Replies

      ___           ___     
     /__/\         /  /\    
    |  |::\       /  /::\   
    |  |:|:\     /  /:/\:\  
  __|__|:|\:\   /  /:/~/:/  
 /__/::::| \:\ /__/:/ /:/___
 \  \:\~~\__\/ \  \:\/:::::/
  \  \:\        \  \::/~~~~ 
   \  \:\        \  \:\     
    \  \:\        \  \:\    
     \__\/         \__\/    
      ___                       ___           ___           ___     
     /__/\        ___          /  /\         /  /\         /  /\    
    |  |::\      /  /\        /  /:/        /  /::\       /  /::\   
    |  |:|:\    /  /:/       /  /:/        /  /:/\:\     /  /:/\:\  
  __|__|:|\:\  /__/::\      /  /:/  ___   /  /:/~/:/    /  /:/  \:\ 
 /__/::::| \:\ \__\/\:\__  /__/:/  /  /\ /__/:/ /:/___ /__/:/ \__\:\
 \  \:\~~\__\/    \  \:\/\ \  \:\ /  /:/ \  \:\/:::::/ \  \:\ /  /:/
  \  \:\           \__\::/  \  \:\  /:/   \  \::/~~~~   \  \:\  /:/ 
   \  \:\          /__/:/    \  \:\/:/     \  \:\        \  \:\/:/  
    \  \:\         \__\/      \  \::/       \  \:\        \  \::/   
     \__\/                     \__\/         \__\/         \__\/    
      ___           ___           ___                       ___     
     /__/\         /  /\         /  /\          ___        /  /\    
    |  |::\       /  /:/_       /  /:/_        /  /\      /  /:/_   
    |  |:|:\     /  /:/ /\     /  /:/ /\      /  /:/     /  /:/ /\  
  __|__|:|\:\   /  /:/ /:/_   /  /:/ /:/_    /  /:/     /  /:/ /::\ 
 /__/::::| \:\ /__/:/ /:/ /\ /__/:/ /:/ /\  /  /::\    /__/:/ /:/\:\
 \  \:\~~\__\/ \  \:\/:/ /:/ \  \:\/:/ /:/ /__/:/\:\   \  \:\/:/~/:/
  \  \:\        \  \::/ /:/   \  \::/ /:/  \__\/  \:\   \  \::/ /:/ 
   \  \:\        \  \:\/:/     \  \:\/:/        \  \:\   \__\/ /:/  
    \  \:\        \  \::/       \  \::/          \__\/     /__/:/   
     \__\/         \__\/         \__\/                     \__\/    
      ___                       ___           ___     
     /__/\        ___          /  /\         /  /\    
    |  |::\      /  /\        /  /:/_       /  /:/_   
    |  |:|:\    /  /:/       /  /:/ /\     /  /:/ /\  
  __|__|:|\:\  /__/::\      /  /:/ /::\   /  /:/ /::\ 
 /__/::::| \:\ \__\/\:\__  /__/:/ /:/\:\ /__/:/ /:/\:\
 \  \:\~~\__\/    \  \:\/\ \  \:\/:/~/:/ \  \:\/:/~/:/
  \  \:\           \__\::/  \  \::/ /:/   \  \::/ /:/ 
   \  \:\          /__/:/    \__\/ /:/     \__\/ /:/  
    \  \:\         \__\/       /__/:/        /__/:/   
     \__\/                     \__\/         \__\/    
      ___                       ___                 
     /__/\        ___          /__/\        ___     
    |  |::\      /  /\         \  \:\      /  /\    
    |  |:|:\    /  /:/          \  \:\    /  /:/    
  __|__|:|\:\  /__/::\      _____\__\:\  /__/::\    
 /__/::::| \:\ \__\/\:\__  /__/::::::::\ \__\/\:\__ 
 \  \:\~~\__\/    \  \:\/\ \  \:\~~\~~\/    \  \:\/\
  \  \:\           \__\::/  \  \:\  ~~~      \__\::/
   \  \:\          /__/:/    \  \:\          /__/:/ 
    \  \:\         \__\/      \  \:\         \__\/  
     \__\/                     \__\/

Micro was a real-time operator and a dedicated multi-user. His broadband protocol made it easy for him to interface with numerous input/output devices, even if it did mean time-sharing. His links with authors and editors connected him with many of Silicon Valley's expert systems and artificial intelligentsia.

One evening, just as the sun was crashing, he arrived home and parked his Motorola 68000 in the main drive (he had missed the 5100 bus that morning) and noticed an elegant piece of liveware admiring the daisy wheels in his garden. "She looks user-friendly. I'll see if she'd like an update tonight" he thought to himself.

He browsed over to her casually, admiring the power of her twin, 32 bit floating point processors. Even her parms were parsed! He hadn't seen structured lines like this since his prom.

"How are you, Honeywell?" he asked.

"Yes, I am well," she responded, batting her optical fibers engagingly and smoothing her console over her curvilinear functions.

Mini was her name, and she was delightfully engineered with eyes like COBOL and a Prime mainframe architecture that set Micro's peripherals networking all over. Fears of becoming a UNIX were soon fading like vaporware.

Micro settled for the straight line approximation. "I'm stand-alone tonight, and looking for an assembly," he said. "How about computing a vector to by base address. I'll output a byte to eat, and we could get offset later on."

Mini ran her priority process for 2.6 milliseconds then transmitted: "8K, I've been dumped myself recently and a new page is just what I need to refresh my discs. I'll park my machine cycle in your background and meet you inside." She walked off leaving Micro admiring her solenoids. "Wow! What a global variable! I wonder if she'll like my firmware?" Micro thought.

That night they sat down at the process table for a form feed of fiche and chips and a bucket of Baudot. Mini was in a conversational mode and expanded on ambiguous argument while Micro gave occasional acknowledgments, although in reality he was analyzing the shortest and least critical path to her entry point. He finally settled on the old `Would you like to see my benchmark' subroutine. But Mini was one step ahead. She was suddenly up and stripping off her parity bits to reveal the full functionality of her operating system software!!

"Let's get BASIC you RAM, and go for some downtime on the spread sheets," she panted. Micro was loaded by this stage; he was afraid his software wouldn't respond. Fortunately, his hardware policing module had a processor of it's own and soon was in danger of overflowing it's output buffer - a hang-up that Micro had recently consulted his analyst about.

"Core!" was all he could say.

Micro soon recovered, however, and Mini went down on the DEC and opened her device files to reveal her data set ready. His floppy soon was coming up to speed. He acessed his fully packed root device and was just about to start pushing into her stack when she executed an escape sequence by popping back to level 1.

"Oh no!" she piped. "You're not sheilded!"

"Reset, baby," he replied. "I've been debugged."

"I haven't got my current loop enabled, and I'm not ready to support child processes," she protested. "That would make me mother bored!"

"Don't run away," he said. "I'll generate an interrupt."

"No way! That's too error prone, and I can't abort because of my design philosophy."

Micro was locked in by this stage, though, and could not be turned off. She soon stopped his thrashing by introducing a voltage spike into his main supply, whereupon he fell over with a head crash and went to sleep.

"Computers," she thought as she compiled herself at the asynch. "All they ever think about is hex."