."

   When done, type "GMEXIT" (in the phony "DIR" as "GMEXIT.COM") to "remove
the GrayMAT ML TSR driver routines and restore normal operation", actually to
end GrayMAT and return to the REAL MS-DOS prompt!

   To enhance the illusion, assuming you have a detachable keyboard, hold the
keyboard in your lap, and lean way back (explain that the program works better
if you are relaxed) to lengthen the time it takes for your patsy to glance
from the keyboard to the monitor screen and back.  If a person suspects you of
typing other than what is appearing on the screen s/he will usually look at
the keyboard as you start typing, then at the monitor to verify, then back at
the keyboard.  That is why I have GrayMAT respond to the two middle characters
in the "GMDEMO" sequence, so as to decrease the likelihood of getting caught.

   To really take this prank/hoax/fraud/April Fool's joke to the extreme, just
make yourself a GrayMAT Sensor.  All you need is a cloth jogger's headband, a
ski cap, or similar "headwear", and an old busted game controller.  Cut off
the cable of the defunct joystick or paddle, and fasten the colored wires to
the headwear as if they were connected to electrodes.  Then put the other end
behind the computer as if it were connected to an interface card (but don't
actually plug it into anything, of course!).  Another useful prop is a set of
marked cards (DeLand's Automatic Deck, available at magic shops, works fine).
Then you can let the sucker shuffle the deck himself, cut it, and place it
face down in front of you.  Then you type "GMDEMO" (or so s/he thinks!), then
pick up and look at the card, then press [RETURN], then pretend to concentrate
hard on it until "Analyzing Data..." appears.  As far as the user can tell,
between the time you "knew" what the top card was and the time the computer
told you, you pressed exactly one key:  [RETURN]!

   Suggestion:  Before running GrayMAT, let him read the first paragraph of
these instructions, which announces the GrayMAT Breakthrough!  Then, show him
the "demo."  When you have had your fun, and want to let the poor dufus know
just how badly he was taken, instead of just telling him, let him read "the
REST of the story!"  Watch him do a slow burn -- heh heh!  Merry April Fool's
Day, and Happy Hoaxing!

   Reminder:  since this purports to be a memory resident program which returns
the user to DOS, it is not runnable from our menu.  From the DOS prompt, type
GRAYMAT to run it, and GMEXIT to get out of it.

   Due to an apparent bug in Turbo Pascal, the simulated Set and Prompt DOS 
commands will cause the program to crash upon exit on all DOS versions before 
3.0.  Please avoid these commands if you have any DOS version 2.

DISK FILES THIS PROGRAM USES:
^FGRAYMAT.BAT
^FGRAYMAT.CHN
^FPASRUN.COM
^FVERFILE.TXT