IBM theory

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A major component of this article or section is speculation. The ideas and connections made here have not been confirmed by any official source.

IBM and related technologies theory

References to IBM technolgies:

Explicit :

EBCDIC coded message in the BSOD during Gabe Newell's speech

Strong :

Use of 'ABEND' in the BBS data streams. This is almost exclusively used by IBM mainframes.

Possible :

Doug Rattmann's telephone extension from the basic program written for APF files. "3270". A TN-3270 is a type of IBM mainframe terminal.

Speculative :

The BBS resource file names and directory names appear to be a non-random 11 numeric string [0-9] in and '8.3' DOS format. As all the strings are padded with a 0 (zero) for no apparent technical reason, its possible they are ARG information. 'Binary coded decimal', is a format used to encode integer values in a 4 bit 'nibble'. This provides the numbers 0-9. IBM has also used BCD in its technology, and is strongly related to EBCDIC, the data encoding scheme used by IBM mainframes.

IBM mainframe punch cards are coded with 0-9 (with at sometimes 2 other fields) IMG.

Probably unrelated :

There is a type of punch card called an 'Aperture card'

Coincidental:

HAL 9000 the AI computer from the movie 2001:A Space Odyssey is thought to be an alteration of IBM, GlaDOS is of course also an AI