THE OAKLAND PRESS          
                PANORAMA
TUESDAY     FEBRUARY 21 1995     SECTION D


SCIENCE          
TUESDAY


USER FRIENDLY
by Jeff Green



          The Hitchhikers Guide to the
          Galaxy is best known as the
          encyclopedia-like source of
          near omnipotence that helps
          the main characters in the off-
beat series of books by Douglas Adams
get around the universe.
  But the fictional cyberguide has a toe-
hold in Oakland County, thanks to
Rochester resident Steve Baker and a
far-flung network of friends he met
three years ago on the Internet.
  In February of 1992, Baker was just
another computer user who was putting
messages on the Internet newsgroup
"alt.fan.douglas-adams" and working on
his degree at Oakland University.
  The Internet is a loosely connected
system of thousands of computers, most-
ly at universities and government facili-
ties, that distribute messages and infor-
mation around the world.
  Internet "newsgroups" are computer
discussion groups that allow people with
common interests to share experiences,
solve problems and get information by
computer.
  If you have a computer with a modem,
in most cases you're only a phone call
away from the world of Internet.
  Baker, who now works in the Informa-
tion Resource Center at Parke Davis,
exchanged messages with several
Adams' fans on Internet and they decid-
ed there was a need for a real Hitchhik-
ers Guide.
  The group formed the nucleus of Pro-
ject Galactic Guide (PGG for short).
They chose the Oakland University com-
puter as their base of operations, now
referred to fondly as the PGG Mother-
ship.
  They also started a newsgroup called
"alt.galactic-guide" to discuss the ideas
for PGG.
  The project now boasts 10-12 regular
galactic "reporters," around the country
and the world, who send in articles on a
regular basis for review by Baker in
Rochester or another editor who edits
from his computer terminal in England.
The project boasts about 400 articles in
its archives.
  The subjects range from the serious to
the zany, Baker said.
  Readers can learn about sites to see
and areas to avoid in New York City,
Berlin and other areas of the world or
maybe what to see at the Lenin Muse-
um in Moscow.
  "But sometimes the articles are just to
explore the silliness of something," Bak-
er said.
  Among the more unusual are "37
ways to deep sea fish with four feet of
dental floss," and articles about games
to play in lecture halls, watermelon ritu-
als, creative ways to read telephone bills
and 50 fun things to do in an elevator.
  "We look for something with a
foothold in reality but enough of a twist
into the bizarre to keep it interesting,"
Baker said.
  For computer users familiar with file
transfer protocol, the PGG archives are
available through ftp at the address
"vela.acs.oakland.edu" and in the direc-
tory /pub/galactic-guide.
  Programs to read the articles on IBM,
Macintosh, Amiga and other computer
types also are available at the ftp site.
For IBM, Baker suggests The Guide! a
program he wrote for reading the collec-
tion.
  Download the file TG146.zip and
either articles.zip or complete.zip to
read the selections.  You must have an
unzip program to use these files.  The
program is available from most online
systems' software libraries. If it's too 
confusing, feel free to contact User
Friendly for help.
  For questions about PGG, or to sub-
mit an article, contact Baker by e-mail
at swbaker@saturn.acs.oakland.edu.

  (User Friendly welcomes comments.
Write to P.O. Box 436009, Pontiac MI 48343,
call 332-8181, Ext. 565 or through e-mail
at jgreen6854@aol.com. Jeff Green is a
reporter for the Oakland Press.)