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If your OS was an automobile
Lennart Regebro 234 Driving to the store.
Tue, 5 Oct 1993 11:12
Lennart Regebro: Driving to the store.
Do you remeber this thread from long ago? Anyway here is a compilation I did
of it. I have finally made the layout and spellchecked it. Here you are.
WHAT DRIVING TO THE STORE WOULD BE LIKE IF OPERATING SYSTEMS RAN
YOUR CAR
This is a compilation of messages from alt.folklore.computers.
The compilation is made by Lennart Regebro
([email protected]). Besides me these are the
contributors:
Albert Crosby ([email protected])
Andrew Bulhak ([email protected])
Bruce M. Walker ([email protected])
Charlie Gibbs ([email protected])
Jeff Rogers ([email protected])
Jeremy Reimer ([email protected])
Keith Baccki ([email protected])
Lon Stowell ([email protected])
Mark Robinson (mark-r@ee.man.ac.uk)
Michael R James ([email protected])
Peter da Silva ([email protected])
William B Dwinnell ([email protected])
The contributions are selected by me, meaning that I haven't
used all I have seen, and also edited by me, meaning that I may
have changed some of them. This is to make them fit together,
not contradict each other too much, and generally be funnier. I
have also checked for spelling errors.
93-10-04 Lennart Regebro
MS-DOS MS-DOS MS-DOS
You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys.
Then you realise that you CAN'T drive to the store.....because
that would require stepping on the gas AND steering the wheel at
the same time.
After buying a new dashboard and steering wheel called Desqview
you can drive to the store, but only if you get out and push
once in a while, disassemble the engine once or twice and kick
it in strategic places.
Finally in the store you can only look at one item at a time.
You don't have a shopping cart, so you have to carry everything
in your hands. Also, you can only leave the store with up to
eight items.
Windows Windows Windows
If you turn the wheel too hard the car explodes. The gearshift
is in entirely the wrong place and the paint job looks like some
hippie nightmare. Other than that, everything is fine, except
you have to rebuild the gearbox every six miles.
The store is well lit and neatly arranged, and overall, looks
very pretty. But the ceilings in the store are only 2 feet high,
so you have to crawl on your hands and knees.
Windows/NT Windows/NT Windows/NT
The coloured flyers look great, but then you realise that (1)
there haven't been any built yet, and (2) it will only drive to
stores owned by Microsoft anyway.
You then starve to death while you wait for the features of
every other car (including the Edsel) to be added in and called
"innovative" before it is released, which is "real soon now" --
NOT!
When your heirs inspect the new car, they discover the exterior
of a pinto, the heart of a Ferrari, the dashboard of an Edsel,
and a 20-ton steel ball dragging behind.
OS/2 OS/2 OS/2
You race to the store and look incredibly cool. When you get to
the store, however, you forget what you went there for. It's
also annoying not being able to get the custom tires you want
for it but they'll be available "real soon now".
Closer examination reveals that you actually haven't got any car
seats. Since IBM doesn't have any car seats you have to wait for
Lotus to release theirs. You can use car seats for DOS and
Windows cars, but only if you install an adapter so they will
fit. This will also mean that the car seat will be installed so
high that you will hit your head into the ceiling with every
bump in the road.
Shopping is a breeze, the only problem is your cart doesn't have
any room for groceries. Also it moves at 10cm/sec, and every so
often it collapses, forcing you to rebuild it by hand.
Every time you go into the store, it's already got all the
groceries you bought last time, so you have to put them all back
by hand before you can buy anything new.
Macintosh Macintosh Macintosh
Every time you try to grab the steering wheel the airbag pops up
with the text "This is a steering wheel. It is a wheel used for
steering" printed in large friendly letters. Trying to access
any button in the control panel pops out small airbags from the
buttons. Finally one of the airbags says "This button is use to
turn on and off the airbags". Phew!
You get to the store half an hour late because it took ages to
select the appropriate key and select the appropriate slot,
gearshift, etc. The car stops whenever you take your hands off
the wheel and it beeps a cute little tune at you, making you
seem like a wimp to your friends.
In the store you point at what you want, then ask your car to
get it for you. At first this seems very handy, but you soon
notice that it usually gets ALMOST the right thing, but not
quite. It's also annoying when you want 10 apples, since the car
only will get one apple at a time.
Unix Unix Unix
Your car is complex to drive but is rocket-powered, expensive
and looks incredibly snazzy. However it can only go to one
store. The rest of the time you spend inside the car reading
news and not going anywhere.
To go to the other stores you need to find the exact setup of
all your buttons and dials (and there are MANY). The only way to
do this are to disassemble the whole car, but to do that you
need a special kind of screwdriver. But since installing that
screwdriver also requires you to disassemble the car, you feel a
bit stuck.
Finally you realise that you don't need to drive, because with
one command you can simply beam over to the store. However bits
of your arm and half your lower intestine sometimes don't beam
over with you.
The store has a large selection, well organised, but if you even
*look* at something you're not supposed to, you get thrown out
of the store with all your groceries thrown in the dumpster out
back. If you want to figure out what went wrong, you need to
sort through the dumpster.
X Windows X Windows X Windows
You can't seem to get the car to go *anywhere*, but the entire
vehicle is configurable when you start it. The buttons and
sliders on the dashboard can only be used to select colours and
shapes for the body panels and upholstery.
Everybody in the shop is very friendly, you can even put your
shopping in other peoples baskets. Unfortunately, the shop's own
brand products come in ugly boxes and you can only buy other
manufacturers boxes if they also made your basket. Also, when
you get a basket it's already full, so you have to wait while
it's swapped for an empty one before you can start shopping.
NeXT NeXT NeXT
The car is pleasant to drive but changes gears too slowly, and
has a dull paint job. Everyone thinks it is the ultimate car but
most won't consider ever buying one.
IBM Mainframe IBM Mainframe IBM Mainframe
What you're driving is a huge dump-truck, with a steering wheel
that fights back! So, forget going to the store: you're going to
the town dump.
You can only go to grocery stores painted blue. You can also
only buy items which are blue in colour. If you mix carrots with
your blueberries, the store disclaims all responsibility for
your discomfort.
And sorry, but we don't offer grocery stores in your area, so we
are going to take you to the shoe store instead. But if you'd
like to contract with us, we'll go buy your groceries for you
and eat them for you, then bill you for all of this. And we
refuse to consider paying your funeral expenses when you die of
starvation.
VAX VAX VAX
You'll get to the store, eventually, but every time you try to
leave the driveway, the guy who made the car stops you, and asks
you to trade up.
Atari 800 Atari 800 Atari 800
You could actually drive to the store, if only the darned
manufacturer would fess up and tell you how.
Atari ST Atari ST Atari ST
Everyone laughs at you for driving a car that nobody makes parts
for anymore. You ignore them because you have some REALLY
amazing plaid seat-covers.
Amiga Amiga Amiga
You never actually get to the store because you are unwilling to
get out of your car until the rest of the world admits that your
car is the only car worth driving. Consequently you spend your
entire life in the car.
You do get to the store, but because you can multitask you never
have to get out of the car. You just dispatch a clone of
yourself to go in and buy things while you drive around the
block telling everyone how great your car is. You never get back
to pick up your clone because you crash into a game that isn't
--
Warning: Fatal error reading.newsrc -- restoring old .newsrc.
No old .newsrc found, creating new. All your read marks will be invalid.
You have 15674 unread articles in alt.cooking.vegetarian, read now? [ynq]
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