Alice in UNIX wonderland

Source: http://www.pma.caltech.edu/Publications/alice.in.unix.land.html
(This is an article published in 1989)

Alice was reading some information on her monitor, and she had a meeting where she suspected that everything was not supposed to be the same. "The program is too big to adapt to the memory," she reads.

"A strange thing," she said. "What I do is that when I start my word processing program, 14 TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident programs) will run ). All these programs require 4 MB of memory, and I hope I can use more than KB of memory ".

At that time, a small white consultant (a very white consultant) ran through the room. "Oh, my coat and tie," he said. "I'm coming late. It is 150 yuan per hour ." Alice wanted to say something to him, but he jumped to Alice's monitor and disappeared behind the operating system.

 

Alice has never seen anyone jump into the monitor, and certainly not through the operating system. However, someone once told him that the DOS operating system is very superficial. So she didn't hesitate, and Alice jumped in.

Alice found herself in a bright corridor. She didn't know what to do. She began to move forward. After walking through a corner, she found two fat men in front of her, and they hugged each other's neck. One person's collar is embroidered with "POS", and the other is "neg ".

"I know," said Alice. "You Two Are transistors ".

Yes, positive replied.

"Can you help me ?" Asked Alice.

"No", negative replied.

"I am looking for a white consultant." Alice pointed to her direction. "Is he on this road ?" Alice continues.

"No", negative replied.

Alice points to another path.

"Yes", postive replied.

Soon Alice came to a big brown table. The consultant is there, named mad hacker, and there are creatures that Alice doesn't know. There was a sleep rat in the corner. There is a big sign on the desk that says "UNIX conference"

Everyone except the sleep mouse has a paper cup, which should look like an egg. "Wrong seasoning", all of them said so, and passed the cup to the people on the right hand side of them, And gracefully took the cup from their left. Alice watched them repeat the ceremony three to four times, and she sat between them.

Immediately, a big to jumped onto his thigh and looked at her as if she wanted Alice's favor. "Grep", it calls.

"Don't mind," explained mad hacker. "He just wants to find some strings ".

"Nroff ?" Asked.

Mad hacker gave Alice a cup and a spoon that seemed to have an egg. "Here", he asked, "What do you think of this ?"

"It looks cute," said Alice. "It's very sweet ". She said she tried a spoonful. "Hate !" He called, "What is this ?!"

"Oh, this is just another graphical interface of UNIX," hacker replied.

Alice pointed to the sleep in the corner and said, "Who is he ?"

"That's also an operating system," hacker explained. "We almost gave up trying to wake him up ".

At this time, a large blue elephant sat next to the sleep rat stood up. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said arrogantly, "as one of the largest creatures here, I feel that we must come to an enlightened look ......"

A young "Work Sparrow" on the other side of the table stood up angrily. The elephant paid attention to this and changed his speech. What is our next step ".

Half of the creatures bow to respect, while the other half secretly sneer. At this time, the sleep mouse woke up and wanted to merge with the elephant. No one was surprised.

"What do we need?" A Sun bear claims that he licked the buttered egg with his sweet head and said, "What we need is a spice like a Macintosh ".

Suddenly, the white consultant blushed and said, "No, no, no !" He shouted, "no one will pay 150 yuan an hour to the Macintosh !"

"Awk", said the frog.

"User", Sun Xiong explained, "what users want is a simple user interface that does not need to be learned ".

"User ?" Hacker calls "User ?! You are talking about secretaries, accountants, architects, and physical workers !"

"Oh," said Sun Xiong. "I have to do something for them to switch the system to Unix ".

"Do you think," said a woodpecker who is punching holes in the table. "Is it a problem if we use the Unix name together? I mean, it's not just me ."

"Maybe we should try another name," said the work Sparrow. "For example: Brut Or Rambo ".

"Penix" said a penguin.

"Mount", said Toad, "spawn ".

Alice slapped the cockroach. "Nice ?" Asked.

"But" the woodpecker suggested, "What should I do with shrinkwap ?"

Suddenly, everyone jumped up and became active. They waved their hands and shouted, But they sat down for a while.

"Now this problem has been solved," said the woodpecker. "Let's go back to the seasoning issue ".

As a result, each person on the side of the table samples a new cream egg and continues to talk about "Incorrect spices". Then, pass the cup to the person on the right and take the cup from the person on the left.

She was completely confused. Alice got up and left. While she was leaving, she heard a sound of familiarity.

"Rem", it says, "edlin"

Alice turned around and saw the toad. She smiled. "You always talk about these weird pronunciation words," she said. "But at least I know what they mean ".

"Chkdsk", said.

-- By Lincoln Spector Texas computer currents September 1989