[humorix] Got An Extra Wall To Spare?

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Got An Extra Wall To Spare? 
November 30, 2002

Did you get suckered into choosing Betamax?  Did you rush
out and buy a Laserdisc player?  Are you dreading the
migration to DVD because it means your extensive collection
of videos will be relegated to the garage sales of
history?  Got fifty grand to spare and an extra room in
your house you aren't doing anything with?

You might be the perfect candidate for the "Model Zero", an
all-in-one home entertainment system that includes
everything except the kitchen sink (and those can be
purchased easily at any hardware store).  From Edison Wax
Cylinders to Player Piano Punchcards to Digital Versatile
Discs, this  eight-by-ten feet contraption can play every
single analog or digital storage medium ever produced since
the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Designed by "Five Guys In A Garage Electronics, Inc." of
Muncie, Indiana, the Model Zero includes 256 different
types of disk drives, tape players, memory slots, film
spindles, signal tuners, and other attachments.  In the
words of company president and janitor Eric Panoylia, "If
the Model Zero can't play it, then it hasn't been invented
yet."

Mr. Panoylia continued, "For the geek that has everything,
this is the home entertainment system that can play
everything.  Video, audio, still photos -- it's all the
same to the Model Zero.  The only thing this product
doesn't have is a cool name."

The company agreed to deliver a prototype of the Model Zero
to Humorix World Headquarters in exchange for a positive
review of it.  While most publications wouldn't agree to
such an blatant form of bribery, we here at Humorix aren't
going to let a little thing like journalistic integrity get
in the way of acquiring free stuff.

And what geek wouldn't want to own the world's largest home
entertainment system, capable of playing an Edison Wax
Cylinder while converting multiple Betamax tapes to DVD at
the same time that it records signals from 50 different TV
and radio stations  to a 80 terabyte array of hard drives
for later viewing? 

Well, okay, the Model Zero only has a 40 terabyte array of
hard drives. But who needs to count when you can play every
single record (no matter what size or speed) ever produced
from a piece of vinyl during the history of mankind?  The
Model Zero uses lasers to scan any record and then employs
ASI (Artificial Somewhat Intelligence) to automatically
determine the optimum method for playing the disc that will
produce the best quality to please even the most hard-core
audiophile.

The prototype device delivered to Humorix was bundled with
a 500 page manual.  Don't worry, 493 of the pages describe
all of the formats that the system can work with and where
each of the drives, slots, holders, and spindles are
located.  The VHS slots, for instance, are in Sector 3 of
Row 5, Column D, right next to the microfilm spindles and
the 8 inch floppy drive.  After inserting the tape, you can
simply say "Play DVD, volume at 75%, skip stupid FBI
warning and previews", and the voice recognition system
will take care of the rest.

Except for the Master On/Off switch and the 196 eject
buttons, everything else is voice activated.  The system
can handle "Play Laserdisc 3" just as easily as "Read CD 4,
bypass copy protection, and record all songs except the
crappy ones to my computer's hard drive via Ethernet link"
(in the second case, the ASI already has enough knowledge
to guesstimate which songs you will find "crappy"). For the
extreme geeks, however, the system also  contains a variety
of ports (PS/2, AT, USB, etc.) to plug in a keyboard or
other input device, allowing the user to issue commands in
a Bash-like shell or a Perl-ish programming language.

After a week of testing the Model Zero prototype, the staff
of Humorix couldn't find anything to complain about.  Every
wax cylinder, IBM punch card, Zip disk, cassette, and video
tape we were able to dig out from the Humorix basement
worked perfectly.  Meanwhile, we couldn't find one
peripheral in the entire building that didn't have a plug
for it -- Ethernet, USB, parallel port, SCSI, Token Ring,
and Atari joystick cables all worked flawlessly.  Even with
the sudden deluge of incompatible storage formats for
digital cameras and MP3 players (SmartMedia, CompactFlash,
Memory Sticks, Secure Digital whatever, etc.), we still
couldn't find a card that the system was unable to read
(unless we broke the card in two and stomped on the pieces
several times, and even then we still had a 15% success
rate after shoving the pieces into the slot).

We don't know how the five guys at Five Guys In A Garage
Electronics, Inc. were able to produce this monster, but
we're not asking questions. The problems that geeks
constantly face -- inane copy protection schemes, planned
obsolescence of storage formats, and music industry world
domination attempts -- are all vanquished by the Model
Zero.

With this device installed at Humorix World Headquarters,
we'll never need to set foot in an electronics store ever
again.

--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/humorix/
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