• ADVANCED USER
  A person who has managed to remove a computer from its packing materials.

• POWER USER
  A person who has mastered the brightness and contrast controls on any computer monitor.

• AMERICAN-MADE
  Assembled in America from parts made abroad.

• ALPHA TEST VERSION
  Too buggy to be released to the paying public.

• BETA TEST VERSION
  Still too buggy to be released.

• RELEASE VERSION
  Alternate pronunciation of "Beta Test Version"

• SALES MANAGER
  Last week's new sales associate.

• CONSULTANT
  A former sales associate who has mastered at least one-tenth of the dBase III Plus manual.

• SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR
  A former consultant who understands the term AUTOEXEC.BAT

• AUTOEXEC.BAT
  A sturdy aluminium or wooden shaft used to coax AT hard disks into performing properly.

• BACKUP
  The duplicate copy of crucial data that no one bothered to make; used only in abstract sense.

• CLONE
  One of the many advanced-technology computers IBM is beginning to wish it had built.

• CONVERTIBLE
  Transformable from a second-rate computer to a first-rate doorstop or paperweight ( Lexical note : replace the term "junior" ).

• COPY PROTECTION
  Clever method of preventing incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using it.

• DATABASE MANAGER
  A program that allows users to manipulate data in every conceivable way except the absolutely essential way they conceive the day after entering 20M of raw information.

• EMS
  Emergency Medical Service; often summoned in cases of apoplexy induced by attempts to understand extended, expanded or enhanced memory specifications.

• ENCRYPTION
  A powerful algorithmic encoding technique employed in the creation of computer manuals.

• FCC-certified
  Guaranteed not to interfere with radio or television reception until you add the cable that is required to make it work.

• HARD DISK
  A device that allows users to delete vast quantities of data with simple mnemonic commands.

• INTEGRATED SOFTWARE
  A single product that deftly performs hundreds of functions the user never needs and awkwardly performs the half-dozen he uses constantly.

• LAPTOP
  Smaller and lighter than the average breadbox.

• MULTITASKING
  A clever method of simultaneously slowing down the multitude of computer programs that insisted on running too fast.

• NETWORK
  An electronic means of allowing more than one person at a time to corrupt, trash or otherwise cause permanent damage to useful information.

• PORTABLE
  Smaller and lighter than the average refrigerator.

• SUPPORT
  The mailing of advertising literature to customers who have returned a registration card.

• TRANSPORTABLE
  Neither chained to a wall nor attached to an alarm system.

• PRINTER
  An electromechanical paper shredding device.

• SPREADSHEET
  A program that gives the user quick and easy access to a wide variety of highly detailed reports based on highly inaccurate assumptions.

• THOUGHT PROCESSOR
  An electronic version of the intended outline procedure that thinking people instantly abandon upon graduation from high school.

• UPGRADED
  Didn't work the first time.

• USER FRIENDLY
  Supplied with a full-color manual.

• VERY USER FRIENDLY
  Supplied with a disk and audiotape so that user need not bother with the full-color manual.

• VAPOR WARE
  Announed but unreleased products; has a way of never materializing.

• VERSION 1.0
  Buggier than Maine in June; eats data.

• VERSION 1.1
  Eats data only occasionally; upgrade is free, to avoid litigation by disgruntled users of Version 1.0

• VERSION 2.0
  The version originally planned as the first release, except for a couple of data-eating bugs that just won't seem to go away, no free upgrades or the company would go bankrupt.

• VERSION 3.O
  The revision in the works when the company goes bankrupt.

• VIDEOTEX
  A moribund electronic service offering people the privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens instead of having Willard Scott read it to them free while they brush their teeth.

• WARRANTY
  Disclaimer.

• WORKSTATION
  A computer or terminal slavishly linked to a mainframe that does not offer game programs.

To err is HUMAN; To really foul things up requires a COMPUTER!

COMPUTERS are fast and efficient because they don't have to stop to answer telephone calls or door!

A COMPUTER DESIGN with a 9-bit character, 12-bit instruction and 31-bit word would be a catastrophe ...

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