The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67495   Message #1127566
Posted By: Eden
02-Mar-04 - 08:01 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Do It Yourself Mainframe
Subject: Lyr Add: Do It Yourself Mainframe
Here's a song I know. It makes fun of mainframe computer companies:

I went to buy a computer; they said a million bucks
For a brand-new mainframe IBM. Now that price really sucks,
So I looked at all the pictures, and I chose to build my own;
For you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home.

(chorus)
Oh, IBM, DEC, and Honeywell, HP, DG, and WANG,
AMDEL, NEC, and NCR, they don't know anything,
Hey, they make big bucks for systems, so they never wanted it known
That you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home.

Now take the CPU, you see, it's only just a box
With blinking lights and whirring fans and lots of cable slots.
I spent some nights fiddling with some nuts and bulbs and pins,
Then I hauled them to the basement and I plugged the freezer in!

(chorus)

I had to have a tape drive. My tape drive was a steal:
I went up to the attic to get my dad's old reel-to-reel.
Some binder twine and duct tape and my system was complete:
A CPU and tape drive at a price no one can beat!

(chorus)

I had to have a disk drive, it didn't take me long.
Function follows form, they say, or have I got that wrong?
I found a drive with 5 new modes that blows the rest away:
Cottons, linens, wash-and-wear, rinse, and lingerie!

(chorus)

I had to have a console just to make my system run.
Without a proper console, then my system wasn't done.
I tied a 10 buck keyboard to a broken TV tube,
So now I've got a console that can write the evening news!

(chorus)

I've had my system running; I'll admit it's not the best:
The data isn't right and the response time is a mess,
It crashes every hour, and it isn't worth a damn.
But I'm satisfied because it runs just like an IBM!

(chorus: repeat last line of chorus)