Unlike the computers, which I could just turn over and open their cases, examining the software I found in Silicon Canyon was considerably more delicate and time-consuming an affair. I gathered the titles from the headers of the code. Headers are jewels of information; they usually contain the title, author, version, revisions history, and copyright info. Sometimes, authors add personal notes. I enjoyed reading headers because of the authors' names. The code becomes faces diffusing my loneliness.

The batch I have here is mostly from the end of the twentieth century. Looking at the list, at first glance, many are screensavers. Screensaver are particularly good culture containers. For example, the F-15 Eagle screensaver. Right under it I found the Jumpin' Jesus on a Pogo Stick screensaver. I was walking around, climbing over a large pile of computers, looking at stuff when I started thinking…what if it was the end of the normal world and titles were the only thing left, what kind of a history one could reconstruct based solely on this information?

I'm putting down a few words about the method I used to collect the code. The titles listed in the 10 pockets were located between an Atari 800XL, a Quadra 6100 and a Sony VAIO Laptop. Software and hardware are completely mingled in the canyon. Often, when I turned over a piece of hardware I find software squashed under it but it is all in source code form. The software uncompiled as if having inherit desire to return to the source. How is that possible? I don't know. The movement causes pieces of code become airborne like small feathers.

The easiest way to pick the code it to grab the first few characters with pincers and the rest usually follows. Like strings of a very fine matter. Characters floating in the air. The pile I tackled was no more then half a cubic foot. But it was dense. The initial string pulled was the Blackjack Analyzer 2.0. I carefully grabbed the header and the functions came right behind. To protect it, I looped the string around my index finger, glued the tail with saliva, and then rolled it off my finger into a small box I found lying a few feet away. Next I pulled SimpleText. That worked well because the code was in very good shape and I was able to separate the dropdown menus and apply them to my laptop.

What if Silicon Canyon contained all the source code ever written, from the very first character to the very last to be typed? Fortunately, I'll never know. Otherwise, I doubt I'd ever leave this place.