Jesse: Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Frank: Yeah. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Billy: You’re right. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Bonnie: You know, I get the feeling that nothing like this has ever happened before.

Clyde: Yeah…it’s like…well…nothing…before…happening.

Jesse: Here’s the problem. People suddenly aren’t buying computers with our fastest chips. Why is that?

Frank: I don’t know. They all bought computers with our fastest chips last quarter.

Bonnie: Maybe it’s marketing. We need to get word out that our fastest chips are faster than our last fastest chips.

Clyde: Well…I…it’s…PII’s…MMX…Katmai

Jesse: Look people, the problem is that we’ve gotten ahead of the software curve, and the programs out there today just aren’t slow enough. We need to find a way to give users slower software.

Billy: Isn’t that Microsoft’s job?

Jesse: Well, they’re clearly not delivering. Our friends in Redmond have been doing an excellent job in making their software complex and buggy, but let’s face it: Windows 98 is only slightly slower than Windows 95. We need to find a way to make software slower than ever. Any suggestions?

Bonnie: A contest. We could sponsor a big contest with major advertising. We’d call it, say, the "Intel State of the Wait Derby." We’ll have an hourglass logo, and give prizes for longest load time, and…

Frank: We could tell OEMs that if they want our chips, they’ll have to sell every computer with a bundle of fifteen games and PhotoShop.

Clyde: Well…there’s…cycles…loops…wait states…

Jesse: You have a point there, Clyde. It’s up to Intel to find the next best thing, the new revolution in software, the killer app that will wow the public with its versatility and speed so long as it’s on a real fast computer. Any suggestions?

Bonnie: How about a 3D word processor? You could layer one paragraph on top of another, and navigate through a virtual book where words spring at you like macho killer freaks in a roll-playing game. We could call it Super Street Writer II Turbo.

Billy: Yeah, and it could do real-time rhyming. If you type in "Profits for the fourth quarter were down," it would automatically add "I’m sorry if that causes a frown."

Frank: Or "Please not in red ink let us drown."

Clyde: Well…word…rhyme…chip…noun.

Bonnie: That’s the stupidest idea in this town! Who wants to use a powerful chip to create words? Now what if you typed "Profits for the fourth quarter were down," and the program automatically creates a 3D, 16-million-color chart showing how close you are to bankruptcy, based entirely on data parsed from that sentence?

Jesse: Word processors aren’t quite sexy enough. We need something people talk about. Anything on the Internet?

Clyde: Hey, yeah! Like the Web…e-mail…chat’s really…pull.

Frank: I’ve got it! A technology that sends theatre-quality movies over the Net. Only it’s interactive, so you can click on Mel Gibson’s nose and select from a list of clever quips. Or maybe have Godzilla eat Zorro--or the other way around. All in real time, full-screen, and with no lost frames.

Jesse: Can we send something like that over a phone line?

Frank: Of course not, but that’s the point. When people complain about how horribly slow it is, we tell them they need a faster processor.

Bonnie: Maybe what we need is a faster processor. Think of all the free publicity we could get if every computer magazine splashed their covers with "Fastest PCs Ever!"…Will you people stop looking at me like that? It’s worked before.

Jesse: Any other ideas?

Billy: Why do we need faster chips? Why don’t we just charge more for slow ones? I mean, ten years ago, people were paying thousands for 16MHz 386s! Can’t we bring them back? We could call them Trytiums.

Frank: Maybe we should make a slow processor and sell it as the fastest processor ever made.

Jesse: What?

Frank: Yeah. It would have a 550MHz clock speed, so it would look fast on paper, but it would process each clock instruction three times. We could call it the RePentium.

Jesse: Why would anyone buy something like that?

Bonnie: I’ve got it! A new instruction set! One that would allow a computer to… to..what do people really want a computer to do these days?

Jesse: Not lock up.

Bonnie: Okay. It will keep a computer from locking up. We’ll call it MMNC17. When software is written to the MMNC17 spec, it will keep going, because we’ll provide..new algorithms that will trap potential conflicts and turn them into, say, a Conflict Resolution Automated System Happenstance.

Frank: A CRASH?

Bonnie: Exactly!

Jesse: So then, is it agreed that our next project will be a RePentium with MMNC17 technology?

Bonnie: Yeah.

Frank: Sure.

Billy: I guess so.

Clyde: Well…let’s…screaming…turbo…high-end…cutting edge…revolutionary.

© Copyright 1998 by Lincoln Spector

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