Southend U3A

Writing for Fun

It will probably sound arrogant to you but I think the only way I can explain to you who we actually are and why we were chosen is to quote what the boss said to me at the interview.

He said, ‘You may not be not be the best Systems Analyst in the world but if they made a list of the top fifty then you would definitely be up there amongst the very best – and I really need you on this project.’

It was an extremely flattering comment but then, each and every one of us who were selected for this unique position would have accepted those same comments with good grace.

It is akin to Alan Turing and Bletchley Park – where they sought out the crème de la crème of their mathematicians to break the Enigma Code – and now, eighty years on, here we are again only this time for a subtly different and far more peaceful purpose.

However, we should start at the very beginning.

In 1822 Charles Babbage, an extremely talented mathematician, mechanical engineer and inventor created the Babbage Difference Engine – the world’s first ever computer. In the years that followed, different forms of computers slowly evolved, each one more powerful than the one before but it was not until 1951 when the first commercial computer – the Univac – was introduced and this kickstarted a technological revolution.

Then a decade later came the super computer . . .

However, we have now developed the Quantum Computer, which makes a supercomputer look like an abacus – it can compute 100 trillion times faster than the best super computer. It is so powerful that it could do in four minutes what it would take a traditional supercomputer 10,000 years to accomplish.

However, with a machine so powerful and sophisticated as this you cannot just stop with the creation, it takes the imagination of an equally powerful and sophisticated team to design and encode the programs necessary to prove to the scientific world its immense capability and value.

Around the globe there are analysts, in research facilities, working flat out to improve on what is already considered to be perfection. Others are trying their utmost to uncover any vulnerability in the system – or, to put it more simply, to see if they can break it.

My team have, what I would consider, the most arduous part, we are tasked with finding the most exciting and innovative function which would inspire the world and bring them to our door with open wallets.

This could never be described as just a job; it is a full-blown obsession. There is no such thing as 9 to 5, we work until either we no longer need to work further on that day or until we are so tired that the atrophied brain pushes us close to collapse. There are times when I have awoken to find my head on the desk and the screen filled with incomplete and often incomprehensible code.

In Cambridge, Annette and I each have our own separate office, to avoid distraction but we are not in competition with each other and we often work very closely together, sharing ideas and collectively brainstorming problems.

You might say that I am married to this computer, as I have very little that you might call a life outside of it. There are times when I would love to put my relationship with Annette on a more solid basis and I have an inkling that she might not be averse to the proposal but we are both absolute professionals and the current job is the centre of our universe and there is no room for any distraction.

Of course, we could never sustain this level of intensity long term and each weekend we take time out to relax and recharge our batteries.

At home I have my own computer, which pales into insignificance even when compared to a mere super computer but it is the best the ‘ordinary’ market can provide. I bought it to keep myself up to date on all manner of new programs and systems but nowadays my weekday work is so intense that I seem to spend more and more of my weekend time playing Solitaire or destroying aliens than anything sensible and useful.

However, powerful as my own computer is, it is still subject to all of the vagaries of Microsoft. As I powered it up on that Saturday morning the machine beeped and the screen turned an intense indigo blue. I had always thought that this was a problem of the far, far distant past – the Blue Screen Of Death – but I was staring into a blue void from which there was no escape . . . except . . .

It took me a few minutes to absorb the situation before I restarted the computer in Safe Mode and navigated through the settings to a suitable System Restore Point.

It took an age to time-shift the computer back to a point before whatever had tried to kill it had occurred, so, while I waited, I opened up my mobile phone and scanned through the BBC News.

I soon realised why I don’t do this very often – doom, gloom and misery: Covid and the NHS crumbling, ambulances lined up outside A & E, millions of operations delayed – many, no doubt, with potentially fatal consequences; then there was Ukraine and the food and fuel shortages; then Climate Change and Global Warming and the extinction of pollinators and other vital animals; the Downing Street party, an earthquake in Brazil . . . I went into overwhelm, I switched the app off and made a coffee.

