Last Laughs

• 01/01/2001

MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys.

Macintosh System 7: You get in the car to go to the store, and the car drives you to church.

UNIX: You get in the car and type GREP STORE. After reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour en route, you arrive at the barber shop.

Windows NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says, "Go to the store." Then, you get out of the car and mail the letter to your dashboard.

OS/2: After fueling up with 6,000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up.

S/36 SSP: You get in the car and drive to the store. Halfway there, you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids on mopeds.

OS/400: An attendant locks you into the car and then drives you to the store, where you get to watch everybody else buy filet mignons.

AmigaOS: Your car enters a time warp, and simultaneously takes you to the store, the barber shop, the video arcade, the office, California, New York, Florida, and anywhere else you want to go, on only a 1/2 gallon of gasoline. It performs like a Ferrari, but costs less than a moped. Unfortunately, all your friends point at your car and laugh, even though they've never driven one. So, you feel insulted, send the car to the junk yard, and buy a Volks-Windows car, just so you can be like everyone else in town.

When it says... (It really means)

Available Now! (We overstocked.)

State-of-the-Art Design. (We can't get the chips, yet, but we hope to before manufacturing starts.)

Proven reliability. (Antiquated technology and obsolete parts.)

Compatible with most systems. (Favor us with a big enough order, and we'll start designing an interface.)

Tremendous expandability. (The unbundled, "bare-bones" system with the low advertised price is virtually useless.)

User-friendly. (For a fat consulting fee, we'll be happy to customize it for you.)

Advanced features. (We couldn't get rid of the quirks/bugs in the system, so we're pretending we planned them all along.)

Competitively priced. (Costs less than IBM's.)

1. Order the T-shirts for the Development team.

2. Announce availability.

3. Write the code.

4. Write the manual.

5. Hire a Product Manager.

6. -Spec the software. (Writing the specs after the code helps to ensure that the software meets the specifications.)

7. Ship.

8. Test. (The customers are a big help here.)

9. Identify bugs as potential enhancements.

10. Announce the upgrade program.

Have you seen the pocket flask shaped like a Palm Pilot?

It's the latest thing in potable computing.