One vendor sold garishly colored portable phones shaped like holo-toon characters whose speakers transposed the voice of the caller into the cartoonish voice of the character. All had their demonstration programs activated, and a collection of squeaky mouse voices and deep, breathy villain voices blared out at us in an unintelligible cacophony as we passed. For the do-it-yourselfer, there were bits and pieces of telecom units and everything you’d need to build your own personal computer, including monitors, peripherals, voice synthesizer and recognition chips, datastore cartridges, printers, and processors. There were also boxes and boxes of simsense chips—many of them pornographic—and skill-softs, knowsofts, and other optical chips. I shook my head. Only a fool would slot a used chip sold on the street. I’d once met a street kid who’d done just that, and then wound up suffering epileptic seizures as a result. But I suppose some people found the prices too good to resist.