[1677] in Humor
HUMOR: Dave's Brief History of Computing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri Nov 1 11:22:14 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 11:12:14 EST
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 22:02:46 -0800
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
Go! Buy this book!
Excerpts: A Brief History of Computing, by Dave Barry
In the early 1980s most major computer manufacturers agreed to stop forcing
people to learn a bunch of different operating systems, and instead adopt a
single, uniform, standardized operating system so absurdly non-intuitive that
nobody could learn it. This system was called MS-DOS.
The MS, of course, stood for Microsoft, the company that was started by the
brilliant software genius Bill Gates. Gates is a very rich man today -- Forbes
magazine estimates that he's worth more than the entire O.J. Simpson defense
team combined -- and do you want to know why? The answer is one word:
versions.
To understand what I mean by versions, let's consider an analogy involving
cars. Suppose you've purchased a new car, and you notice that, although it
does move, it goes very slowly, is extremely hard to steer, and makes a loud
scraping sound. You study this problem for a while, and you conclude that the
most likely cause is that the car does not have any front wheels. So you
mention this to the salesperson, and he tells you that you have Version 1.0 of
the car, but that Version 1.1 will be out shortly, and it will feature wheels
in front as well as back. So when Version 1.1 comes out, you upgrade, which
means you pay money. But you're happy, because now you have a car with a
complete set of wheels, and you're totally satisfied with it from the moment
that you pull out of the dealer's lot to the moment, about 90 seconds later,
when you drive into a public fountain. This is when find out that brakes are
not scheduled to appear until Version 1.3.
This is very much the way MS-DOS worked. The original version, 1.0, did
virtually nothing except cause the computer screen to say:
A:>
That was it. Really. Ask anybody who used MS-DOS computers back then. You'd
turn them on, and there'd be this A: staring back at you. What did it mean?
Why A:? Why not some other letter, or even an actual word? And what was the
little pointy > thing for? We will never know the answer. It's one of the many
mysteries of MS-DOS.
So, anyway, people would turn on their computers, and stare at the A:> for
awhile, scratching their heads, and then finally they'd try typing something
after the A:>, perhaps something like:
A:> HELLO
But here was the crucial thing about MS-DOS Version 1.0: No matter what you
typed in, it would respond as follows:
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
Then, with no further explanation, it would go back to:
A:>
There were rumors -- never verified -- that if you typed in certain secret
code words, you could get some response other than A:> or BAD COMMAND OR FILE
NAME, but if there were such code words, only Bill Gates ever knew what they
were. So mainly what this version of the MS-DOS was used for -- millions of
person-hours were spent on this -- was trying to get it to do something,
anything. If you were to travel back in time and look at the average person's
computer screen during that era, you'd see what looked like a conversation
between the computer user and an unusually hostile employee of the Department
of Motor Vehicles:
A:> HELLO
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
A:> HELP
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
A:> DO SOMETHING!
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
A:>RUN A PROGRAM, DAMMIT!
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
A:>**** YOU
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME, ***HOLE
This was pretty much all people did with MS-DOS Version 1.0. So you can
imagine how excited everybody was when Microsoft came out with Version 1.1,
which had a whole new capability. In addition to doing this:
A:>
It would sometimes also do this:
C:>
A new letter! This was very, very exciting news for those of us in the
computer geek world. We all immediately upgraded to Version 1.1. Of course, no
matter what we typed, it still answered BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME. But we felt
renewed hope.
Over the next few years, Microsoft continued to come out with new improved,
versions of MS-DOS, featuring a constantly expanding repertoire of
incomprehensible and/or scary screen messages, including:
B:>
NON-SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR
INVALID SWITCH
PATH NOT FOUND
WARNING! ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!
And just about everybody's all-time favorite:
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?
We loyal Microgeeks faithfully upgraded every time a new version came out,
until finally, somewhere around Version 3.7, we had reached the point where we
could use MS-DOS to actually run programs on our computers, and Bill Gates had
reached the point where he had approximately 217 personal jet airplanes.
