Canonical List Of Computer Harware Humor
G - P
++++++++
1) Equipment
2) Future Intel History
3) Getting To Know Your Computer
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Dealing with the equipment
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Rule #1: The spacebar either always sticks or doesn't work.
Rule #2: Monochrome is "in" this year.
Rule #3: "Extensive computing facilities" means a bunch of 8086 machines
with floppy drives, MDA or Hercules on a LAN.
Rule #4: Unless you want to use WordPerfect or TrueBasic, you will have to
forcibly remove the English major using one of the few 386 machines. After
all, why would he give up all that power he needs to type "Ode to My
Toejam" with WordPerfect when your final project in CS 999 is due tomorrow?
Rule #5: A paper TTY cranking at 110 baud and a punch card reader *is*
state-of-the-art. Just ask the system administrator.
Rule #6: That mysterious "computer fee" on your bill pays for the paper for
the TTY and the sysadmin's coffee. Refuse to pay it and buy an abacus.
You'll be better off.
Rule #7: Viruses are to college computing centers as tornadoes are to
trailer parks. The phrase "disaster magnet" comes to mind.
Rule #7a: Don't stick your floppy in the slot without knowing what else has
been in there first.
Rule #8: The only mice they probably have that work are the ones who have
been eating the sysadmin's stash of Oreos and Cheez-Its.
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A ?Possible? Future History of Intel(TM) Pentium(TM) Microprocessors
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright Lee Campbell
Circulate this for Yuks, but not for Bucks!
10/92 Intel unveils i486 follow-on; announces name will be "Pentium"
because "586" is not copywritable.
04/93 Pentium begins sampling. The usual obscure bugs appear. This time
persistant ones are associated with opcode X666.
09/93 Intel announces low-power, reduced performance version of Pentium for
use in portables. Ad campaign features engineers backpacking with portable
computers, forming token ring around campfire. Naturally, the chip is named
"Tentium."
11/93 Marketeers around the world are stunned by Intel's bold new marketing
strategy: leasing of microprocessors. Customers will be able to lease chips
with option to buy or to upgrade to the next generation which is guaranteed
to be pin compabible (The chips have a special pinout with dozens of pins
reserved for future use.) The chip is dubbed "Rentium."
03/94 An uneasy alliance of the Vatican and fundamentalist Christians
demands a CPU with no opcodes numbered 666 in octal, decimal or
hexidecimal. Intel listens to its customers and responds with a special
compiler with work-arounds, and a chip that gives up about 10% in
performance but eschews "devil" opcodes. The part is called "Lentium".
05/94 AMD announces a super-low-cost Pentium compatable. It costs "Just
pennies per MIP" and is dubbed "Centium."
06/94 Intel releases name of next generation chip. A small company in
Pocatello, Idaho has had the forsight to copyright and market chips under
the name "Hexium" and "Sexium." They try to sell the names to Intel for
millions. Intel doggedly resists the blackmail and markets the new chip as
"Sixium."
11/94 Sixium samples. Bugs show up again in opcode 666. The press
derisively refers to the buggy chips as "Nixium."
04/95 The bugs in opcode 666 are finally killed. Grateful OEM's sell the
part as "Fixium."
05/95 Texas Instruments announces it has obtained rights to second- source
Sixium. In an effort to differentiate its product and tap the wellsprings
of state pride, it names its new chip "Texium."
07/95 Cyrix announces a "supercompatability" chip which can emulate a
pentium, a superSPARC, an R3000, a PowerPC, an Alpha, and a 68060. The part
is named "Mixium."
09/95 A lively aftermarket develops in used Pentium chips; they are bought
and sold under the moniker "Spentium."
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Getting To Know Your Computer
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ALT KEY - For calling up extra functions. Conveniently placed where you'd
expect to find the SHIFT key, it let's you delete entire documents when all
you wanted was a capital L.
BIOS - Legal term for the method used by IBM to settle out of court with
it's competitors over copyright problems.
BOOTING - Arcane term for the aching delay as the PC dutifully checks that
it's got all it's bits and pieces.
COMMAND_DRIVEN - Term used to describe the way a data management package
works. You tell it to do one thing, and it does something else.
COMMS PORT - Russian submarine base.
COMMUNICATIONS - Method of combining incompatible software working to
incompatible standards to produce difficult to understand results.
COMPATIBLE PRICE CUTS - Example of largesse on the part of manufacturers of
PC_compatible microcomputers. Nothing to do with IBM price cuts. See IBM
PRICE CUTS.
DAISYWHEEL PRINTER - Slow, letter-quality output device designed to
seriously impair the hearing of the people who work near it.
DATA PROCESSING DEPARTMENT - Part of a large company whose job it is to
discourage the use of PC's.
