“Welcome to Erratic Computers, may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mike Droop.”
“That’s ‘Duke’.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. ‘Duke’.”
“You may have a chair. It will only be a minute.”
“Thank you.”
“It should only be a minute.”
“Thank you.”
“It should only be a minute.”
“Thank you.”
“It should only be a minute.”
“Thank you.”
“Hi! I’m Mike Duke, the greatest engineer that ever evolved from primordial slime. And who the hell are you?”
“I am Johnny Iowa, the stupid and unemployed and I have come today to properly grovel before your greatness so that you will give me a job.”
“Come this way. Let’s go on a quick tour of Erratic Computers’ beautiful new complex located on top of some of the finest land-fill in Mountain View. In this room we have our in-house computers.”
“Wow! There are eight of them! And they’ve all got cute names: Dragon, Bugs, Daffy, Moe, Larry, and Curly.”
“Dragon is my machine. I am a black belt in Karate and was the M.I.T. dungeon master, class of 1981! Over here is a conference room named after Marconi. We have others named after Babbage, Boole, Hollerith, and other computer greats. Have a seat underneath the spotlight over there. These are just restraining straps for your protection. Are they too tight?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good. Now design a RISC machine from scratch.”
“Well, I guess you’d start will a …”
“You’re an idiot! You left out the macro instruction decode logic! You fool! Don’t you understand anything!?”
“Sorry. I didn’t think looking up a microcode entry address in a PROM was that big of a deal.”
“I see. It shows me how deficient you are a computer professional. Perhaps you could pass a simpler test of logic. Suppose there are four persons.”
“Okay.”
“How would you get them all to agree upon the design of a sixth generation machine with 65,536 parallel processors?”
“If you could get four people to agree upon anything, it would be a miracle!”
“You have a very negative attitude. Are you sick? Are you about to have a complete nervous breakdown? Are you having marital problems. I want to understand you. I want to have a Gestalt feel for you.”
“You touch my Gestalt, and it’s all over for you, clown! I don’t see what any of this has to do with diagnostics.”
“Diagnostics! Diagnostics! Diagnostics are a very bad evil!”
“Yes, I know, but…”
“Diagnostics are a very bad evil!”
“Are you alright?”
“Diagnostics are a very bad evil!”
“Snap out of it, man!”
“Diagnostics are a very bad evil! Diagnostics are a very bad evil! Diagnostics are a very bad evil! Diagnostics are a very bad evil! Diagnostics are a very bad evil!”