How Far We've Come

by Lincoln Spector 

Joshua Fenderbender removed the shrinkwrap from his copy of dBase XVI, broke the disk seal
without reading the licensing agreement, and emptied the eighteen penny-sized optical disks onto his
desk.
   
"Eighteen disks?!" he thought.  "Just last year the biggest application didn't take more than twelve
gigabytes."
   
Taking out a magnifying glass, he studied the labels until he found the installation disk.  He was about to
start installing the program when his phone rang.
   
"Josh," said the familiar voice on the other end, "this is Ron.  I see that you just got your new dBase."
   
"Yeah," Josh sighed.  "I presume you want to come look at it."
   
"If that's ok with...hang on."  There was silence on the line for a few seconds.  "Okay, I'm back.  The
car in front of me moved three feet."
   
Ron Whiteperson was a very dedicated worker, devoting an average of fourteen hours a day to his job. 
Of course, twelve and one-half of those hours were spent on the freeway, navigating the 20 mile
commute from his home.  But as his car seldom moved, this proved to be a perfect place to get his
work done.
   
Joshua, who did not like spending time in a parked car, had tried to get permission to work at home. 
When the permission was denied, he did the only thing he could: he divorced his wife and moved into
the office.
   
"Ron," said Joshua, changing the subject, "have you given any more thought to the bus problem?" "Bus? 
I haven't seen a bus on this highway for eight years."
   
"No, I mean computer buses, not commuter buses.  Architecture.  Jesse wants us to standardize on the
IBM's TinyChannel.  He's worried that anything else will become obsolete."
   
"Well, they're now saying that the next version of 1-2-3 will run only on the TinyChannel."
   
"Really?" exclaimed Joshua.  "I though Release 3 was gonna be multi-platform."
   
Look, as far as I'm concerned," Ron replied, "Paperback Software can do anything with it they like. 
Hang on, I've got to move up a few inches."
*****
   
Later that day, Joshua was helping Nancy Drummerdangger install a new modem chip in her VeXT
Workstation.  To be more specific, it was the new Haze 9600 Gigabaud Modem, mounted on a
revolutionary animated-silicon chip.  This made its installation a bit of a challenge.
   
"Are you ready?" asked Josh, holding the box closed.  Nancy nodded.  "Good. Now, I'm going to
open this box very slowly.  When I do, I want you to grab the chip before it gets away.  Get it?"
   
"Got it."
   
"Good.  Okay, here goes."
   
Nancy tried, but the chip was too fast.  Leaping out of the box and onto the floor, it scurried beneath
her desk.
   
"Sorry," she said.  "Now what?"
   
Josh took out a bowl and sprayed it with an antistatic solution.  "They love this stuff," he explained as he
put it on the floor near the desk.  They sat down on the floor to keep an eye on it.
   
"Josh," asked Nancy, have you ever heard of OS/3?"
   
Josh thought about this for a moment.  "Sounds vaguely familiar.  Wasn't that an operating system
during the dark period?"
   
"I think so," said Nancy.  "It's pretty hard to find out anything about that time."  All information from the
1980's and early '90's worldwide had been destroyed by the Great Virus of 1996.
   
"Why do you ask?"
   
"Well, I was cleaning my closet last night, and I stumbled upon an old newspaper..."
   
"Newspaper?" asked Joshua.
   
"Yeah, newspaper.  Sort of like a daily hardcopy bulletin board."
 
"Hardcopy?"
   
"Yeah, where you use ink to transfer data onto paper."
   
"Paper?"
   
"A flat, bendable material made from trees......don't ask.  Anyway, this article was saying that the
makers of OS/3 were being sued for what they were calling 'look and feel.'  Now how can an operating
system constitute sexual harassment?"
   
"I don't think that's what it meant," said Josh.  "'Look and feel' is when one program completely takes
over a computer and won't let another program in."
   
"Isn't that what they used to call proprietary techno..."
   
Just then, the lights went out.  Josh got up and started groping for the light switch.  He was tangled in a
chair when Nancy found the switch and turned the lights back on.
   
"Are you alright?" she asked.
   
"I think so.  Now if I can just...look!"
   
Nancy looked where he was pointing.  The bowl of antistatic solution had disappeared."
   
"Dang!" he said.  "Those chips are getting smarter all the time!"


(Los Angeles Computer Currents via A.B.A.C.U.S Script, Bakersfield Area Commodore Users
Society, 9/89, via the Commodore Information Center http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)