It's a Wonderful Machine (fwd)

(Russ, this one's for you! :-)

It's a Wonderful Machine: The Sweetest Christmas Movie Frank Capra Never
Made

By David Pogue

I guess I shouldn't have gone to a party where the
eggnog was spiked, and maybe I shouldn't have
watched the movie It's a Wonderful Life while leafing
through MacWeek. But anyway, I had the weirdest
dream last night--like a bizarre black-and-white movie
that went like this: Jimmy Stewart stars as Steve
"Jobs" Bailey, who runs a beleaguered but beloved
small-town computer company. For years, big
monopolist Bill "Gates" Potter has been wielding his
power and money to gain control of the town. And
for years, Steve has fought for survival: "This town
needs my measly, one-horse computer, if only to have
something for people to use instead of Windows!"

But now an angry mob is banging on Apple's front door,
panicking. "The press says your company is
doomed!" yells one man. "You killed the clones! We're
going to Windows!" calls another. "We want out
of our investment!" they shout.

Steve, a master showman, calms them. "Don't do it! If
Potter gets complete control of the desktop, you'll
be forced to buy his bloatware and pay for his cruddy
upgrades forever! We can get through this, but
we've got to have faith and stick together!" The crowd
decides to give him one more chance.

But the day before Christmas, something terrible
happens: On his way to the bank, the company's
financial man, Uncle Gilly, somehow manages to lose
$1.7 billion. With eyes flashing, Steve grabs the
befuddled Gilly by the lapels. "Where's that money,
you stupid old fool? Don't you realize what this
means? It means bankruptcy and scandal! Get out of my
company--and don't come back!"

Desperate and afraid, Steve heads to Martini's, a
local Internet cafe, and drowns his sorrows in an iced
cappuccino. Surfing the Web at one of the cafe's Macs,
all he finds online is second-guessing, sniping by
critics, and terrible market-share numbers.

As a blizzard rages, Steve drives his car crazily
toward the river. "Oh, what's the use?!" he exclaims.
"We've lost the war. Windows rules the world. After
everything I've worked for, the Mac is going to be
obliterated! Think of all the passion and effort these
last 15 years--wasted! Think of the billions of dollars,
hundreds of companies, millions of people . . . ." He
stands on the bridge, staring at the freezing, roiling
river below--and finally hurls himself over the
railing.

After a moment of floundering in the chilly water,
however, he's pulled to safety by a bulbous-nosed
oddball. "Who are you?!" Steve splutters angrily.

"Name's Clarence--I mean Claris," says the guy. "I'm
your guardian angel. I've been sent down to help
you--it's my last chance to earn my wings."

"Nobody can help me," says Steve bitterly. "If I
hadn't created the Mac, everybody'd be a lot happier:
Mr. Potter, the media, even our customers. Hell, we'd
all be better off if the Mac had never been invented
at all!"

Music swirls. The wind howls. The tattoo on Steve's
right buttock--Buzz Lightyear from Toy
Story--vanishes.

Steve pats the empty pocket where he usually carries
his Newton. "What gives?"

"You've got your wish," says Claris. "You never
invented the Mac. It never existed. You haven't a care in
the world."

"Look, little fella, go off and haunt somebody else,"
Steve mutters. He heads over to Martini's Internet
cafe for a good stiff drink. But he's shocked at the
difference inside. "My God, look at the people using
these computers! Both of them--they look like math
professors!"

"They are," says Claris.

"What is this, a museum? It looks like those computers
are running DOS!"

"Good eye!" says Claris. "DOS version 25.01, in
fact--the very latest."

"I don't get it," Steve says.

"DOS is a lot better and faster these days, but it
hasn't occurred to anybody to market a computer with
icons and menus yet. There's no such thing as
Windows--after all, there never was a Mac interface for
Microsoft to copy."

"But this equipment is ancient!" Steve exclaims. "No
sound, no CD-ROM drive, not even 3.5-inch
floppies!"

