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During the approximately four minutes per month that my principal PC functions properly, I try to devote myself to learning something new.

I say approximately four minutes, because some months it drifts down dangerously close to .00000067 minutes, according to the calculations of my trusty "Intel Inside" Pentium/Food processor.

I cite for example the recent experiences that I and my resident Windows 95 Guru-Shaman have had with a certain disk drive, manufactured by a company whose name I won't reveal publicly, but it rhymes with Do-Bit-Shoe. Being on the "cutting edge" of the technology curve, meaning that I have a credit card with some actual credit left on it, I find myself always at the mercy of my MS-Shaman, who recommends buying the latest, greatest hardware. "You can't get buy with just SCSI", he'll say, "you really want WIDE-SCSI". Next month, he'll undoubtedly tell me that I need "Slim Fast" SCSI.

Over the past two years, I'd estimate that we have put slightly more money into this one PC than NASA spent making corrective glasses for the Hubble Space Telescope, including installation and delivery (batteries not included). The particular disk drive, which we have replaced three times in as many months, is no longer even made or supported by the unnamed manufacturer of Japanese descent. We really should have taken a hint when we managed, after four short hours, to actually get through to someone in tech support who could stop laughing long enough to tell us that we needed to return the drive(s) for replacement. Another clue should have been the post-it note on the replacement drive, which, when translated into English, read "drive to not work in next loser machine. ha-ha". It was the "ha ha" part that really rankled us. Plus, we're pretty sure that we received our own broken drive back on a couple of occasions. We now put a secret identifying mark, in the form of a wad of chewed bubble gum, in a secret location on the drive so we'll know if we get the same one back. Curiously, the most recent replacement drive had a piece of Sushi wedged in between the connectors. [Tech Tip of the Month: Do not eat Sushi that has been included with a replacement disk drive.]

I'm also convinced that these machines are getting dangerously close to artificial reality, although not by intentional design. For my evidence, I cite the possibility of PC's containing Stress-Analyzers and/or Karmic Sensors. Just last week, I had completed the production of our newsletter and was ready to transmit it to the printer when my Shaman arrived to "just plug-in the scanner card". A major mistake, saying that within earshot of my PC, because it immediately committed digital Hari-Kari. Really. Yes, it does have a microphone.

Just think of the application of PC's as replacements for lie detectors in police detective work:

Detective: "So, Mr. Simpson, you say you never hit your ex-wife?"
Simpson: "Absolutely not. Never. Uh uh. No way."
PC: "General Protection Fault. System Halted."

The only redeeming aspect to this disk drive replacement saga is that since disk technology seems to double capacity and drop in price every seven minutes, they eventually replaced it with a 144 terabyte model. In another window, while I'm writing this, I'm downloading the entire Library of Congress, over a 28.8 modem. I should be done in approximately 38,872,961.01673245 years, according to my Pentium.

From the "You've Gotta Be Kidding" File:

The woes of AOL just continue to pile up. Right before Thanksgiving of 1996, they switched over to a $20/month "all-you-can-eat" program, abandoning their old rate strategy of $9.95 per month, plus an hourly surcharge. The net result? Their users are finding it nearly impossible to get a modem connection, but they're having a lot of success with busy signals. Seems that AOL has only about 200,000 modems for their worldwide base of users, estimated in the millions. What's more, those lucky enough to get a connection are just holding on to it, since there's now no penalty for staying logged on. AOL's crack strategy team has sprung into action, boldly spending $130 million on a new TV advertising campaign, resulting in an estimated 10,000 new signups per day. The press releases from AOL indicate that they will be adding another 50,000 modems over the next six months. This brings us to our survey question of the month: What do you do with all those free AOL diskettes that you receive everywhere, from boxes of cereal to your in-flight complimentary beverages? I have found a use for mine: I'm re-roofing my house with them.

P.S. (a week after filing the original of this colum) Friday, some "analyst" on Wall Street announced that AOL had reached 8 million customers and made AOL a "strong buy" recommendation. Let's see 8 million divided by 200,000 modems equals a 40 to 1 users to modem ratio. What's wrong with this picture? Let me emphasize to all 7 of you confirmed readers: Short AOL.

See you next issue.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, January 1997

Copyright © 1996 Jonathan E. Sisk.