User Guide

It seems it is barely possible to
open a paper, switch on the
radio, channel hop on the TV
without hearing the name Dr
Sepulveda.
Yes, Dr Sepulveda has returned.
And what a return it is. After
languishing in the depths of
computer obscurity for nearly 20
years, he has pulled himself
back from his disastrous
Protologic fiasco, and
remodelled himself as nothing
less than a Digital Deity. And
Darwinia is his creation. A virtual
theme park populated by
thousands of sprite-like
creatures, the Darwinians,
Darwinia is undoubtedly the leap
that will take the meaning of
computing to a new level. Not
just computing; Darwinia is
causing us to ask ourselves all
over again those fundamental
questions about life itself.
Not the kind of thing you'd
expect from a self-proclaimed
"computer geek" who
spectacularly failed to sell every
single one of his 50,000 stock of
Protologic computers back in
'86, when otherwise the world of
computing could do no wrong.
Pronounced Sep-ul-vader - a bit
like a distant relative of Darth,
maybe, the first we heard of our
most recent god was way back
in the early 80s with his first
Protologic computers. Hailed
(by Sepulveda himself) as "the
console to rule all consoles", the
launch of the Protologic 68000 in
'86 however was far from plain
sailing. Undoubtedly innovative,
the 68000 was doomed to a dark
future. Minor technical problems
in the lead-up to the launch
escalated beyond all control,
leading to a media frenzy and
the eventual collapse of
Protologic Entertainment in the
most "glorious public failure" of
the decade.
Left with nothing but
warehouses full of unsold
machines, Sepulveda became a
recluse - or even more of a
recluse; he has always shied
from public attention. But it
seems he has just been biding
his time, waiting for the right
moment to unveil the true genius
of the 68000s.
With nothing left to lose, the
scientist in Sepulveda was
awoken and he began to
experiment. First linking tens,
then hundreds, then thousands
of Protologics he began to
realise that something very
special was happening. In
Sepulveda's own words, "an
unintended design quirk […]
causes adjacent systems to
resonate on a quantum level".
This phenomenon, which he
terms "Hyperprocessing", is a
cumulative effect, with
A brief history of
Sepulveda
On the e-Sofa
All life begins
with an accident.
Some curious
interaction occurs
between lifeless
chemicals, in the right
conditions and under
the right temperatures,
and suddenly you have
life. Darwinia is no
different - it just
happened in the digital
domain, rather than the
biological.
"
In his first interview for
almost 20 years, the once
infamous Dr Sepulveda
talks exclusively to T-
Magazine.
Dr Sepulveda talks with pride about his Creation
8
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