I knew in my heart that if this computer could ease any one of those disasters, we would be acclaimed as heroes but my conscious brain had seized up at the enormity of the situation and all that I was left with was to stare at a blank screen and sip at black coffee, which was nuclear.

However, during all that time my subconscious brain was ticking over – the backroom boys in my head had been working overtime – and before the computer finally woke up to a usable state, a disturbing thought had surfaced.

I left the computer to its own devices for a while and retired to a comfortable chair, leaving the coffee to cool down to a less harmful temperature.

I shut my eyes and allowed my mind to drift.

Some time later I awoke but it was not the gentle awakening from a relaxing, regenerating nap, it was a nightmare jumble of bizarre problems and implausible solutions.

I needed help with this one.

I rang Annette.

I told her that I had had a piece of luck, that I had come up with a potential suggestion for a project, something really interesting but far too complicated to explain over the phone. I asked her if we could meet up for coffee somewhere and she invited me to come round to her flat.

When I explained it, I suppose her response to my suggestion was perfectly predictable . . .

‘What on earth were you thinking of?’

‘There’s no way that could possibly work.’

‘It’s utterly ridiculous.’

‘It’s way beyond our capabilities.’

However, I knew that all the time that she was trying desperately to rubbish my idea, her subconscious brain was in the same complete turmoil as mine was a short while before.

Eventually she smiled, a smile as bright as sunlight and whispered, ‘It . . . maybe . . . might be possible . . . but no way would the management sanction something so extreme. We must keep it to ourselves while we investigate it and until we are in a position to hand them a fait accompli.’ She took a sip of her tea and added, ‘and we can’t do any of that here, we have to go in.’

We spent the rest of that weekend in the office, working late into the night, just trying to get a handle on my lunacy. When we finally dragged ourselves away, we agreed that we should continue to spend most of our normal weekday hours exactly as usual, working on our current projects, keeping the management out of our hair but that weekends were our own to do with as we wished.

We both agreed that we could not put any suggestion of this project before the board until we had at least carried out a dry run – but the prospect of that was absolutely terrifying.

It took a very long time, endless weekend days and sleepless nights, until we finally broke through. In fact, in the end, for a computer this powerful, the solution was relatively straightforward.

We eventually had to agree that a dry run was never going to be feasible – there be dragons! – so it was scheduled for this Sunday.

We spent all that weekend carefully drafting detailed and impassioned letters to every single one of the world leaders in 1972 and then, as a final act, I inserted that date in the System Restore box and looked to her for confirmation.

She nodded. Her tears began to flow down her face. ‘Are we absolutely certain this is the right thing to do?’

I nodded. We were too deeply committed to stop now.

‘I may never see you again,’ she whispered. ‘If only there was a way to program your memories to include me . . .’

My finger hovered uncertainly over the Enter key.

Then she kissed me.

There was absolutely no way that I wanted to do this now. To allow our own beginning to pass a few seconds from the end . . .

. . . but in that instant her hand pressed gently onto mine . . .

. . . my finger pressed against the key . . .

. . . the key depressed . . .

. . . with a faint click the world turned an intense indigo blue.

***

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and I felt really, really good. I was on my way to the computer shop to buy ‘perfection’ as Clive had described it.

As the door opened and the little bell rang out, I saw her standing there. She was in the queue. She was lovely and I couldn’t help but stare. I glanced at the computer model she was holding and that was as good an instruction opportunity as I was likely to get.

‘You’re surely not going to buy that one, are you?’

She spun around and gave me a quizzical look. ‘Yes, I am. For my work I need a good one.’

I shook my head slowly. ‘If you want perfection then you’d be much better off with the DEC – it’s far more powerful and it runs the new CD ROM disks and it’s not that much more than this one.’

‘Are you a salesman?’ she asked.

I grinned. ‘No, just a geek.

She smiled, a smile as bright as sunlight. ‘Well, that’s alright then.’

I froze. ‘Do I know you? Have we met before?’ Then I quickly added, ‘I’m sorry, that must have sounded like a really cheap chat up line . . . but you really do look familiar.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Do you know what, I had the very same thought.’

She put the computer back on the shelf. ‘Do you think we should try and find out over a cup of coffee.’