WARNING:Contains infantile terminology - For mature computer-literates only
Before the ancient Egyptians there were no numbers, so by using mathematics to add and subtract it became possible, for the first time to build the pyramids as well as to keep score on Cleopatra’s illegitimate children and Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands.
Then King Tutankhamen went and lost the “zero” and they turned to the Indians to find it for them and help figure out algebraic equations where a + b = 10 % of the restaurant tip, which gave birth to Binary Fission, although I think THAT has something to do with mating amoeba….
Around the same time (3.30 pm) the Chinese invented a wooden frame with coloured beads on string which the Greek philosopher Platypus named the abacus – which is Greek for “Computing machine Invented by the Chinese.”
In the first practical use of this new technology, a Chinese merchant totaled up a sale of 10 trillion Yuan for the sale of a kilo of rice.
Two key data-processing expressions which emerged from this invention are still commonly used by business processes today:-
1. “We still have a few bugs to work out.”
2. “Can you come back later, our abacus is being upgraded.”
In 1941 Luhn took his “peekaboo” guide for mixed drinks, applied the objective function
Z = (x1,…,xn) to the OR in the Linear programming mode and joined IBM. Lo! and behold, around my birthday in 1952 the IBM701 & IBM 650 were born. This led to the 13 tonne UNIVAC becoming redundant and fit only for playing Solitaire.
Then King Tutankhamen went and lost the “zero” and they turned to the Indians to find it for them and help figure out algebraic equations where a + b = 10 % of the restaurant tip, which gave birth to Binary Fission, although I think THAT has something to do with mating amoeba….
Around the same time (3.30 pm) the Chinese invented a wooden frame with coloured beads on string which the Greek philosopher Platypus named the abacus – which is Greek for “Computing machine Invented by the Chinese.”
In the first practical use of this new technology, a Chinese merchant totaled up a sale of 10 trillion Yuan for the sale of a kilo of rice.
Two key data-processing expressions which emerged from this invention are still commonly used by business processes today:-
1. “We still have a few bugs to work out.”
2. “Can you come back later, our abacus is being upgraded.”
In 1941 Luhn took his “peekaboo” guide for mixed drinks, applied the objective function
Z = (x1,…,xn) to the OR in the Linear programming mode and joined IBM. Lo! and behold, around my birthday in 1952 the IBM701 & IBM 650 were born. This led to the 13 tonne UNIVAC becoming redundant and fit only for playing Solitaire.
Of course I’m kidding here… one could also play Pong and Pac-Man.
The brilliant software genius, Bill Gates, who thus far, had absolutely no knowledge of what was happening in the computing world, since he hadn’t been born yet, then set about using the knowledge he learned in his mothers womb, and developed an operating system called “MS-DOS” The MS of course stood for “Microsoft”, named after one of his body parts, and the DOS for “Doubtful Operating System” which is how said body part worked.
Bill then went on to become one of the richest men in the world. After all MS-DOS was the single unified standard operating system which nobody could learn. One of the many mysteries of MS-DOS was when people would turn on their computers stare at the computer screen which would say:
A :>
That’s all it did, why not some other letter? Or even a word? And what was that little pointy “>” beak for? We will never know the answer.
And then no matter what you typed in after “A :>” it would respond:
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
Without further explanation it would then go right back to A :>
Then Microsoft came out with Version 1.1 and you can imagine how everyone got really, really excited.
In addition to doing this “A :>” it also gave us a whole new letter by sometimes doing this:
“C :>”
of course we still got “BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME” but there was hope; because with newer versions came :
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?
INVALID SWITCH
PATH NOT FOUND
And my personal favourite:
WARNING! ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!
The brilliant software genius, Bill Gates, who thus far, had absolutely no knowledge of what was happening in the computing world, since he hadn’t been born yet, then set about using the knowledge he learned in his mothers womb, and developed an operating system called “MS-DOS” The MS of course stood for “Microsoft”, named after one of his body parts, and the DOS for “Doubtful Operating System” which is how said body part worked.
Bill then went on to become one of the richest men in the world. After all MS-DOS was the single unified standard operating system which nobody could learn. One of the many mysteries of MS-DOS was when people would turn on their computers stare at the computer screen which would say:
A :>
That’s all it did, why not some other letter? Or even a word? And what was that little pointy “>” beak for? We will never know the answer.
And then no matter what you typed in after “A :>” it would respond:
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
Without further explanation it would then go right back to A :>
Then Microsoft came out with Version 1.1 and you can imagine how everyone got really, really excited.
In addition to doing this “A :>” it also gave us a whole new letter by sometimes doing this:
“C :>”
of course we still got “BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME” but there was hope; because with newer versions came :
ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?
INVALID SWITCH
PATH NOT FOUND
And my personal favourite:
WARNING! ALL DATA WILL BE LOST!
A:> F*** YOU
BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME hee hee hee hee ...
I swear I could hear it sniggering.
Of course it never dawned on Microgeeks world wide that the real secret behind Bill Gates owning 150 airplanes and 75 power yachts was just one word : “versions”
Notice it is all about “versions” when you take a look at:Today as in, right now
Windows Vista or “Vindows Wista” as the man says.
Windows XP
The dreaded Windows Me
Windows 2000
Windows '98
Travel further back in time to:
Windows '95, and remember the exhilaration of the first:
Windows “Version” 1.0 which did nothing except put a coloured windows logo on the screen with the awesome message:
OUT OF MEMORY
