[TynesideLUG] A warning from the ages

[Alan Page]

Hello All
Those of you use, or have used, Slackware will know that every time a user logs in, a quotation is displayed. Some are better than others, and sometimes you get a little gem, like this one from my login this morning - a warning from the ages:
Strange things are done to be number one
In selling the computer
IBM has their strategem
Which steadily grows acuter,
And Honeywell competes like Hell,
But the story's missing link
Is the system old at Stonehenge sold
By the firm of Druids, Inc.

The Druids were entrepreneurs,
And they built a granite box
It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons,
And forecast the equinox
Their price was right, their future bright
The prototype was sold;
>From Stonehenge site their bits and byte
Would ship for Celtic gold.

The movers came to crate the frame;
It weighed a million ton!
The traffic folk thought it a joke
(the wagon wheels just spun);
"They'll nay sell that," the foreman spat,
"Just leave the wild weeds grow;
"It's Druid-kind, over-designed,
"And belly up they'll go."

The man spoke true, and thus to you
A warning from the ages;
Your stock will slip if you can't ship
What's in your brochure's pages.
See if it sells without the bells
And strings that ring and quiver;
Druid repute went down the chute
Because they couldn't deliver.

-- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge"

Enjoy...Alan