What follows is a practical joke played on some PERQ-haters... a brief
history lesson is in order.  A while back, a second PERQ-fanatics
mailing list was started on hicom.org, and in order to get things off
to a very lively start, it was decided that we would automagically
subscribe everyone to that mailing list that we could think of who was
known to have ever been familiar with PERQs.  Granted, this was,
considered, by some, to not be a very good idea.  It did lead to some
great fun, however! :-) I think that I may have submitted about sixty
names, and e-mail addresses, to the list!  During the first day or so,
a flood of messages came through the mailing list containing
reminiscing by those who had used and loved PERQs, those who designed
the PERQs and by those who hated PERQs and were angered by being
automagically subscribed to the mailing list.  Over all, I'd say that
this automagic subscription effort was well worth the effort.

Some of the PERQ-haters were quite nasty and obnoxious, however, and
quite vocal about their objections to the automagic subscription
process.  A few of them even complained to the postmaster of the site
where the mailing list was hosted... which caused the list to be shut
down for a brief period of time. :-( This was not very nice of them,
so some anonymous (?) person apparently felt that a bit of revenge was
in order. :-)

One of the things that the PERQ-haters objected to the most was the
large volume of messages coming through the mailing list. 

I'm (ahem) told that some anonymous person e-mailed the following
message, from some anonymous account (if I recall correctly, I was
told that the name which he or she used was "Uncle Fester"), to the
most obnoxious PERQ haters a short while after they had been
unsubscribed to the mailing list.

                                         R. D. D.


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                          Volume #1, Issue #1
                            September, 1993

===============================================================================

Dear PERQ Enthusiast,

Thank you for your loyal dedication to those wonderful machines called
PERQs, and for your e-mail message asking to be subscribed to this
list.  A reminder: the volume of mail to this list shall be quite high
(approximately 50 messages per day are expected), so you may wish to
check your mailbox frequently.

As you know, this mailing list is designed to handle the overflow from
the other, highly successful, mailing list.  While the other list is now
for discussions about the present, this list is dedicated to
discussions about the past.  For example, PERQ history, CMU and the
PERQs, etc.

*** IMPORTANT NOTICE ***

Starting tomorrow, all mail to this list will come to you from
youdotty and mail to the list should be sent to youdotty.  All replies
to this system will be redirected to /dev/null. For example:

To send mail to the list, send an e-mail mesage to:

perq-history@youdotty.madman.com

To subscribe someone else to the list, send an e-mail message,
containing the words SUBSCRIBE and that person's e-mail address.

To unsubscribe, send the message:

IM-A-BLOODY-MORON-SO-UNSUBSCRIBE-ME-PLEASE-KINDLY-THANK-YOU-KIND-SIRS 

to youdotty.  Un-subscribe commands take approxinately 10 working
days, possibly longer if we feel that you are using a Sun or an
Apollo.  Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck! (as Curley says) :-)  

To obtain a list of other commands to use with this system, please
send the message HELP to youdotty.

Again, thank you for requesting a subscription to this mailing list
and for your dedication over the years to the PERQs!

Have a nice day.


Regards,

The New List Maintainers,
tnlm@youdotty.madman.com