In the beginning, God created the bit.  And the bit was a
zero.

On the first day, he toggled the 0 to 1, and the Universe
was.  In
those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low"
signals
didn't yet exist.)

On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to
read the
bit.  This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0.
And the
universe wasn't.  God learned the importance of backups and
memory
refresh, and spent the rest of the day (and his first
all-nighter)
reinstalling the universe.

On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord!  If you exist,
give me a
sign!" And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than
the
original prototype.  Those in Universe Marketing immediately
realized
that "new and improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand
and
glorious creation.  And so it was dubbed the Most
Significant Bit.
Many bits followed, but only one was so honored.

On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and
'logical
shift' instructions.  And the original bit discovered that
-- by
performing a single shift instruction -- it could become the
Most
Significant Bit.  And God realized the importance of
computer
security.

On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev
2.0 of
the ALU, with wonderful features, and said "Forget that add
and shift
stuff.  Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was
good.

On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented
pipelines,
register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk,
restartable
instructions, microinterrupts, race conditions, and
propagation
delays.  Historians have used this to convincingly argue
that the
sixth day must have been a Monday.

On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced Windows
into the
Universe, and it hasn't worked right since.

--
Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]

"Unix _is_ user friendly.
It's just very selective about who its friends are.
And sometimes even best friends have fights."

>>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<