Linux Computers

Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the
truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger
refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the
company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's --
after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength"
beer, and suggested only for use in bars.

Wings of OS/400:
The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes
that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if
they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need,
though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour,
unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and
membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your
accounting department can call it overhead.

With your bare hands?!?

Within a computer, natural language is unnatural.

Work continues in this area.
                -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton

Worthless.
                -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS
                   (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the
                   Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the
                   "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September
                   15, 1842.

Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!!

Now it can be told

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
  In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken
Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix
operating system and C programming language created by them is an
elaborate April Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years.  Speaking at
the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the
following:
  In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/AT&T Multics
project.  Brian and I had just started working with an early release
of Pascal from Professor Nichlaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and
we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power.  Dennis had
just finished reading Bored of the Rings, a hilarious National Lampoon
parody of the great Tolkien Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As a lark, we
decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal.  Dennis
and I were responsible for the operating environment.  We looked at
Multics and designed the new system to be as complex and cryptic as
possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix
as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions.

  Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped version of Pascal,
called "A."  When we found others were actually trying to create real
programs with A, we quickly added additional cryptic features and
evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean
compile on the following syntax:

for(;P("n"),R=;P("|"))for(e=C;e=P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("|"+(*u/4)%2);

  To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that
allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension!  We actually
thought of selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science
progress back 20 or more years.  Imagine our surprise when AT&T and
other US corporations actually began trying to use Unix and C!  It has
taken them 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate even
marginally useful applications using this 1960's technological parody,
but we are impressed with the tenacity (if not common sense) of the
general Unix and C programmer.

  In any event, Brian, Dennis and I have been working exclusively in
Pascal on the Apple Macintosh for the past few years and feel really
guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly bad programming that has
resulted from our silly prank so long ago.

  Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft,
Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.
Borland International, a leading vendor of Pascal and C tools,
including the popular Turbo Pascal, Turbo C and Turbo C++, stated they
had suspected this for a number of years and would continue to enhance
their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C.  An IBM
spokesman broke into uncontrolled laughter and had to postpone a
hastely convened news conference concerning the fate of the RS-6000,
merely stating "VM will be available Real Soon Now."  In a cryptic
statement, Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the
Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, merely stated that
P. T. Barnum was correct.

    <>!*''#
    ^@`$$-
    !*'$_
    %*<>#4
    &)../
    |{~~SYSTEM HALTED

Transliterated:
    Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
    Caret at back-tick dollar dollar dash,
    Bang splat tick dollar under-score,
    Percent splat waka waka number four,
    Ampersand right-paren dot dot slash,
    Vertical-bar curly-bracket tilde tilde CRASH.

    --Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear
witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity.  Their conviction results
from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences.
Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief
and new schisms among believers.  In the 16th century the printed book helped
make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants.  In the 20th
century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce.
Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM
PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded.  Each cult
holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other.  Each thinks that it
is itself the one hope for salvation.
                -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988