41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
(A few nights ago, I got bored with design spec writing, and wrote what follows.
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Several of its first readers liked it, and suggested that I share it with
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the rec.humor.funny world. - Doug Hosking (doug@escd.uucp))
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In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero; nothing.
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On the first day, He toggled the 0 to a 1, and the Universe was.
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(In those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals
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didn't yet exist.)
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On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit.
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This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't.
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God learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest
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of the day (and his first all-nighter) reconstructing the universe.
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On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a sign!"
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And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype.
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Those in Universe Marketing immediately realized that "new and improved"
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wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so it was
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dubbed the Most Significant Bit, or the Sign bit. Many bits followed, but
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only one was so honored.
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On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift'
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instructions. And the original bit discovered that by performing a
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single shift instruction, it could become the Most Significant Bit.
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And God realized the importance of computer security.
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On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of the ALU,
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with wonderful new features, and said "Screw that add and shift stuff.
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Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
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On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines,
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register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk, restartable instructions,
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microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have
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used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must have been a Monday.
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On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced [name of buggy
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component deleted to keep lawyers happy] into the Universe, and it
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hasn't worked right since.
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--
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