Name Election, and Another Computer Ailment...
by Ron Enderland
Okay, gang, the nominations are in. Let's select the ultimate name for World Wide Web users. Here are the suggested names that I've received:
There you have it. Send me your vote and we'll settle this issue once and for all. To all those who suggested names, thanks. The winning name's creator will have his name posted here (after I get his or her permission, that is).
Now, on to other things.
There are a lot of ailments that have crept up since the advent of personal computers. Not a few of these are directly related to the PC's themselves.
One that comes to mind is OSD syndrome, first described by pschoanalyst Sigmund Freudgreentomatoes in 1980, after studying numerous Commodore 64 users who were classified as dysfunctional within weeks of the release of the 128.
OSD syndrome is an acronym for Outdated System Depression. Basically, it is a condition of clinical depression which is brought about by the advent of a faster, better system than the one that you just shelled out two grand to get. The first case of OSD probably took place around 100 B.C. The buyer of the first abacus developed it when the inventor announced a model with brown beads, instead of the black that earlier models used. Reportedly, he leapt to his death from the Great Wall in a fit of pique.
I am happy to say that I am a recovering OSDoholic. You see, I bought my system (officially classed as "State of the Art") in 1994. It was a screaming 486 slc2-66 proudly produced by IBM (while they were at their financial nadir). It was a hot puppy when I first plugged it in. It tore Windows 3.1 up.
Then, two terrible things happened. The Pentium processor got affordable, and Windows 95 was released. A buddy bought a Pentium 60, and proudly invited me over to have a look. I was devastated. Windows would come up in 8 seconds flat on mine. It came up INSTANTLY on his. I ran screaming from his house to my father-in-law's place. I ran in and fired up his 386-16 with 4 Megs of RAM. Ahhhh...10 seconds to a logo, another 55 to desktop. Thank you...
To be continued next month...
