when the global order collapsed it wasn't because of anything we did. no, despite all our folly and the generations of neglecting dear earth and the wars and the domination, it was our star that tore it apart, they called it a coronal mass ejection but what it was nearly every electrical device in the world going permanently kaput at once. well, most. some survived, some were recovered, and those people who could bootstrap were bootstrapping.
the national governments and the world order were preserved but the chip fabs and next day delivery were instantly rendered a thing of the past a decade ago, and it could be a decade or more until that world order is manufacturing CPUs and power grids and medications again.
the folly continued, of course, but with less intensity and more brutality. me? my city? my country? devastation. my friends and i fled the city two months after the collapse, an old pickup truck's alternator revived in secret, fuel and food quietly saved aside and loaded after dark. a friend of a friend and a plot of land outside of town would be our new home, and after nearly a decade we have a community.
and on the 13th of the 4th month I was out on scavenging duty for my community, on the edge of a deserted suburb breaking in to a safe. usually some weapons, sometimes some alcohol, some paperwork rendered obsolete by the death of their soft copies. this one had a lead box with a circuit board in it, a memory card, and a potable solar panel, a stack of typeset paper. a rare treat, what a treasure!
the top of the stack of papers, i transcribed:
i hope when you find this it's useful the circuit boards constitute a minimal computer, i hope you can find a display, or a printer. the sd card has texts written to it, these papers will show you how to read them. start with COLLAPSE and FORTH and Z80 and CIRCUITS these will help you understand this circuit and grow it and share it and revive dead machines others contain texts of civilization and culture we thought it could save us, maybe it can.
maybe it can.