EASILY EXPANDABLE - Minimum price configuration is unsuitable for practical
use.
EASY TO INSTALL - Difficult to install, but instruction manual has
pictures.
EASY TO USE - Not very powerful
ELECTRONIC MAIL - Method of sending messages between PC users, rather than
letting them talk to each other.
ERGONOMICALLY DESIGNED - Has highly unusual appearance.
EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS - The only branch of a US software company not to
employ any knowledgeable product support staff.
EXECUTIVE CURSOR CONTROL - Joystick.
EXPANSION SLOTS - Sparse resource quickly used up by clock/calenders, games
adaptors and mouse cards.
FIXED DISK DRIVE - Difficult-to-back-up storage device sold by IBM to make
it easy for PC users to lose large amounts of valuable data.
FLIGHT SIMULATOR - Microsoft game which mimics a light aircraft, said to be
the ultimate test for PC compatibility.
FLEXIBLE - Difficult to use.
FLOPPY DISK - Long-playing record left out in the sun.
FUNCTION KEYS - Outmoded hardware devices passed over by software authors
in favour of complex combinations of CONTROL KEYS and mnemonic codes.
GRAPHICS GAME - Describes matchstick men fighting upside-down pound signs.
HANDS-ON-TRAINING - Where groups of would-be users huddle round a single PC
for two days, and watch someone else use it.
HIGH LEVEL OF FUNCTIONALITY - Does some of the thing's it's claimed to.
IBM's HIGH RESOLUTION COLOUR GRAPHICS - On the PC, black & white.
IBM COMPATIBLE - Term used to describe a microcomputer that might run some
PC software
IBM PRICE CUTS - Reduction of prices so that they're only slightly more
expensive than rival products. See COMPATIBLE PRICE CUTS.
INTEGRATED SOFTWARE - Package with several functions-spreadsheet, graphics,
and word processing-that only comes on four floppy disks.
JUSTIFICATION - Method used in a personalised word processed letter to make
it look like a word processed letter.
LETTER QUALITY MATRIX PRINTER - Output device that produces print quality
that is unsuitable for real correspondance.
LOCAL AREA NETWORK - Highly complicated system that surrenders local
control of personal computing to remote data processing dept.
MOUSE - Hand-held controller that's even more embarassing for
status-conscious executives to use than a keyboard.
MULTIFUNCTION BOARD - Add-in card for a PC, packed with features you don't
need.
MATRIX PRINTER - Output device that produces print quality that even its
makers say is unsuitable for correspondence.
NEW VERSION - Software release or hardware product that does most, but not
all of what the original version was supposed to do.
NEXT VERSION - Not-yet-available relese of a softtware package that's
claimed to do all of the things claimed for the original version. Often
turns out to be a NEW VERSION (see above).
NUM LOCK - One of the mysteries on the PC's keyboard. Until you start
typing you don't know whether it's switched on or not.
OPERATING SYSTEM - Difficult to understand piece of software which is
supposed to be `transparent' to PC users.
PORTABLE PC - No such thing.
POWERFUL US FINANCIAL PLANNING PACKAGE - Doesn't display or print out pound
signs.
RAM - A goat.
RECOMMENDED FOR HARD DISK USE - A program that comes on 12 floppy disks.
SMOOTH SCROLLING - Slightly less juddery movement of text up and down the
screen.
SERIAL PORT - Hardware device that goes snap, crackle, then pops.
SHARED PRINTER - Expensive peripheral that's always being used by someone
else.
SIMPLE TO INSTALL - Installation procedure likely to invalidate IBM
waranty.
TOTAL BUISNESS SOLUTION - Jargon used by computer salesmen to make you
believe they understand what you're saying.
USER - A four letter word. Used by manufacturers to describe someone who
falls foul of their product.
UTILITIES - 'Extra' pieces of software, more complicated than the problems
they're supposed to help you solve.
VAPOURWARE - Idea in a computer entrepreneur's mind and ad agency's copy
for a product that doesn't actually exist.
VERSION II - Re-packaged program that does all that was prommised for the
origional product, but not as much as is claimed for in the brochure.
VOICE INPUT - A (pause) way (pause) of (pause) talking (pause) to (pause)
computers (stop). Voice training courses are recommended to help PC users
project over the thundering of daisywheel printers. See DAISYWHEEL
PRINTERS.
WINCHESTER - An old English town.
WINDOWS - Software device designed to confuse lay end users by letting them
run five programs simultaneously.
WYSIWYG - (Pronounced `wizzy wig'). Usually describes a word processing
package that lets you display fancy typefaces on the screen, but won't work
with any of your printers.
APPLICATIONS GENERATOR - Enables you to write any kind of program you want
- as long as it's a database. See PROGRAM GENERATOR.
