Organization: University of Central Florida--Computer Services
Date: Monday, 16 Nov 1992 19:00:38 EST
From: Michael `Anti-Microsoft' Brunetti <MICHAELB@UCF1VM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: This OLD DOS

                         THIS OLD DOS


Hi, I'm Bob Wheeler Dealer, and welcome to This Old DOS.  Last week you
may remember we renovated the Charles Babbage Family computer.  We
upgraded their antique CPM to the IBM operating system known as MS DOS.
And this week on This Old DOS, we're continuing our renovation by
installing a brand new operating system, supposed to be real easy to
use, called Windows.  And boy am I excited.  So let's go around back and
see how Norm is doing with it.

Bob:  Hi Norm; how's it going?

Norm: Oh, hi Bob.  Well as you can see I'm about to install Windows on
our old machine.

Bob: No glass in these Windows, huh Norm? Ha ha.

Norm: Ha ha. That's right, just a handful of floppy disks.  This is an
attempt at making an IBM PC work *a little bit more* like an Apple
Macintosh.  Instead of typing commands, you just move a lot of little
pictures around on a screen.

Bob: I can't wait.  Sounds simple enough; let's take a whack at it.

Norm: Well, ok, the first thing we do is install these disks.  Pop them
in the computer and follow the uh directions on the screen.  Here you
try (sound of hard drive grinding).  That's it.

Bob: Simple enough.

Norm: Ok, Bob, now the machine wants to know if you want to modify your
config.sys or change your autoexec.bat to automatically load when the
machines boots up.  What do you want to do?

Bob: What's a config.sys? I don't anything about this stuff.

Norm: Never mind, it's ok Bob, I'll take care of it.  There.  Now to be
really state of the art, we've got to upgrade our microprocessor (sound
of sawing).  That's the computer chip inside so that these
Windows will work fast enough.  Otherwise, you know, you might as well
go out and get a cup of coffee while the screen draws pretty pictures,
heh heh.  So let me get one of these uh 486 chips.  We've got a crane
here.  Hey fellas.. fellas!  You wanna load that puppy here inta place?
Careful!  (sound of machinery) Don't bend the pins!  There, all snapped
in.

Bob: All right, now we're ready to open Windows, right?

Norm: Not on your life, Bob.  While we're at it we're building an
extention onto the memory board for those fat, greedy programs that
gobble the stuff up.  I'll just hammer a few of these 4 megabyte chips
into place (bang bang). There, now we've got 16 megabytes on board.
Narly, man!

Bob: All right, let her rip, Norm.

Norm: Not so fast, Bob!  Those big Windows programs need lots and lots
of storage space. Charles talked to his banker and decided to spring for
that 200 megabyte beauty there.  Hand me that..uh

Bob: You mean this thing here? (groaning and grunting)

Norm: Yeah, that's the hard drive.  Ah, thanks.  And they want to do
multimedia.. you know sound, graphics, computer games... the latest --
so we'll add on a new super VGA monitor..

Bob: Something else?

Norm: A CD ROM drive..

Bob: Something else? More stuff?

Norm: Yeah, we have a sound board and special speakers if you want that
great sound.

Bob: This .. this isn't so simple anymore!

Norm: Well,  we're just about ready to go.  That's about it.

Bob: All right now, with all this preparation Norm, this had better be
great.

Norm: Well, I hope so, let's (sound of drive grinding) load up Word
Perfect, Lotus 1.-2-3, Excel, and FileMaker Pro and watch her rip!
(beep.. crash).  Oh-oh.

Bob: What happened?  What happened?

Norm: Well, it looks like a system crash.

Bob: Oh no!

Norm: Don't worry! We can fix this thing.  We can fix it.

Bob: What do we do now, give up?

Norm: No, Never! We drop everything and start over.  That's the American
Way.  You keep changing stuff until you find what's wrong.

Bob: Now, how long is this gonna take?  I haven't got all weeks to..?

Norm:  Don't worry! We'll I'll have this thing running like top, Bob.
In the mean time you can go back in my shop there and use my Mac.

Bob: All right, you keep working at it Norm.  We're out of time folks.
Join us tomorrow  for the start of our new 50-part series:  "How to
install and maintain a Local Area Network."  Until then, bye bye for
This Old DOS!
Xref: sparky comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:2798 comp.sys.mac.advocacy:2754