All good ACME detectives should be subscribed to reuse, or if not, should read the reuse discuss meeting.
Archivist's Notes:
The following message was posted to reuse (an MIT mailing list that is the equivalent of Craigslist free stuff) at 8:50PM on the first day of the hunt:
Subject: Floppies from Prague up for grabs in 24-6! To: reuse@MIT.EDU Cc: pocky@MIT.EDU, guy-gerr@vile.com Reply-To: acme@MIT.EDU Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 20:50:41 EST From: Daniel P Kamalic These just came in. We don't have any computers that they'll _fit_ in, so we figured we'd offer them to you. Hard-core reusers and gumshoes alike will find magnetic media waiting for them on the 6th floor of Building 24 (ESG). (Granted, the ones for the gumshoes will only be given out one at a time.) Give us a call or an email if and when you figure something out. Thanks, Dan ------Forwarded Message To: acme Cc: Subject: Old Software Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 20:17:09 EST From: "Guy Gerr" You ACME losers might be interested ln this cruft! We got it in a shipment from Prague! Guy Gerr V.I.L.E. -------End of Forwarded Message
When the teams showed up in ESG, they were given a 5.25" floppy disk (in addition to hunt-specific floppy disks, the organizers also had empty disks on hand in case random reuse subscribers would show up asking for one). The floppies contained an executable file named reusefind. Once you figured out what to do with this executable (see solution for an explanation), you would find another pile of floppies, with a sign above them that read: "Without a programmer to write the software and a platform to run it on, you're left with a pretty stupid system." This floppy contained a plain text file named puzzle.