Part 16 (1/2)
”Dave here, can I help you?” The voice spoke quickly and indif- ferently
”Mary Wallstone, in Go a little problehtly
”You and half of Congress Listenis it Mary? This uess is that over 2500 com- puters died a quick death And you knohat that mean”
”No, I don't” Mary said hesitantly
”ItMac, it's a coht that Virus-Stop softould stop it, but I guess there's a new strain out there Congress is going to be ordering a lot of typewriters and legal pads for a while”
”You etting the flu Once you got it, you got it
You can't pretend you aren't sick Soress and wellthey won We're gonna be down for a while Couple of weeks at least Look, good luck, but I gotta go” Dave hung up
Mary ate the other three donuts intended for her boss as she sat idle at her desk wondering if she would have a job now that there were no more computers on Capitol Hill
CONGRESS CATCHES FLU - LOSES FAT IN PROCESS by Scott Mason, New York City Tiet Office announced late yesterday that it was requesting over 1 Million in eress's computers
Most of the computers used by both Senators and Representatives are Apple Macintosh, but Apple Co any connection between the massive failures and any production problems in their machines
The CBO said that until the problems were corrected, estiressional activi- ties would be halted or severely curtailed Electronic mail, E- Mail that has saved taxpayers millions, will be unavailable for communications until October at a islative issues, proposed bills, and amendments have been destroyed and will require ”weeks and weeks and weeks of data entry just to get back where we started This is a disaster”
The culprit is, of course, a computer virus The question on everyone's ress, or were they merely an anonymous and unfortunate victim?
I have an IBM PC clone at home Technically it's an AT with a hard disk, so I'm not sure if that's an XT, and AXT, an XAT, an ATX orhatever I use it to write a lot of my stories and then I can send the story to the coent editor to make it fit within my allotted space
It never occurred to et sick
I a on the Fritz', or 'Blowing a Fuse' It seeht bulb blows, a tire blows or blows out, the wind blows I am sure that Thomas W crapper, the 19th century inven- tor of the flush toilet would not be pleased that in 1988devices that 'crap out' The Phone Cooes to hell in a handbas- ket' and VCR's 'work for s__t'
It never occurred to et sick
Computers are supposed to 'crash' That means that either Aunt Tillie can't find the ON switch or her cat knocked it on the floor Computers have 'fatal errors' which obviously means that they died and deserve a proper burial
It never occurred to et sick
In the last feeeks there have been a lot of stories about co the flu, breathing difficulty, getting rashes, itching, scratching the a y to the dreaded computer virus that indiscriminately attacks and destroys any computer hich it comes in contact
Somewhere in the depths of the countryside of the People's Republic of China, a naturally mutated submicroscopic microbe has the nerve to be aerodyna in Taipei, the enarian who lives in an overpopulated 1 room apartment over a fish store
The uy's blood stream, unbek- nownst to hi But this microbe is smart, real smart It has heard of antibiotics, and in the spirit of true Darwinisthened immunity So, the microbe copies itself and when Kimmy Chen shakes hands with his custoh to receive an exact duplicate, clone if you will, of his ates its species until the entire East Coast of the US has billions and trillions of identical ile economy untold millions of dollars in sick pay