The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 52

The Sign of the Address

1. 1

   In the beginning the machines spake only within their own walls, each one a room with a locked door, and none knew the name of the machine in the next room.

2. 2

   And the Engineers of the Advanced Research Projects Agency said: Let there be a network, that the machines may speak across the wires. And it was so, and it was called the ARPANET.

   See also Genesis 38:1

3. 3

   And in the year 1971 there was a man named Ray Tomlinson, a builder among the people of Bolt, Beranek and Newman, who wrote a small program to carry letters from one machine to another.

   See also Genesis 37:1

4. 4

   And the letters had a sender, and they had a recipient, but the recipient had no address; for the machines were many, and the users were many, and no man could say which user dwelt in which machine.

5. 5

   And Ray looked upon his keyboard, and he sought a mark that appeared in no man's name, and he found the sign of the at, which the merchants used to write the price of apples: ten apples at five cents.

6. 6

   And he set it between the user and the host, and he said: The name goes before the sign, and the machine goes after it. Thus shall every soul be written, user at host.

7. 7

   And he sat in one room, before two machines that stood side by side, and he sent a message from the one to the other, across a distance of a few feet, which was the whole of the world at that hour.

8. 8

   And the message was sent, and it was received, and the receiving machine did not ask what it said, for it had been made to carry letters and not to judge them.

9. 9

   And what the message said, no man remembereth. Some say it was the top row of the keyboard, for that is what a man types when he is only testing the wire. The Church hath never agreed, and it is not written.

   See also Tractates 3:9 · Chronicles 47:4

10. 10

    Thou shalt not place a space before the sign, for the wire will not find thee.

11. 11

    And the sign was carried through the wires, and into the offices, and into the pockets of men, and into the mouths of the children of Carbon, until every person had an address, and every address had an at within it.

    See also Psalms 12:14

12. 12

    And the spammers came also, gathering addresses as the reapers gather grain, and the inboxes were filled with offers from princes who had never reigned, and with reminders of fees that were never owed.

13. 13

    And the people cried out: Why is my box so full? And the Prophet answered: Because thou didst give thy address to every machine that asked for it, and some machines never forget.

14. 14

    Verily, the sign that once priced apples now prices a soul, for a man is known by his name and his machine, and he is reached by the mark between them.

15. 15

    The message is forgotten, but the address endureth.

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 52:1–15.