Chicken
08-07-2001, 09:21 PM
Ran across this, haven't seen it before, so maybe you haven't?
If Edgar Allan Poe had used a PC, one of his most famous
poems might read more like this:
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, system
manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, longing for the warmth of
bedsheets, still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
having reached the bottom line, I took a floppy from the drawer. Typing
with a
steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to
store, Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
doubting while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!" One thing
did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, just, "Abort, Retry,
Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more, from "Choose
Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With my fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, praying for some
guarantee, timidly I pressed a key. But on the screen there still
persisted words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and
taunted, haunted, as by patience wore, saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off-guard-I pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in desperation, trying random combinations, still there came the
incantation, just as senseless as before. Cursor blinking, angrily
winking, blinking nonsense as before. Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost data goes. What demonic
nether world is wrought where data will be stored, beyond the reach of
mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? But sure as there's C,
Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, you will one day be left to wander,
lost on some Plutonian shore, Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
If Edgar Allan Poe had used a PC, one of his most famous
poems might read more like this:
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, system
manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, longing for the warmth of
bedsheets, still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
having reached the bottom line, I took a floppy from the drawer. Typing
with a
steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to
store, Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
doubting while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!" One thing
did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, just, "Abort, Retry,
Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more, from "Choose
Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With my fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, praying for some
guarantee, timidly I pressed a key. But on the screen there still
persisted words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and
taunted, haunted, as by patience wore, saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off-guard-I pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in desperation, trying random combinations, still there came the
incantation, just as senseless as before. Cursor blinking, angrily
winking, blinking nonsense as before. Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost data goes. What demonic
nether world is wrought where data will be stored, beyond the reach of
mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? But sure as there's C,
Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, you will one day be left to wander,
lost on some Plutonian shore, Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"