devices. This particular one was left to us by a gentleman who was here but six months ago, and who happened to hail from nearly the same timestream that we are in. This device was manufactured on Earth, I believe in the year 2764.” He pressed a recessed button on the side of the device, and a halo of rainbow-colored light appeared in midair in front of the upper half of the clamshell. It swirled like a tiny globe spinning for two or three seconds, and then resolved to a rainbow-shaded cascade of text that made Steven smile.
Welcome to
SkyLight
©2755-2764 Microsoft, Inc.
So Microsoft is still around after 700 years, Steven thought, and they’ve moved on from Windows to SkyLights. He laughed softly to himself.
The introductory text disappeared and a circle of spheres appeared, circling slowly like the hands of a clock. They were each tinted a different color. He looked for a pointing device — a mouse or touchpad — but there was none. He hesitated, uncertain as to what to do next. “Simply point at the one you want,” Randolph said. Steven looked at him, uncertain as to what he meant, and saw that he had extended his index finger toward the spheres. Steven realized that he meant precisely that and did the same, pointing toward the blue sphere. As his fingertip seemed to touch it, text appeared in the center of the circle of spheres: Word. He moved his finger from sphere to sphere, noting the title of each one; the red one was PowerPoint , the green one Excel . Pointing at the silver one displayed Web. Curious, he let his fingertip linger there and the entire display was replaced by what seemed to be a 26century web browser; after a moment, it disappeared to be replaced by a text display reading Web connection not found. Steven grinned wryly. The 26century web browser had given a 26century 404 error.
“Of course, we don’t have access to the information network that we would have back on Earth,” Randolph said, “but the unit is useful in many other ways.” He reached out and tapped the red X floating at the upper right — Some things never change, thought Steven — and when the sphere menu came back up, stabbed his wrinkled finger at the sphere of gold.
A series of moving images came up, displaying brief clips of all sorts of scenes, and then the title Omnipedia. That was replaced by a seven-pointed display which included illustrated choices for Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Persons, Places, Dictionary, and Search. Steven was intrigued. He chose Search and was rewarded with a familiar text box. He typed history and watched, enthralled, as the computer displayed an animated panorama that began with the dawn of recorded history in the Bronze Age and led all the way to the year that the computer, and evidently the software, was manufactured, 2764.
“Stay as long as you like,” Randolph said. “I must return to my duties repairing a piece of our equipment outside.” He left the room, and Steven turned back to the computer, hungry to see what he might learn.
He scrolled to the point in the timeline which contained information about his own era, the 21century, and skimmed forward from there. War and the world economy, unsurprisingly, were the dominant topics mentioned. He sighed. It was true, then, what they say: nothing ever really changes.
He read that beginning in the mid-21century, about fifty years after his time, mankind began to colonize the planets. First the United States established a permanent base on the Moon, then in 2071, after several exploratory visits, built a colony on Mars. In 2077, Komuso Tokugawa, President of the United States of AmerAsia, delivered a speech that said in part, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of establishing a permanent foothold in the outer Solar System. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of
Welcome to
SkyLight
©2755-2764 Microsoft, Inc.
So Microsoft is still around after 700 years, Steven thought, and they’ve moved on from Windows to SkyLights. He laughed softly to himself.
The introductory text disappeared and a circle of spheres appeared, circling slowly like the hands of a clock. They were each tinted a different color. He looked for a pointing device — a mouse or touchpad — but there was none. He hesitated, uncertain as to what to do next. “Simply point at the one you want,” Randolph said. Steven looked at him, uncertain as to what he meant, and saw that he had extended his index finger toward the spheres. Steven realized that he meant precisely that and did the same, pointing toward the blue sphere. As his fingertip seemed to touch it, text appeared in the center of the circle of spheres: Word. He moved his finger from sphere to sphere, noting the title of each one; the red one was PowerPoint , the green one Excel . Pointing at the silver one displayed Web. Curious, he let his fingertip linger there and the entire display was replaced by what seemed to be a 26century web browser; after a moment, it disappeared to be replaced by a text display reading Web connection not found. Steven grinned wryly. The 26century web browser had given a 26century 404 error.
“Of course, we don’t have access to the information network that we would have back on Earth,” Randolph said, “but the unit is useful in many other ways.” He reached out and tapped the red X floating at the upper right — Some things never change, thought Steven — and when the sphere menu came back up, stabbed his wrinkled finger at the sphere of gold.
A series of moving images came up, displaying brief clips of all sorts of scenes, and then the title Omnipedia. That was replaced by a seven-pointed display which included illustrated choices for Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Persons, Places, Dictionary, and Search. Steven was intrigued. He chose Search and was rewarded with a familiar text box. He typed history and watched, enthralled, as the computer displayed an animated panorama that began with the dawn of recorded history in the Bronze Age and led all the way to the year that the computer, and evidently the software, was manufactured, 2764.
“Stay as long as you like,” Randolph said. “I must return to my duties repairing a piece of our equipment outside.” He left the room, and Steven turned back to the computer, hungry to see what he might learn.
He scrolled to the point in the timeline which contained information about his own era, the 21century, and skimmed forward from there. War and the world economy, unsurprisingly, were the dominant topics mentioned. He sighed. It was true, then, what they say: nothing ever really changes.
He read that beginning in the mid-21century, about fifty years after his time, mankind began to colonize the planets. First the United States established a permanent base on the Moon, then in 2071, after several exploratory visits, built a colony on Mars. In 2077, Komuso Tokugawa, President of the United States of AmerAsia, delivered a speech that said in part, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of establishing a permanent foothold in the outer Solar System. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of
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