
Hand-Me-Down PCs
by Dave Bealer

The weather outside is frightful, and it looks like a good day to
try out that new PC.  Well...not exactly new.  Your cousin Ernie,
who normally wouldn't walk across the street to save your life,
suddenly came over all generous and gave you an old personal computer
he didn't need anymore.

Even though this is the first PC you've ever owned, it will be a
piece of cake to install.  After all, you've been using qBASE and
WordBlemish at the office for years.  How difficult can this be?

So...take the new toy out of the rather battered cardboard boxes in
which it was delivered by good old Ernie.  What's this?  It has a
*monochrome* monitor?  Yuck!  Well, that just might keep the kids
from playing that disgusting "Chopping Off Body Parts" game by
DahmerSoft that they saw down at Rotten Egg Software.  Besides,
you've seen some spectacular monochrome VGA graphics.

The keyboard is next...hey, what's this?  Where are the function
keys?  They're not at the top of the keyboard where they belong.
Oh...some idiot put them on the left side of the keyboard.  Hmm.  Why
would they do that?

Alright, next is the system unit itself.  My, it sure does look kind
of thin.  Maybe it's just your imagination.  OK, plug the keyboard
and the monitor in the back.  It takes a few tries to figure out
which of those strange shaped receptacles on the back of the system
case fits the monitor cable.  Only a few of the pins were broken off
in the process - it should still work.  You've seen electrical
diagrams of some of these cables, most of the wires in them are just
used for grounding and other useless stuff anyway.

All set up now - time to turn it on.  Sure enough, things start
humming, clicking, squeaking and beeping inside the system case.
Nothing on the monitor yet...oh, that's right; you have to turn that
on too.  Sheesh, you even have to find a place to plug it in. 

Eventually the little green light on the front of the monitor begins
to emit photons.  Seconds later, a few of the pixels on the screen
begin to glow amber.  They form the characters:

                   Turbo - XT BIOS 1986
                   Speed 4.77/8 MHz Version 1.84

                   Bad or missing ANSI.SYS
                   Error in CONFIG.SYS line 3

                   Current date is Tue 01-01-1980
                   Enter new date (mm-dd-yy):  _

That's odd.  Today isn't January 1, 1980.  How could this stupid
machine think it was 1980?  It wasn't even built until 1986.
Besides, the system at work always has the right date when you turn
it on in the morning.  One hour (and two aspirins) later you realize
you can't figure this stuff out yourself.  You're going to have to
call Burt, the computer wizard from work. 

This will require chugging a couple of liters of pride, since Burt is
one of the most insufferable people you've ever met.  He's ever so
smug about his absolute knowledge of computers, and the worst thing
is he's usually right.  Convincing Burt to come over in this weather
proves simple after you remind him that you helped him move last
spring.  Why anyone would save (and move!) boxes of empty peanut
butter jars is beyond you.  Even worse was moving that full sized
video arcade game...that doesn't work!

An hour or so later Burt shows up in his new 4 by 4 utility vehicle,
which he claims he needs because he's so indispensable at work.  It's
absolutely disgusting.  Taking off his coat, Burt gets right down to
business and whips out a box of diskettes of varying sizes and (he
claims) densities.  They look to you like they all weigh about the
same.

Burt types in the correct date and time, then uses something called
the Cramden Utilities to check the status of all the system
components.  He tells you that according to SYSNOOP you only have an
MDA display on this system, not VGA or Hercules graphics.  You don't
care if it has Socrates graphics, as long as it runs the software you
stole from work.

Burt turns off and unplugs the system, then opens the system case and
pokes around inside.  The bad news is that the battery for the system
clock is dead.  He shows you where the battery is and how to replace
it, which knowledge will come in handy after you journey down to the
local Computer Shed store to pick up a new one.

A half hour later Burt is on the way out the door.  He got rid of
that "Bad or missing ANSI.SYS" message by installing the proper file.
He tells you it won't do much good, since you can't display anything
other that plain text or the "extended IBM characters," whatever they
are.  You also have some tough decisions to make.  You can resign
yourself to running ancient, hard to find text based applications, or
you can make a serious investment in new display hardware.  Both a
new monitor and display card will be required.

As Burt departs, he recommends you put this machine to its best use,
as a boat anchor.  He claims you'd be better off buying a fast 386
machine, which can be had for a song now that the Pentiums are out.
A minute later you're standing out in the snow watching Burt drive
off.  As you stand there in the incredible silence that occurs only
during snow storms, you can almost pick out a sound from the whisper
of the falling snow.  There it is again...echoing in the distance can
be heard the hideous laughter of cousin Ernie.                  {RAH}
--------------
Dave Bealer is a thirty-something mainframe systems programmer who
works with CICS, MVS and all manner of nasty acronyms at one of the
largest heavy metal shops on the East Coast.  He shares a waterfront
townhome in Pasadena, MD. with two cats who annoy him endlessly as he
writes and electronically publishes RAH.    FidoNet> 1:261/1129
Internet: dave.bealer@rah.clark.net
