on 25 June 1999Microsoft and Intel, the multi-billion-dollar corporations which globally dominate the design and production of computer hardware and software but don’t have any kind of monopoly, have launched a new specification to define the future of the personal computer. ‘Easy PC’ is the result of over 12 months of research and development, during which Microsoft and Intel technicians are believed to have watched the Apple iMac TV commercial more than 150,000 times.
‘Many lay-people probably think it would be easy to improve on today’s PC,’ commented a spokesperson, ‘but customers’ ideas are not always realistic. For example, when we asked what users wanted from a desktop computer, almost all of them said, “An iMac.” Of course, we had to explain that we couldn’t just copy the iMac.’ Instead, the companies started from scratch and came up with the idea of a high-performance all-in-one consumer machine in a coloured plastic case.
Easy PCs will run a specially enhanced version of Windows containing unique features that Microsoft had not previously got around to pinching out of the Mac OS. In addition, the machines will provide 24-hour access to proprietary high-bandwidth satellite communications services linked directly into an armour-plated concrete security bunker under the Nevada desert, where teams of ex-CIA signals analysts will monitor all user activity and respond to unauthorised behaviour by subliminally reprogramming users’ frontal lobes through mind-altering high-frequency visual interference. A Microsoft representative explained that this was ‘a customer convenience feature’.
Internationally renowned design consultancy Zzzz, hired to conceive ground-breaking hardware designs for the new systems, presented three prototypes: an ordinary beige PC painted orange; an iMac with ‘iMac’ crossed out and ‘Easy PC’ written over with crayon; and a large electrically powered sex toy with an ‘Intel Inside’ sticker on it. Intel admitted one of these was less powerful than current PCs, but only because they couldn’t work out how to quit Nanosaur. The designs were praised as ‘briliant’ by every US computer magazine, after a Microsoft executive failed to spellcheck the press release.
PC industry leaders welcomed the Microsoft/Intel initiative, if they knew what was good for them. ‘People used to say that when it came to understanding the consumer, we couldn’t find our own asses with a flashlight,’ admitted one. ‘Now we have the flashlight.’
adambanksdotcom He must be older than me. Still, good #IanTomlinson story (in the Mail! Really!) by Stephen Glover