[Coco] Alice in UNIX land

[Dave Kelly]

"Can you help me? asked Alice.

"No," said Negative.

"I'm looking for a white consultant." Alice pointed in the direction she 
had been walking. "Did he go this way?" she asked.

"No," said Negative.

She pointed the other way.

"Yes," said Positive.

Soon Alice came upon a large brown table. The Consultant was there, as 
was an apparently Mad Hacker, and several creatures that Alice did not 
recognize. In one corner sat a Dormouse fast asleep. Over the table was 
a large sign that read "UNIX Conference."

Everyone except the Dormouse was holding a paper cup, from which they 
were sampling what appeared to be custard. "Wrong flavor," they all 
declared as they passed the cup the cup to the creature on their right 
and graciously took the one being offered on their left. Alice watched 
them repeat this ritual three or four times before she approached and 
sat down.

Immediately, a large toad leaped into her lap and looked at her as if it 
wanted to be loved. "Grep," it exclaimed.

"Don't mind him," explained the Mad Hacker. "He's just looking for some 
string."

"Nroff?" asked the Frog.

The Mad Hacker handed Alice a cup of custard-like substance and a spoon. 
"Here," he said, "what do you think of this?"

"It looks lovely," said Alice, "very sweet." She tried a spoonful. 
"Yuck!" she cried. "It's awful. What is it?"

"Oh just another graphic interface for UNIX," answered the Hacker.

Alice pointed to the sleeping Dormouse. "Who's he?" she asked.

"That's OS Too," explained the Hacker. "We've pretty much given up on 
waking him.

"Just than, a large, Blue Elephant sitting next to the Dormouse stood 
up. "Ladies and gentlemen," he trumpeted pompously, "as the largest 
creature here, I feel impelled to state that we must take an Open Look 
at..."

A young Job Sparrow on the other side of the table stood up angrily. The 
Elephant noticed and changed his speech accordingly."...what our 
NextStep will be.

"Half the creatures bowed in respect while the other half snickered 
quietly to themselves. Just then, OS Too fell over in his sleep, 
crashing into the Elephant and taking him down with him. No one seemed a 
bit surprised.

"What we need," declared a Sun Bear as he lapped up custard with his 
long tongue," is a flavor that goes down like the Macintosh.

"Suddenly, the White Consultant began jumping up and down as his face 
got red. "No, no, no! he screamed. "No one pays one fifty an hour to 
Macintosh consultants!"

"Awk," said the Frog.

"Users," explained the Sun Bear, "want an easy interface that they will 
not have to learn."

"Users?" cried the Consultant in disbelief. "Users?! You mean 
secretaries, accountants, architects. Manual laborers!"

"Well," responded the Sun Bear, "we've got to do something to make them 
want to switch to UNIX."

"Do you think," said a Woodpecker who had been busy making a hole in the 
table, "that there might be a problem with the name `UNIX?' I mean, it 
does sort of suggest being less than a man."

"Maybe we should try another name, " suggested the Job Sparrow, "like 
Brut, or Rambo."

"Penix," suggested a Penguin.

"Mount," said the Frog, "spawn."

Alice slapped him. "Nice?" he asked.

"But then again," suggested the Woodpecker, "what about the shrinkwrap 
issue?"

Suddenly, everyone leaped up and started dashing about, waving their 
hands in the air and screaming. Just as suddenly, they all sat down again.

"Now that that's settled," said the Woodpecker, "let's go back to 
tasting flavors."

Everyone at the table sampled a new cup of custard. "Wrong flavor," they 
all declared as they passed the cup to the creature on their right and 
took the one being offered on their left.

Totally confused, Alice got up and left. After she had been walking 
away, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Rem," is said, "edlin."

Alice turned and saw the Frog. She smiled. "Those are queer sounding 
words," she said, "but at least I know what they mean."

"Chkdsk," said the Frog.

"Alice in UNIX land" was created by Lincoln Spector TEXAS COMPUTER 
CURRENTS SEPTEMBER 1989