[humorix] Computer Survives The Blue Screen Of Death!

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Computer Survives The Blue Screen Of Death!
Timm Murray, admin@madtimes.com
June 5, 2000

Last Saturday at 1:26 PM Eastern, Todd Galler opened up
Microsoft Word and saw the infamous Blue Screen of Death.
Galler, who had just purchased his first computer a month
ago, had never seen this screen before.  He read the
cryptic instructions on the screen. After not being able to
find the "any" key, he instead tried the Three Fingered
Salute (CTRL-ALT-DEL), but his hand slipped and hit 
INSERT.  He noticed then that his computer was back to
normal.

He asked his next-door neighbor Eric, a rabid Linux
advocate and President of the local Linux User Group, about
the incident. The neighbor nearly fainted. "Your computer
survived the bluescreen and then remained stable the rest
of the day!  Holy cow!"

Eric immediately ran home and submitted the story to
Slashdot and every other nerd portal site he could think
of. Hemos rejected his submission, saying, "You obviously
made that up! We don't accept unconfirmed rumors here at
Slashdot!" 

He then called an emergency meeting of his User Group. One
member who happened to have a Windows 98 laptop (he
reassured the group that he was in the process of
installing Linux on it) tried to reproduce the incident. He
quickly produced a bluescreen, and then hit
CTRL-ALT-INSERT. The machine returned to its normal
pre-crash operation. "We can't let word of this spread! 
Our big Linux advocacy rallying cry is the instability of
Windows... if people know how to bypass the bluescreen,
then they won't even bother trying Linux!"

Word of the incident, however, did quickly spread across
the Internet. It eventually reached the Chief Bloatware
Architect's office, prompting  Bill Gates to hold a hasty
press conference. He announced, "This incident just proves
how innovative Microsoft truly is. If Microsoft is split up
into MICROS~1 and MICROS~2, then what hope will computers
have in the future of surviving known issues such as the
Blue Screen?"

A few hours later Taco Boy did finally post the story to
Slashdot. The resident geeks weren't sure what to make of
Bill Gates' announcement. A total of 26 threads popped up
with the subject, "WTF?".  One AnonCow did post, "Gates is
right.  How could Microsoft hope to fix the bugs in Windows
if they are broken up into Baby Bils?" (Score -2, Obvious
Ziff-Davis Pundit).

The five Microsoft employees who designed the Blue Screen
of Death while working as members of the "Error Message
User Interface Design Team" in 1995 were all unavailable
for comment.
-
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