BACKUP - Don't worry, it'll never hapen to me.
BASIC - Language that's unsuitable without additions.
CONCURRENCY - The facility to handle several tasks at one, without doing
any of them properly.
DEBUGGER - The person who sold us our system.
DOS - Do it Our-Selves.
DUMB TERMINAL - Exactly what it says. See 3274 CONTROLLER.
ENTROPY - The universal process of things changing for the worse. See
UPGRADE.
FOURTH GENERATION - Technology that would have been appreciated in 1905.
INDUSTRY STANDARD - Term used by suppliers which means "every one is out of
step except us".
KEYBOARD - Easy to use input device which fits snugly into the cassettte
socket at the rear of the PC - and then won't work.
KEYBOARD TEMPLATE - Ill fitting plastic devie which prevents the smooth
working of the PC's keyboard. Also comes in delux cardboard model which
falls to pieces after a week.
LCD - Lousy computer display.
MACHINE CODE - A language that's best left to machines.
MENU - A bit like a real menu - full of things you don't understand.
POP-UP MENUS - Little windows full of help messages that instantly cover up
whatever it was you wanted help with.
PROGRAM GENERATOR - Package claimed to enable you to write programs without
being a programmer as long as all you want to do is write database
programs. See APPLICATIONS GENERATOR.
SCHEDULING - Identifying those parts of a project which you hope no-one
will notice have been left out.
SHELL - Designed to come between PC users and the complexity of the OS.
Usually something you wish you'd left closed.
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING - A dicipline which ensures that the correct and
useful parts of a program are written in such a way that any programmer can
undestand how they work. See ENTROPY.
STATEMENT OF DIRECTION - We only think we know where we're going, but we're
going to try and take you along anyway.
TOTAL BUSINESS SOLUTION - Give up business and move to Barbados.
UCSD.p - An opperating system that's more portable than most computers, but
isn't used by many people.
UPGRADE - A new version of a program in which all the modules the
programmers could understand have been re-written. See SOFTWARE
ENGINEERING.
1.2.3 - Key phrase missed out of the Lotus Symphony manual.
3270_PC - Seven functions at once. As long as only one is a PC function.
3270_EMULATION - Add-in card costing almost as much as a real 3270
terminal.
3274_CONTROLLER - Device for turning expensive, powerful PC's into dumb
terminals. See DUMB TERMINALS.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - Man-made method for making a machine even more
irrational than man. See EXPERT SYSTEM.
BACKING-UP - Mythical ceremony, often discussed, but rarely encountered.
See SECURITY COPY.
BIGGER ICONS - Large pictures on PC's screen which don't infringe Apple's
copyright. See ICONS.
COPY_PROTECTED - Stops thieves from stealing it and genuine PC users from
running it.
DECISION SUPPORT - Special software package which includes business plan,
darts and blindfold.
ESCAPE SEQUENCE - Lash computer securely to desk. Pull out plug. Detach
parallel printer cable and tie one end round desk leg. Open window. Throw
other end of cable out of window. Climb down cable, and make way to nearest
airport.
EXPANSION SLOTS - Specially contrived means of cramping PC users' style by
limiting the number of options available for expansion. See EXAPANSION
UNIT.
EXPANSION UNIT - Enormous, obtrusive box which houses IBM's specially
contrived expanion slots.
EXPERT SYSTEM - Program that duplicates your mistakes, only faster. See
ARTIFICIAL INTELEGENCE.
FAX - Fiction.
FOOTMOUSE - Not a joke, but a genuine American PC product. The input device
that responds to your every toe prod.
GATEWAY - Ingenious and expensive upgrade that allows PC users on a local
area network to switch from easily corrupting each other's data to easily
corrupting the data on a main-frame computer. See LOCAL AREA NETWORK.
HARD DISK - Device enabling naive PC users to lose vast amounts of data
quickly and easily.
HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS - Reasonable-quality full colour charts and
graphs.
HIGH RESOLUTION GRAPHICS(IBM) - Black and white graphs.
HOUSEKEEPING - Just like the real thing, doesn't get done.
ICONS - Small pictures on the PC's screen that infringe Apple's artistic
copy- right. See BIGGER ICONS.
LOW-END - Usually found in a sentence like: "We've discovered a new market
at the low-end". Means they've been getting pulverised by the people at
Software Publishing Corp.
LOCAL AREA NETWORK - Electronic means of allowing multiple users to destroy
data files simultaneously.
NATURAL LANGUAGE - Like no other language anyone's ever heard of.
NO SITE LICENSE - Method by which suppliers respond to corporate users who
want discounts on software. "NO". See SITE LICENSING.
NON-FIXED FUNCTION WORKSTATION - Dumb terminal.
PAPER FEED - Standard, chewy diet of dot matrix printers.