I should point out that, while all this [MS-DOS masochism] was going on, there
was another kind of computer developing, in a parallel universe. This was the
Apple, and it operated on an entirely different concept, which was: A regular
human could use it. You simply turned it on, and immediately, just like that,
you could do stuff with it. It had little pictures on the screen, and a little
mouse that made a pointer move to the picture you wanted; even a child could
understand this. For many years, while we MS-DOS people were typing insanely
obscure instructions like:
dir c:\abcproj\docs\lttrs\sales\apr\*.*
the Apple people were simply aiming their little mouse pointers at little
pictures and going click.
In short, the Apple was far easier to use. So the vast majority of us serious
computer users rejected it. As I noted in the introduction, the main reason we
have computers is so we can be tormented by them. We don't want some wussy
user-friendly computer: We want a challenge.
That's why, to this very day, Apple is not considered by us cyberwonks to be a
truly serious computer. It is viewed as a computer that is popular mainly with
your flaky or artsy-fartsy type of individual -- your artist, your poet, your
beatnik, your flower-arranger, your heroin addict, your Barry Manilow. We
serious users pride ourselves on wrestling with openly hostile computers that
are running on an operating system from the proud, incomprehensible Microsoft
tradition. That operating system, of course, is Windows.
As I write these words, the computer world is still reverberating with the
excitement surrounding the introduction of Windows 95, which replaced Windows
Version 3.11, which replaced Windows 3.1, which replaced Windows Version 3.0,
and so on backward to the original Windows Version 1.0, which did nothing
except put a colorful Windows logo on the screen along with a message that
said OUT OF MEMORY.
Windows 95 represented a major step forward in the sense that it was virtually
nothing like any of the earlier Windows versions and nobody had any idea how
to use it. Naturally it was hugely popular. Everybody wanted it; Microsoft was
getting bulk orders from rainforest-dwelling tribes that didn't even have
electricity.
Nevertheless, there are certain basic computer terms that you need to try to
familiarize yourself with, so that when you go to purchase a computer, you
don't sound like just some random putz. Instead, you'll sound like a specific
putz who memorized some terms out of a book.
HARDWARE: This is the part of the computer that stops working when you spill
beer on it.
SOFTWARE: These are the PROGRAMS that you put on the HARD DRIVE by sticking
them through the little SLOT. The function of the software is to give
instructions to the CPU, which is a set of three initials inside the computer
that rapidly processes billions of tiny facts, called BYTES, and within a
fraction of a second sends you an ERROR MESSAGE that requires you to call the
CUSTOMER SUPPORT HOTLINE and be placed on HOLD for approximately the life span
of a CARIBOU. Software is usually accompanied by DOCUMENTATION in the form of
big fat scary MANUALS that nobody ever reads. In fact, for the past five years
most of the "manuals" shipped with software products have actually been copies
of Stephen King's THE STAND with new covers pasted on.
MEGAHERTZ: This is a really, really big hertz.
RAM: This is a shorthand way of referring to "ROM." The unit of measurement
for RAM is the "MEG," which stands for "a certain amount of RAM." The function
of RAM is to give guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest,
studliest, most tumescent MEMORY. This is important, because with today's
complex software, the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce
error messages. So the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough
RAM. BILL GATES currently has over 743 billion "megs" of RAM, and he still
routinely feels the need to stuff a ZUCCHINI in his UNDERWEAR.
You should use the preceding terms whenever you have to "interface" with
computer experts. For example, if you're purchasing a new computer, you want
to use as many of these terms as possible, so that store personnel will
realize that they're dealing with a person who has a high level of technical
expertise:
STORE PERSONNEL: May I help you?
YOU: I'm looking for a "hard drive" with plenty of "RAM" in the "megahertz."
STORE PERSONNEL: You want the computer store next door. This is a supermarket.
YOU: Let me see your "zucchini."
