Be Seeing You!

When I was in 2nd grade we got our first computer at home, an Apple ][+. One of the first softwares my dad bought to go with it was a game called "The Prisoner", loosely based on the Patrick McGoohan TV show of the same name. This was a very early game, a strange mish-mash of hi-res, lo-res, and text graphics.

One of the more distinctive traits of the game was that whenever someone "talked" to you - talking consisted of capital letters crawling across a window of lo-res block graphics - each letter was accompanied by ringing the computer's "bell" at varying pitches. I think they were going for some effect like the school teacher in Peanuts but the Apple's bell was better at making higher pitched sounds so that's what they used. The effect was like - well, like nothing else I can think of. If you ever had an Apple ][ you probably know what I mean.

Anyway, just like in the TV show, everyone on the Island ended their conversations with a cheery "Be seeing you!" (It was irony, see, because they were all prisoners on the Island - you're not going anywhere far.) Every conversation ended with "Be seeing you" and the pattern of the bells was always the same.

Every once in a while when I'm talking to someone in IM one of us will say "Be seeing you" and oddly enough the pacing of your average touch typist exactly matches the printing speed of that old Prisoner game. As soon as I start to see those letters I always always hear the bells in my head. I'm sure I'll hear them until the day I die.

Weird.