How did such a pile of digital dogsh!t take over the computing universe? Nice job on a more-than-worthy target.

Great take on the blight of computing life :) And as for how they got that powerful, the legend is that Gary Kildall, the man who could hae been Bill Gates, would have rather gone flying than sell his software :) (Can't put links in comments, so look him up :) )

Great SSSsssssshot at MMMicroSoft(sorry, this keayboard is gitchy, OR IS IT THE SOFTWARE?). Anyway, welcome to version 555!!!

Great job of sticking it to em and im sticking 555's all over this work.

I know the feeling - had to deal with them when I got the dreaded blue screen - great write - 555

John Barry, Mark Scotttttttttti, Chance Gollnick, Timothy 1000, thanks.

Adam Eccleshall: Would love to read about that. If you see this, put in the link like this: 3w.wherever.com. or ht*p.wherever.com. Or something like that. So long as it's not a spam or pr0n link etc., it probably won't be stricken. Otherwise, will look him up. Thanks for v/c, Adam.

IMHO, this was like totally anti-munge... this write utilized, like every phreaking back door and deep magic literary device evah! .... no spagetti code this.... me thinks you've gotta have an entire tiger team of homies backstoppin' ya bro (or, well, it could be the 170+ IQ that's talkin too...)

TJC: I "support" grunge, not munge .. never had the nerve to take the bunge(e) plunge... as for parodictation, I just lunge ahead, then sponge up the mess... thanks for taking the windows of opportunity to share your xperienced vista with Me, Mac!

maintained the woeful tone of the OS well

I'm posting this from a Windows Vista/Internet Explorer machine...I hope it gets through OK... and TJC preempted the comment I had in mind (As a former programmer, I was going to say what I frequently said to myself, "Uh oh, spaghetti code!")...Great job...555!!!

alvin: thanks, and oh so apropos
Leo Keough: Huh? Comment unintelligible.

j/k... Get Firefox ... and wouldn't a programmer known better than to have Vista-ized? lol .... thanks for v/c, Leo, and for the Franco-American paraphrase! (never heard it put that way!)

Adam Eccleshall: Fascinating individual! Among other things, Kildall invented the BIOS (For non-geeks: the crucial first interface to the processor that enables the system to load, or "boot"); the first high-level programming language; and the first programming language to enable a processor to control a floppy disk, thus combining for the first time all of the elements of a microcomputer.

Apparently, Gates himself spread that "legend" to denigrate his chief competitor. The plane flight was actually to deliver sw to another manufacturer. Gates, always the slimy character according to the abbreviated bio I read, spread the "recreational flight" theory to disparage his competitor to IBM and the rest of the industry. Kildall usually let his wife handle the negotiations, and did so with IBM while he was on the trip. The latter wanted a one-way NDA, requiring Kildall's company not to disclose anything IBM said, but allowing IBM to use any info it gained at the meeting. Their attorney advised his wife not to sign without Kildall's approval. Miscommunication followed, and no agreement.

Upon hearing of this, Gates proposed using a clone of Kildall's language that was made by another company, Seattle Computer Products, called 86-DOS. Gates' partner, MS co-founder Paul Allen, negotiated a licensing agreement with SCP -- cheaply, of course, not telling them that their customer was IBM. Gates and Allen adapted the 86-DOS to IBM's hardware, whereupon it was shipped as PC-DOS.

Kildall believed that PC-DOS infringed on his language, CP/M, including, e. g., that its first 26 system calls were identical. In his later book, he called DOS "plain and simple theft". His attorney advised him that intellectual property law at that time (1980-81) was not clear enough to assure a successful suit. So Kildall merely threatened to sue IBM, and they agreed to offer his operating system as an option along with Gates'. (You had to buy one or the other; it wasn't included in the price of the computer). But they priced DOS at US$40 and CP/M at US$240. Surprise -- DOS won. And the rest, as they say, is history. The guy who invented nothing, stole someone's else system, and pushed the deal became the winner. And here we are.

Kildall is credited with:

#Introduction of operating systems with preemptive multitasking and windowing capabilities and menu-driven user interfaces.
# Creation of the first diskette track buffering schemes, read-ahead algorithms, file directory caches, and RAM disk emulators.
# Introduction of a binary recompiler in the 1980s.
# The first programming language and first compiler specifically for microprocessors.
# The first microprocessor disk operating system, which eventually sold a quarter of a million copies.
# The first computer interface for video disks to allow automatic nonlinear playback, presaging today's interactive multimedia.
# The file system and data structures for the first consumer CD-ROM.
# The first successful open system architecture by segregating system-specific hardware interfaces in a set of BIOS routines.

Gates is credited with a series of disasters (TIME Magazine called Vista "the biggest tech failure of the decade"), security flaws (the original XP was Swiss cheese that could be hacked by any reasonably intelligent 11-year-old,
http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/julieandrewsmarypoppins14.shtml
and multiple and ongoing lawsuits by governments and consumer groups in the US and EU charging unfair, monopolistic, and deceptive trade practices.

Thanks to Adam Eccleshall for prompting some fascinating research. I'd never heard of Kildall, and now I know why. How different the computing world might be today, if...