"Those aren't antiques!" Claris says. "They're
state-of-the-art Compaqs, complete with the latest 12X,
5-inch-floppy drives. Don't forget, Steve: The Mac
introduced and standardized all that good stuff you
named."

"But that's nuts!" Steve explodes. "You mean to tell
me that the 46 percent of American households with
computers are all using DOS?"

"Correction: All 9 percent of American households,"
says Claris cheerfully. "Without a graphic interface,
computers are still too complicated to be popular."

"Bartender!" shouts Steve. "You don't have a copy of
Wired here, do you? I've got to read up on this
crazy reality!"

The bartender glares. "I don't know what you're wired
on, pal, but either stop talking crazy or get outta
my shop."

"No such thing as Wired," whispers Claris. "Never was.
Before you wished the Mac away, most
magazines were produced entirely on the Mac. Besides,
Wired would be awfully thin without the Web."

"Without the--now, wait just a minute!" Horrified,
Steve rushes over to one of the PCs and connects to
the Internet. "You call this the Net? It looks like a
text-only BBS--and there's practically nobody online!
Where's Navigator? Where's Internet Explorer? Where's
the Web, for Pete's sake?"

"Oh, I see," Claris smiles sympathetically. "You must
be referring to all those technologies that spun off
from the concept of a graphic interface. Look, Steve.
Until the Mac made the mouse standard, there was
no such thing as point and click. And without
clicking, there could be no Web . . . and no Web
companies. Believe it or not, Marc Andreesen works in
a Burger King in Cincinnati."

Steve scoffs. "Well, look, if you apply that logic,
then PageMaker wouldn't exist either. Photoshop,
Illustrator, FreeHand, America Online, digital
movies--all that stuff began life on the Mac."

"You're getting it," Claris says. He holds up a copy
of Time magazine. "Check out the cover price."

Steve gasps. "Eight bucks? They've got a lot of
nerve!"

"Labor costs. They're still pasting type onto master
pages with hot wax."

"You're crazy!" screams Steve. "I'm going back to my
office at Apple!" He drives like a madman back to
Cupertino--but the sign that greets him there doesn't
say, "Welcome to Apple." It says, "Welcome to
Microsoft South."

"Sorry, Steve; Apple went out of business in 1985,"
says Claris. "You see, you really did have a
wonderful machine! See what a mistake it was to wish
it away?"

Steve is sobbing, barely listening. "OK, then--I'll go
to my office at Pixar!"

"You don't have an office at Pixar," Claris reminds
him. "There was no Mac to make you rich enough to
buy Pixar!"

Steve has had enough. He rushes desperately back to
the icy bridge over the river. "Please, God, bring it
back! Bring it back! I don't care about market share!
Please! I want the Mac to live again!"

Music, wind, heavenly voices--and then snow begins
softly falling.

"Hey, Steve! You all right?" calls out Steve's friend
Larry from a passing helicopter. Steve pats his
pocket--the Newton is there again! It's all back!
Steve runs through the town, delirious with joy. "Merry
Christmas, Wired! Merry Christmas, Internet! Merry
Christmas, wonderful old Microsoft!"

And now his office is filled with smiling people whose
lives the Mac has touched. There's old Mr.
Chiat/Day the adman. There's Yanni the musician. And
there's Mr. Spielberg the moviemaker. As the
Apple board starts singing "Auld Lang Syne," somebody
boots up a Power Mac.

Steve smiles at the startup sound. "You know what they
say," he tells the crowd. "Every time you hear a
startup chime, an angel just got his wings."

_____________________________________
David Pogue's latest book is The Microsloth Joke Book
(Berkeley, 1997). If the World Wide Web still
exists, his home page is www.pogueman.com.

-- 
Benjamin R. Cline	Large Furry Mammal 	orawv@unira.obfgba.zn.hf
"I'm more than ever of the opinion that a decent human existence is
 possible today only on the fringes of society." -- Hannah Arendt