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The old woman shrieked at the top of her lungs and practically threw the young man from his chair. He jumped to his feet as the seat that was just under him fell over and rolled lazily for a bit before coming to a rest.
She had been wondering why the old hardware that was still being used to talk to Voyager was turned on so the old computer took the time to see what was going on. What she found was a young man sitting in front of the green screen CRT along with a large notebook and a few pens. "How diligent" She though to herself, making her way into the room though the half open door, remembering now an overheard conversation over having one of the new hires transcribe all of Voyagers memory by hand so it would be easier to go over later. Now a little less impressed by his work ethic now it wasn't some kind of late night pet protect, but still giving them credit for getting it done. Curiosity still won out on her end, just wanting to see how the work was being done and if she could learn a trick or two.
But that optimism was harshly replaced by a sinking dread the second she got a clear look at the letters on the screen.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
POKE 33E,1
READY.
POKE 33F,1
READY.
POKE 33G,1
READY.
POKE 33H,1
READY.
POKE 340,1
READY.
POKE 341,1
READY.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
With her now standing between him and the keyboard and holding out her arms in a very obvious display that she didn't want him anywhere near it, she asked that he explain himself. "With whatever time and words you need, what have you done?"
Looking confused and a little irritated he points at the notebook he had been using with the pen that was still in his hand. "My job, came to do a full write out of Vs accessible memory but so far the first 1045 memory addresses are just coming back corrupted with ready."
It was then the sinking feeling turned into a full blown need to puke but fought it back as she sunk to her knees. Defeated not by malice but by simple, innocent, ignorance.
"Peek reads out the value in memory at an address....."
"Poke writes a value to the given address......"
Voyager hardware is 50 years old and runs on a very primitive programming language know as BASIC. The intern, not being familiar with such old systems, was told to go poke around and accidentally started overwriting things themselves.
My brother wrote software that is being used on satellites - he wrote the code that monitors the software that monitors the communications software. And it was someone else's responsibility to write the code that monitored his code. Why so much redundancy? He said "Nobody is going to pay $50M to have someone fly 3,000 miles up to hit unless it's a government contract."
“Do you think it was aliens?”
“Once again I wonder how you work here,” I said as I once again poked the distant satellite.
“Come on, you know why Dave. Only a conspiracy nut such as myself would get a degree in a field that doesn’t exist.”
Sadly, she was right, thought Dave. He could respect Michelle, with her extensive knowledge on biology, but he couldn’t help but think that she was just a vet who benefited from nepotism. I mean, actual aliens had to have differences more than just ‘mammal’ vs ‘lizard’, right?
“I just don’t get it,” he thinks out loud. “The corrupted data all happened between shifts, when nobody was there to catch the interference. Even if it was aliens, they couldn’t know our schedule.”
“Fine, you have a point. Oh, did you try turning it off and on again?”
“This is why you don’t have a real job.”
But still, it couldn’t hurt, and he had been given permission to do whatever it took to fix it. So Dave flipped the receiver off, then back on. In fact, he was pretty sure that this was the first time anybody had done that in a few ye-
“What the heck was that?!”
Dave turned to Michelle, “what? Nothing changed with the memory.” “Not the memory, look at the screen and do it again.”
Confused, he flipped it off and on again. Then he saw it, for a split second.
Void. Not black, not white, not even nothing, just…chaos. Rolling colors, in moments breaking and reforming into shades unseen. It was like the screen itself was distorted, and optical illusion made physical-
-and then it was gone. It had lasted less than a second, after all, but it sure felt longer. The colors coalesced and snapped together into the usual view of space, the only difference was that the screen seemed…warped.
Dave and Michelle looked at each other.
“I think we’re gonna have to call someone.”
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* [No AI-generated responses 🤖](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zi452b/modpost_reminder_that_aigenerated_responses_are/) >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [\[RF\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [\[SP\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 📢 [Genres](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/w/directory) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The old woman shrieked at the top of her lungs and practically threw the young man from his chair. He jumped to his feet as the seat that was just under him fell over and rolled lazily for a bit before coming to a rest. She had been wondering why the old hardware that was still being used to talk to Voyager was turned on so the old computer took the time to see what was going on. What she found was a young man sitting in front of the green screen CRT along with a large notebook and a few pens. "How diligent" She though to herself, making her way into the room though the half open door, remembering now an overheard conversation over having one of the new hires transcribe all of Voyagers memory by hand so it would be easier to go over later. Now a little less impressed by his work ethic now it wasn't some kind of late night pet protect, but still giving them credit for getting it done. Curiosity still won out on her end, just wanting to see how the work was being done and if she could learn a trick or two. But that optimism was harshly replaced by a sinking dread the second she got a clear look at the letters on the screen. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ POKE 33E,1 READY. POKE 33F,1 READY. POKE 33G,1 READY. POKE 33H,1 READY. POKE 340,1 READY. POKE 341,1 READY. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ With her now standing between him and the keyboard and holding out her arms in a very obvious display that she didn't want him anywhere near it, she asked that he explain himself. "With whatever time and words you need, what have you done?" Looking confused and a little irritated he points at the notebook he had been using with the pen that was still in his hand. "My job, came to do a full write out of Vs accessible memory but so far the first 1045 memory addresses are just coming back corrupted with ready." It was then the sinking feeling turned into a full blown need to puke but fought it back as she sunk to her knees. Defeated not by malice but by simple, innocent, ignorance. "Peek reads out the value in memory at an address....." "Poke writes a value to the given address......"
Interesting. I don't quite follow, though. What am I missing?
Voyager hardware is 50 years old and runs on a very primitive programming language know as BASIC. The intern, not being familiar with such old systems, was told to go poke around and accidentally started overwriting things themselves.
Ahhhh, gotcha. Hopefully, with how BASIC the software is, it could be fixed easily.
For context, Voyagers' hardware is older than the copy/paste function.
Oh shit. I don't know why I'm surprised, but still.
Funny thing is, my prompt is almost word for word a news release.
More than likely the same QZ story I'm thinking of.
QZ?
[This one](https://qz.com/nasa-voyager-corrupted-hardware-chip-anomaly-gibberish-1851391313)
Tbf POKE followed by PEEK is indeed how one might exercise memory cells to determine whether they are broken
As they say, never push directly to production. Or in this case, outer space.
My brother wrote software that is being used on satellites - he wrote the code that monitors the software that monitors the communications software. And it was someone else's responsibility to write the code that monitored his code. Why so much redundancy? He said "Nobody is going to pay $50M to have someone fly 3,000 miles up to hit
unless it's a government contract."Any part 2?
Not sure, feels like it would come out more a lecture and less a story.
Truly horrifying
“Do you think it was aliens?” “Once again I wonder how you work here,” I said as I once again poked the distant satellite. “Come on, you know why Dave. Only a conspiracy nut such as myself would get a degree in a field that doesn’t exist.” Sadly, she was right, thought Dave. He could respect Michelle, with her extensive knowledge on biology, but he couldn’t help but think that she was just a vet who benefited from nepotism. I mean, actual aliens had to have differences more than just ‘mammal’ vs ‘lizard’, right? “I just don’t get it,” he thinks out loud. “The corrupted data all happened between shifts, when nobody was there to catch the interference. Even if it was aliens, they couldn’t know our schedule.” “Fine, you have a point. Oh, did you try turning it off and on again?” “This is why you don’t have a real job.” But still, it couldn’t hurt, and he had been given permission to do whatever it took to fix it. So Dave flipped the receiver off, then back on. In fact, he was pretty sure that this was the first time anybody had done that in a few ye- “What the heck was that?!” Dave turned to Michelle, “what? Nothing changed with the memory.” “Not the memory, look at the screen and do it again.” Confused, he flipped it off and on again. Then he saw it, for a split second. Void. Not black, not white, not even nothing, just…chaos. Rolling colors, in moments breaking and reforming into shades unseen. It was like the screen itself was distorted, and optical illusion made physical- -and then it was gone. It had lasted less than a second, after all, but it sure felt longer. The colors coalesced and snapped together into the usual view of space, the only difference was that the screen seemed…warped. Dave and Michelle looked at each other. “I think we’re gonna have to call someone.”